Dying for Impact

By Walter Harvey

You can’t impact your community if you ignore its pain.

If you were to close the doors of your church tomorrow, how would your community feel about it? Would it miss your presence, or even notice you were gone?

Parklawn Assembly of God (now Embassy Center MKE) in Milwaukee, the church I formerly pastored, is 113 years old. Churches don’t die of old age like people do. A church can slowly die of irrelevance, however, especially when it fails to address the felt needs of its community.

Six years ago, I realized we were dying in impact and relevance to our community. In fact, we were shocked to realize we had already essentially died in its eyes because we had neglected our responsibility to build relationships, get to the root of human problems and share a gospel that was good news.

My discoveries began on a hot August afternoon in 2016, when a young Black male was shot and killed by a police officer just three blocks from our church campus. The hours that followed were filled with community unrest, riots, looting and burning buildings.

As the lead pastor, I felt compelled to provide leadership and healing for our neighborhood. So, I assembled a group of pastors and parishioners. We walked down to the spot of the shooting and unrest and engaged those who were gathering in the streets.

On the first night, some members of the crowd asked me questions that sifted my motives and challenged my priorities: “Why are you here? Why are you allowing the police to use your parking lot to harass us as we protest?”

The most piercing question of all was this one: “Where has the church been?”

We were ashamed to realize we had been absent from the pain in our surrounding community. Our church was exposed for not demonstrating that all lives matter. People should not have had to protest to call this to our attention. The Bible mandated us to love our neighbors, but our emphasis was on loving the ones who came to the church on a consistent basis.

If we would have remained focused on the Great Commandment and Great Commission, there would have been no need or space for organizations that are leading a false narrative on issues of race. Organizations like these exist because the church has grown weary of allowing their faith to address racial and social disparities.

Micah 6:8 asks, “ . . . what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” The local church must live in the tension of the divide, occupy the hard places, and continue to have impact and relevance in the community. This is what Jesus did.

How then do we navigate these troubled waters? What can we do as church leaders? During the 2016 unrest, we discovered churches interact with communities in three ways: in, out and with.


IN

For most of my 35 years in church and pastoral leadership, I focused on the inside of the building. This model of in is built upon the expectation of people coming in and becoming regular attenders.

Like fans at a football game, they faithfully show up each weekend and cheer on the pastor as he or she preaches. They sway with the worship team. They applaud whatever is happening on the platform. They are entertained in their seats as the professionals do the work.

The weekend service was never supposed to be the game. It should look more like the huddle—the place where plays are called, assignments are affirmed and encouragement is given before the game resumes. The playing field is your community. The church must get back into the game.

When the focus of the church is inward, it exhausts its resources—including finances, volunteers and time—to make the weekend the best possible experience for those who come. This is a model church leaders have learned. It is often celebrated and therefore maintained.

In poor communities of color, the in model is not only promoted and protected, but because of the scarcity of resources—finances, facilities, partnerships and people—we feel obligated to save the best for our own congregations. Sadly, our mindset often shifts to scarcity and poverty rather than abundance and multiplication.

The in model resists a sending and sowing culture, favoring the loyalty of people who attend, give and serve. We consider anyone who does these three things to be a leader and a mature Christian. Nevertheless, it’s possible to do these things and not be mature. For that matter, it’s possible to do these things and not even be a Christian. The in model does not prioritize making disciples who faithfully and obediently follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

The protesters told us—and showed us by their action of nonattendance—that we had already abdicated our prophetic voice and had no community impact.

Pastors and churches in every type of community context are dying in influence if they are pursuing the in model. The presence of financial resources and facilities only mask the dying process. There is an appearance of life in technology and high-energy events. However, ignoring the call to go and minister to hurting people is terminal.

People need relationships with a disciple-making community that will connect them to the mission of Jesus. It is hard to develop God’s heart for people and places unless we are engaged, up close and personal, with their problems. Jesus demonstrated the ministry of proximity and presence. He wept over people and places. The church is called to be unselfish and present amid people’s pain.


