Impacting the Neighbourhood

A few musing questions for a Monday morning, about how people round about us see us. Do the neighbours to our church premises:

  • Think we care about what goes on in the community? ie are we interested in what they are interested in, or are we only interested in them for the sake of winning them for Christ?
  • Are we interested in doing them good, just for the sake of doing them good, a la Galatians 6:1?
  • Are we being a blessing to the locale?

These are questions about how what we do is perceived. Are we perceived to care? Or are we perceived to be isolated in our services and rather divorced from the surrounding society.

If you asked the people living right next door to where you meet: what do you know about what goes on in here; what do you think of us; do you have a positive experience of us being your neighbours; do you see anything here that would make you interested to find out more; are we a blessing to you; what would they say?

Functional Atheism

There will be a subset of people on the plateau who are functionally atheist. I don't mean that they aren't believers (although they may be), but that the gospel is currently making no discernable impact over their day to day lives. They don't think about it, don't pray and don't seek to bring God glory in the warp and weft of life. They compartmentalise "the Christian bit" into an hour on Sunday. Therefore their approach to life is functionally no different to a non-believer.
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Bible Enjoyed

What would a "Bible Enjoyed" Course look like? The idea is for something basic to help people learn to feed themsleves and take responsibility for their own spiritual growth. A step on from Discipleship Explored, but easily accessible to all and designed to get people excited about the Bible rather than just technically able with it.
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