by: Rev. Dr. Anna Hall
We are living in tumultuous times. There are two questions many people are grappling with right now:
How can I help those suffering from the current political situation?
How can I keep from losing my mind and my faith?
What is the good news for these people? The good news is that Jesus and his disciples and the early churches lived in just such tumultuous times. We can learn from their example of focusing on caring for one another and helping their neighbors in need.
Often as churches, we are really good at one or the other. We can be great at helping others but not as focused on spiritual/emotional development and care. Alternatively, we can be focused on prayer and pastoral care, yet do not have easy ways people can plug in to help their neighbors.
While we encourage a congregation to find a focus for 1-3 years, we also know that church members are human beings with human needs. No matter how much they might believe in our congregational mission focus, they will be too strained to pitch in if they are feeling harried and helpless.
Balancing love for neighbors and caring for each other starts with knowing your congregation and its participants as well as possible. Do you have pews full of exhausted activists? Classes filled with those who have studied their faith extensively and are longing to put it into action? A bit of both?
There are several ways to find out what your people’s greatest needs are right now. Surveys are one option, of course, but I also love more participatory ways of collecting this data. Post up some chalkboards or white papers around your sanctuary and invite people to write their greatest needs as they enter or exit worship. Host a lunch where each table is invited to discuss their greatest needs and one table host will take notes. Invite worshipers to put their needs on slips of paper to put in the offering plates.
Once you have analyzed this data and know the balance of needs in your congregation, it is time to ensure that time and energy are spent in proportion to those needs. Draw a rough map of your current activities and programs and the time they occupy in an average month of your church life. Which are dedicated to spiritual/emotional care and which to helping others? Draw a pie chart to illustrate the ratio of care to outreach.
Does this chart match the balance of needs you discovered in your previous activities? If not, how can you adjust?
Or, did you find a lot of church activities and programs are not addressing either need? If this is the case, it is time to ask what needs those activities do address, and whether that is the best focus for the church right now.
Continue to ensure your balance of activities and programming address congregational needs by re-examining the activities map quarterly. What needs tweaking? What is taking up time and energy and not addressing needs?
There may be years ahead where we will feel less strained and can take a more relaxed approach to these questions. Yet while our country and world are in turmoil, there is no greater work than loving our neighbors and caring for each other. If you need help with finding this balance in your congregation, please reach out. I’d love to chat about how we can help.
