Is it better to reach before you preach?

BY DERMOT COTTULI

Some people have said that community engagement is my thing, but that’s not actually true. My thing has always been Jesus and His church. Specifically, in regards to the church, what it is that we’re supposed to do as pastors and church leaders and how that should shape our practice.

But in that regard community engagement probably is my thing because it’s the first part of the great commission. “Go into all the world ….” (Mark 16:15) How do you go into all the world? You don’t do it by praying and you don’t do it by preaching. They’re the bookends to the “go” part. You do it by reaching the community you’ve been planted in and letting them experience something that they’ve never experienced before, the love of God as expressed through good works.

Before you preach you have to reach but how do you reach?

You reach by doing what Jesus did, serving others, specifically the poor, the marginalised, the broken and the outcast.

8 years ago our church moved into Clarence Plains, a social housing estate on the eastern shore of the Derwent river here in Hobart and we bought an old rundown pub and right from the beginning we decided that we wouldn’t start up any programs or advertise our church but instead we would find out what our community was already doing and offer to help them do what they thought was important.

We decided we wouldn’t hold church services on our property but instead offer it as our gift to our local community. We wanted them to be able to test drive the love of Jesus without any strings attached.

And this is what we discovered – when you truly try to serve your community, doors will open for you without you having to knock. And because you’re there with your community when those doors open, all sorts of opportunities present themselves. When you genuinely love your community through your presence and service, your community will open it’s heart to you.

We’ve faced zero resistance from our community to our church in all the time we’ve been in Rokeby because we were willing to lay aside our agenda and come alongside the people who live in our community to help them achieve what they’re trying to achieve.

If you try to preach before you’ve reached you’ll come up against a brick wall 9 times out of 10. And it won’t be the devil.

So armed with an attitude of serving our communities agenda rather than running programs ourselves we had a discussion with Loaves and Fishes back in 2018 about offering them space at our old pub for a southern production kitchen. They already had a kitchen provided for them by housing Tasmania up north and they wanted one down south. Loaves and Fishes had taken over Second Bite a few years before and realised that many of the people they were providing fresh food to didn’t know how to cook meals with the food products that they were receiving so they decided that they would take the food and cook ready to eat meals that were nutritious and healthy and then distribute the meals through their network, a network that spanned nearly 300 community groups right across Tasmania. They were soon churning out 1000’s of meals a week. The interesting thing about their model is that they give the meals to community groups and the community groups hand out the food to those in need. Loaves and Fishes aren’t even seen, it’s the community group who gets the kudos. A Kingdom principle if there ever was one.

Matthew 6:1-4

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Well back to our old pub and half a million dollars later and a lot of hard work, on the 14th of February 2023 Loaves and Fishes started cooking meals for Tasmanians doing it tough out of their brand new southern production kitchen based at the Grace Centre in Rokeby. 2500 cooked meals  are prepared and delivered from their southern kitchen each week and 6 young people from our local high school are doing traineeships in food preparation and handling.

If you’re not worried about seeing your name up in lights then serving others is a no brainer, everybody profits especially our communities and your church’s reputation.

I want to leave you with one last thought that may, for some of you, be a little bit challenging, but I think the majority of us will understand what I’m trying to say, it’s purely bible after all.

This is where I’ve landed after 36 years of church ministry. This is what Andrew Hillier the CEO of Loaves and Fishes and I talk about all the time and I’m sure it will resonate with every senior pastor reading this and those wanting to build his church.

“The world isn’t looking for a successful, conquering, all powerful church. The world is looking for a church that looks like Jesus, our servant King.”

• A church that will love them authentically through their presence with them, and service to them.
• A church that will prove to them that they’re worth dying for.
• A church that’s willing to sacrifice its treasure for the hungry, the homeless, those in prison, those that society shuns. Not just simply using it for the building of places of worship for itself, but also in the reaching out and caring for those that everyone else forgets.
• A church that’s willing to lay down its own agenda and follow Jesus wherever he leads them. (If you’re following Jesus you will find yourself amongst the poor, the hungry, the broken, the refugee, the forgotten and the overlooked. And if you don’t, are you even following Jesus?)

Because this is the love that overcomes the world. This is the love that leaves them undone.

This is the love that our Saviour demonstrated when He left heaven and lived amongst the poor, the outcast, the powerless and the weak.

This is the love that saw Him lay down his life for every single person on the planet, not just the Jews.

This is the love that He’s offering us and asking us to share with the communities that we’re planted in.

This is the love that will see our world saved.