OUT

I didn’t learn this soon enough. In our effort to stay close to an in model, and also meet people’s needs, we adopted strategies to reach out to the people who were not coming inside the building. We gave away food, operated a sidewalk Sunday School and bus ministry, filled backpacks with school supplies, provided free clothing, held health screenings and more.

This is a commendable model. Outreach is good, but it is limited in sustainable impact for several reasons. Outreach is mostly transactional. It often takes place according to the dictates of the church, not the community. I admit outreach has greater impact than simply staying inside the church building. Still, we risk communicating that we know what is best for the community, as if we are the experts.

In planning outreaches, we rarely engage those who are already in the community—people who understand the needs best and know how to meet them. Instead, outreach happens at the convenience of the church. Another deceptive effect of this model is that it may boost our egos and assuage our guilty consciences without doing much else. We assume that if it feels good, it must be the right thing.

Again, I don’t totally discount outreach. It can certainly be a doorway to evangelism, but it does not guarantee we are making disciples. Evangelism is the necessary first step of introducing people to Jesus. Discipleship occurs by intentionally and consistently doing life with another person.

Another problem with the outreach model is that our goodwill efforts can create dependency. What if our giveaways of free food every month, without relationship, encourage irresponsible financial choices because the receiver knows free food will be there to sustain them?

Dependency robs people of self-determination and motivation. Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). When we give, we feel good about it, but when we are on the receiving end, the human psyche feels a sense of shame and helplessness. No one likes that feeling. We would rather be the giver.

The outreach model is far better than fixating solely on the 99 inside the church, but we must be sure our doing good does not lead to doing harm.


WITH

There is still a nobler and better model. It is being with people. This is the way Jesus led. It is really an in-reach approach rather than an outreach.

This model says, “I don’t just want to meet your need; I want to know why your need exists. I want to understand the systems and the challenges. I want to hear your story. I want to be in the community day to day. I want to be like Jesus and walk with you through the hard places of life. I am not measuring you by your church attendance, giving or volunteerism at weekend events.”

Being with also says, “As we build relationship, maybe you wouldn’t mind me sharing my story with you and telling you how to welcome Jesus into your life as Lord (evangelism). I can model for you how to grow in Jesus and follow Him in everyday life (discipleship). I would love to introduce you to a group of Christ-followers who support and encourage one another and serve their community together as the family of God (community).”

As community grows and develops, networks of churches can form in the very same locations. Being with people in their pain is a key to starting new churches and revitalizing existing churches that are dying in community influence and impact.

The events of 2016 changed me, and they changed our church. My successor, Marcus Arrington, has journeyed even deeper into a with model than what I initiated in 2016. He brought together a small team of mature Christians who feel called to study, exegete and respond to our community’s pain points.

Arrington regularly weaves results of this community study into his sermons, sharing with the entire congregation and preparing hearts for greater mobilization. He wisely started with prayer and discernment, just like Nehemiah did when he discovered the condition of his homeland.

We want our neighbors to know we are ready to walk with them through whatever battle they are facing. In addition to extending love and compassion to those who are struggling, we need to help them break free from their struggles.

You would be wise to identify strong community partners who share a similar vision. You would also be wise to unleash the people who come to your weekend services into their neighborhoods and fields of work and expertise.

Jesus modeled the potential of ordinary people as He chose His 12 disciples and mentored them for three years before sending them out to change the world. Our church has likewise discipled and released ordinary people into the marketplace as salt and light.

God is already at work in your community. He is concerned about the forces that affect the lives of people there. Take the time to listen to God and to your community. Learn, and then lament over its condition. As you listen, you will not only discover how you can be with the community and lift it out of spiritual, economic, social and physical pain, but you will also hear whether you are relevant and impactful—or not.

Your church’s journey toward a with lifestyle need not come about because of a tragedy like the one our community experienced. We can learn by tribulation or revelation. From now on, I prefer revelation lessons. Where is Jesus leading you and your church in the year ahead? How is He asking you to be with your community?