November 8, 2012
By Phil Maynard
It would seem to be a ‘no-brainer’. If we’re going to connect with our community, engage our community, and make a difference in our community we have to ‘know’ our community.
I am discovering however that ‘knowing’ the community is not always the case for congregations.
A while back, a District Superintendent asked me to work with a congregation which had entered into a tailspin. Nothing seemed to be working for them.
As I met for the first time with the leadership team, the children’s ministry coordinator gave a lengthy account of all the things the church had tried to build a strong children’s ministry. She closed with the statement “we know if we are to be a healthy church we have to do children’s ministry well’. This is certainly a topic for another blog!
As we worked our way through a discovery process (Discovering the Possibilities) that included a demographics study (MissionInsite) it became clear that even though there were two new schools in the immediate area (elementary and middle) there were a very small percentage of families with school-age children.
That, of course, didn’t make much sense.
So, the congregational lea