You can never outgrow the need for authentic community.
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“What is the one thing every leader needs to listen to, understand, and implement in order to succeed?”
Authentic Community
Have you ever been to New York City? This thriving metropolis is 470 square miles in size, with a population of almost nine million people. It’s incredible. From Carlos Bake Shop in Hoboken, you can see the sprawling Freedom Tower reaching into the sky. From the Brooklyn Bridge, you can spot the rustic and iconic Empire State Building tying the New York skyline together. From Liberty State Park in Jersey City, you can see the majestic green Statue of Liberty holding her torch up to light the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. When I think about New York, these are the pictures that pop into my head. Things like buildings, bridges, parks, and statues. This is also why my last trip to New York City was life changing.
At a little burger place in SoHo, I sat down with my crew for a quick bite. The waitress, named Jill, was friendly, courteous, and about as “New Yorker” as a young girl can be. With her thick New York accent, she asked us if we lived in the city, or if we were just visiting. I guess we Jersey Shore folk stood out, go figure. We exchanged introductions and went about ordering our food. Before she took our order slip to the kitchen window, she asked us one final question. “What are you guys in town for anyway?” I answered her as honestly and plainly as possible. I told her we’re here to see all the awesome stuff New York has to offer. Things like buildings, bridges, parks, and statues.
The smile on her face gradually faded into a stoic and serious stare as I told her about our itinerary. She had the same face that my grandmother used to have when I was about to endure a long speech about something I did wrong. As I finished sharing our plans, she said three words that completely altered the tone of the conversation. “I hate that” she said, with her thick and authentic accent. “People come in here ‘ooing’ and ‘ahing’ at the stuff we build, but the only beautiful thing about this city is its people.” Needless to say, I had no appropriate response prepared, because I have never been more blindsided in the midst of friendly small talk.
All I could say was, “I’m sorry Jill. I bet the people here are really awesome. We don’t live here, so we wouldn’t know.” Then she said something that challenges me to this very day. She said “It’s not your fault. Politicians are so busy trying to attract people to the city with all this touristy stuff that I can’t even get my trash pick-up worked out. This is becoming a great place to visit, but a rough place to live.” At this point, she got fired up about the city, and its government, and practically started preaching to us about all of New York’s problems. However, that one phrase kept resonating in my brain like a song on loop in iTunes.
“This is becoming a great place to visit, but a rough place to live.”
Obviously, the church came to mind immediately. I spend a lot of time working with pastors who have hit a growth lid in their church that they are trying to desperately overcome. More times than not, we can narrow growth issues down to a community problem. So I started thinking of all the churches I have worked with that have become a great place to visit, but a rough place to live.
I started thinking about the churches that have built incredible experiences for first-time guests but have all but forgotten about creating incredible experiences for the hundreds of people that are already on deck. I thought about how pastors we work with rank the need for better giving above the need for better community.
This is why the one thing I would tell every ministry leader today is this: You can never outgrow the need for authentic community.
Community at church is incredibly important for three reasons:
- God created us to need community. (We all need friends.)
- Church growth happens through ‘word-of-mouth’ above all else. (If something is great, we tell our friends.)
- A strong community is a powerful force for serving people in Jesus’ name. (We change the world with our friends.)
God created us to need community.
“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” Psalm 133:1
Community is not simply a strategy; it’s a core part of life that God intended for us all to share. Without a strong community, the church is relegated to being a simple structure on the side of a road. Community is the essence that gives that structure life.
In our experience as consultants at everything.church, churches that run around 1,500 people begin to over administrate community through small groups and events, rather than getting personally involved or providing venues for authentic and organic relationships to form. When you over administrate community, the result is a government. If you really think about it, a government is just a highly administrated community of people.
Community is the first part of ‘pastoring’ to go by the wayside when we get busy, but it is a critical element to pastoral leadership that helps meet one of people’s biggest needs. Sure, community looks like small groups and events, but community also looks like visiting a mother in the hospital who has just had a child. It looks like inviting a family over for dinner that’s newly involved at your church. It even looks like staying connected with your flock on Facebook or Twitter. Community is what it looks like when God’s people do life together.
Church growth happens through ‘word-of-mouth’ above all else.
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13
Sometimes as churches grow, pastors get busy, they recluse themselves, the staff follows, and community becomes over administrated; this can lead to bureaucracy of church leadership instead of the shepherding of God’s people. Every single week I will inevitably take a call from a church leader who has hit a lid in growing their church but has stopped doing everything they did to get to that lid in the first place.
We work hard to help pastors understand that community wasn’t just something that was good for the first few hundred folks in their church, but an imperative ingredient for growth in the future.
So Why do Pastors slowly give up on community and begin investing all their time in strategies instead of people?
Sometimes it’s vanity because they want to have success just like anyone else. Sometimes it’s a lack of clear and decisive vision because they’re going to do anything to keep growing the kingdom of God. Sometimes it’s a lack of leadership because they’re apprehensive about raising up and empowering the next generation to lead.
Before we know it, our priorities are focused on aggressive expansion instead of investing in a healthy, strong, God-centered, community of individuals that are absolutely necessary to expand in the first place.
Ultimately, there are a lot of reasons pastors slowly stop focusing on community. It’s an easy mistake to make; one I have also made myself. Just remember this: don’t give up on the people who never gave up on you.
A strong community is a powerful force for serving people in Jesus’ name.
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27
The church isn’t just a clubhouse for friends. It’s a base of operations for changing the world. So it’s no surprise that a strong community means greater ability to make a physical and spiritual impact in the world around us.
A church with a strong community is an army of men and women that are ready and prepared to put James 1:27 to the test. This means you’re making a bigger difference in the lives of the homeless. This means you’re feeding more families who have fallen on hard times. This means you’re making Christmas special for even more kids who haven’t seen a Christmas present in years. It means the church is becoming a beacon of hope in your local community that represents the love of Jesus.
This also means that the church community can take care of its own people with greater interest and intentionality. It means small groups are planning a day to fix the leaky roof on one of its member’s homes. It means that when someone is laid up after surgery, more than just the pastor are showing up to offer support, encouragement, and a helping hand. It even means that your weekend volunteer force is more consistent and dedicated.
So remember that God created us to need community, church growth happens through ‘word-of-mouth’ above all else, and strong community is a powerful force for serving people in Jesus’ name. Most of all, though, remember that you can never outgrow the need for authentic community.
This post was written by TK Dennis, former CEO of Everything.Church.