How are we going to engage with our communities? This is in many ways The Big Question. The answer, I believe, comes when we honestly begin to look for the answer two other questions:

·       What are the issues generally that preoccupies most churches in our country?

·       What are the issues that preoccupy most people in our communities?

As I’ve travelled round the country and asked these two questions of many church audiences, the disparity even in our own perception of the issues has been stark.

The issues that church members feel preoccupy most churches are mainly internal. They include issues such as: finance, worship styles, buildings and numbers.

When asked about the issues that preoccupy people in the community, these same people say: finance; debt; family; work; stress and health.

Now I realise that things are never quite so clear cut as these lists suggest - because we’re all concerned about those things on the second list whether we are in church or not.

But as a gut response, time and time again, with slight variations, it is informative.

What are the lessons I would glean from such comments?

1. Big Issues

It is interesting that only occasionally do people mention poverty, the environment, crime and war. And I’ve found that whenever they are mentioned, they are placed on the ‘community’ list. That’s not to say that we don’t care in the church about these things - in fact it’s often churches and church people who are leading the way. (Take Make Poverty History for example!) But the fact that they don’t immediately spring to mind would suggest that we have work to do.

2. Perception

Once, when I have asked the ‘community’ question, the list consisted of: having fun, shopping, chocolate(!), and making money. And that was it! When I suggested that just maybe those in the community might also be concerned with bigger issues, and that we in the church quite liked having fun and eating chocolate, it was as if the scales fell from their eyes.

Some of us can be guilty of blinkered vision; of presuming that other people are not as aware, selfless and deep as we are. But this is a false assumption. Yes, people like shopping whether they are church attendees or not! Yes, people both inside and outside the church like having fun!

When we think of engaging community, we often jump over people’s perceived needs - for entertainment; leisure activities, etc - seeing them as a waste of time. But that’s a mistake, because this is the very platform where relationships often start and real needs begin to be revealed. It is also the easiest place to begin to engage because of the fact that we enjoy these things too. To start at this point reveals the fact that we are all alike.

3. Individualism

The lists summarised above are broadly about how things impact the individual. We need to acknowledge that all of us have a tendency - at least initially - to think most deeply about how things affect ‘me’.

4. Irrelevance

The contrast between the two lists is always stark. Even church people see much of what preoccupies our time, thoughts and finance as detached from the reality of life.

When I ask people how relevant they feel the messages they hear on a Sunday are to their daily lives, they often say that what they hear is great Bible teaching.

It’s great that the message helps them understand the Bible more, but it also needs to help them practically with the issues they struggle with in their normal lives. If this perceived irrelevance is true of those in church, how much greater is the disparity likely to be for those in community?

So what of the positives…?

The first is that many of issues that concern those in the community are the selfsame issues that those in the church are grappling with. We all, if we are honest, struggle with issues related to family life, finance, work, and so on. It’s the stuff of common life and, as such, is common ground. We don’t need to give the impression that we have everything sorted. It’s far more honest and real to say we know someone who can help.

The second is that engaging with many of these issues is not rocket science. We can at times make things too complicated. If these are the things that people are concerned about and we are too, then we can identify with them and have something to say about what we’ve learnt and where we learnt it.

The third is that the most effective way to engage is to get real and tell it like it is: “you are not alone – me, too”. This is a very powerful thing to do, and instead of showing weakness, it’s often regarded as a sign of strength. People already know we struggle with things – let’s not pretend we don’t.

So much of engaging is about meeting on common ground and identifying with common need.