Reachout

Thank You from Hillcrest

Here's a thank you note we along with other churches in our community received for our participation in the Hillcrest Walk for the Homeless. People from Restore where out on race day handing out waters and surveying the community.

Dear Platte County Churches:
 
I wanted to personally thank all of you who participated in the  2009 Walk for the Homeless.   Because of you, 400 Walkers & volunteers raised over $51,000 to help move homeless families back to self-sufficiency right here in Platte County.  
 
96% of the 48 Platte County Churches contacted fully participated in helping us distribute over 7,000 church bulletin inserts letting members know about the walk.  Most mentioned the walk in their own communications vehicles as well including newsletters, mid week bulletins and websites. 
 
Many of the walkers and much of the money raised was thanks to efforts by your church and it's members.
 
Thank you for your service to the homeless of Platte County.
 
You make a big difference!
 
Mike Cole
Hillcrest Board Member, Volunteer

www.hillcrestministries.org

What is the Role of Evangelism in Reachout?

I was talking with a Restore attender one day and she asked what role evangelism plays in Reachout? She wanted to know how and when we start talking to people about Jesus. Fair question, I guess, but one that I realized came at it all wrong. I gave her a version of my standard reply: Reachout is evangelism. If people don't see Jesus in us we're doing something wrong.

I contend that people are less and less responsive to hearing the gospel. They want to see it. We can debtate the theology of this one if you'd like, but I am just reporting to you what I see in the field. A true transformative relationship with Jesus begins in the context of community and not because someone simply knows more about the gospel.

So I don't see Reachout and evangelism as separate.  All Reachout really does is provide us the opportunity for relationships. If Reachout and 'evangelism' were separate for us, then all we would really have is an agenda on our hands and how authentic is that?

No, Reachout offers us the opportunity to build relationships with people and therfore offers us the possiblity of showing them Jesus and then we let God take it from there.

What If video

We rolled this video yesterday during the What If series. We wanted to create something that would inspire people to join us next Saturday for ServeDay.

I think the video also captures something about what we are trying to do overall with Reachout.

What if we served? from Restore Community Church on Vimeo.

Progress?

Friday afternoon I met with the members of our Northwood Hills Community focus group. We spent time celebrating all of the activities we did in support of the Northwood Neighborhood adjacent to Southeast Elementary.

All of us agreed that the community block party we hosted in October was a success.

The parent training night we had in February worked well, although we would have loved  the turnout to be better.

A representative from the Kansas City Police Department informed us that the neighborhood had done a 180 degree change. Calls to the area are down. Instead of being called when neighbors are arguing--the old way--they are now being called for real issues.

We talked about doing something in the summer. But the Park Hill School District, the city, and the community have plenty of programs planned for the summer. Parents of school-age children at Northwood have many options. They don't need us to offer them something else.

We may do some sort of backyard program for kids (something like a character club) although we need some things to fall into place for this to happen.

We will conduct a school supply drive at the end of the summer. (I am thinking of asking some local churches to join us?)

I tell you all of this because it really feels like our little community partnership has made progress in Northwood. As we debated what had changed, we kept coming back to that block party in October. It was the real catalyst for change in this community. We simply invited the residents to a neutral space and asked them to start talking to each other. They've done the rest.

Could it be this easy? Could it be that all we needed to do was to give this community an opportunity for people to break-through the invisible barriers they had erected between themselves? Did we really help transform a community by encouraging people to talk to each other?

It's got me thinking about the power of one catalytic event; it's got me thinking about simple service; it's got me thinking that this serve, love and change thing is working.

Take the Long View

What is becoming clearer to me is that we need to have a long-view about serving.

Building relationships by serving is the goal of Reachout. Relationships don't happen overnight. They take time.

Things take time to grow. 

At Restore, we have seen some God-Things happening through Reachout. But if I am honest, I am never quite satisfied. I am always asking myself what we could be doing next. Now I won't aplogize for having a sense of urgency about sharing the gospel through service. But the Bible is clear: God will grow the fruit, not us.

So this is advice to all of you who feel that things aren't being transformed fast enough in your community. (This includes me!) Take the long-view as you serve.

Listening Means Obedience

As community servants we need to be listening to God. We need to trust that he will direct us to opportunities to serve the community.

This requires that we remain obedient to God when he calls us to service. Much of the time these are going to be opportunities that we don't plan nor fit into our strategy. But that's the point.

For example, our work with Southeast Elementary was never planned. It came about through relationships. I could never have mapped out on paper what we have accomplished with that community. In the context of relationship we listened and then got busy serving. That's a God opportunity and we've been obedient.

This hard for me. I am a planner. My tendency is create programs and processes. But God is looking for obedient Christ-followers, not planners.

Set Service Goals

So you want to start serving your community but you don't know where to begin? How about setting some goals and committing to reaching them.

Before Restore Community Church launched, our lead team sat down and put some service goals on the calendar. For us 24 service projects BEFORE LAUNCH seemed right. We deliberately varied the size and impact of these events. We experimented. We didn't have 24 events planned before we set this goal--all we knew is that we wanted to be doing 24 things in the community and then we got to work.

We held ourselves accountable to this goal. Each week as our lead team meet we would check in to see how we were doing. We assigned ourselves events and asked our launch team members to join us. We devoted time and resources to these projects. As we counted down to launch we pushed ourselves to make them happen. 

Having a goal (in this case a number of out reach activities) gave us something to work towards and embedded this notion in our culture that we were going to be a church that served the community.

So I encourage you--set goals. Put them on the calendar and make them happen. Quit planning to serve and start serving.

What are ways that you've served your neighbor?

I'd love to hear how you've served your neighbor(s). What was the relationship like? How did it come about that you were called to serve? What did the serving part look like? Come on, we can all use the inspiration.

OK--I'll go first.

I had the really cool opportunity to help my neighbor by simply listening to him one afternoon when he was feeling really down and distraught. The meeting came at an inconvenient time for me (I had to reshuffle an appointment or two) but he needed someone to talk to. Although the conversation didn't start with spiritual matters, it inevitably went there. We didn't talk about Jesus or review the Roman Road but I did pray for him.I tried to be honest and authentic. He knows I am a Christ-follower. When he wants to talk about Jesus I'll be ready. In the meantime I am simply his friend.

Relationships before Service

So you're ready to serve your neighbor but you have no idea where to begin. Your taking this serving your neighbor-thing to heart and you're ready to get after it. You're ready to help but you have no idea how. (I am talking about your literal neighbors here--the people who live next door.)

I propose you simply say hello. You start with the relationship and not the service.

Get to know your neighbor. Invite them over for a barbecue. Whatever. Just don't lead with the service. Build relationships first.

Jesus didn't call us to serve so we can do good deeds and as though the deed was the point. What he asks of us is much more difficult than that. We need to be intentional about building relationships with our neighbors before we can serve them.

Life is messy. The opportunity to serve others will soon come.