What’s the offshoot of doing good works in your community?

BY DERMOT COTTULI

When you actively serve your community through your good works, your community will open its heart to you.

Mark 10:45
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

When we first arrived in Rokeby (a social housing estate on the outskirts of Hobart) we decided that we wouldn’t start up any projects but instead find out what our community was already doing and offer to help them. We took Jesus’ words in Mark 10 to heart and decided that rather than promoting the church throughout our community we’d roll up our sleeves and offer to serve the various groups who were already doing great things throughout Clarence Plains. That initially involved me, as the senior pastor, attending lots of community led meetings because I was the one who had the time available during the week to show up. But it was here that I noticed something very interesting, when the senior pastor of the local church turns up to community meetings it’s the same as if the entire church was attending. They felt that all of our church was behind them because I was there.

Gradually over time, we became more and more embedded in our community and whenever there were community planned events we were there serving on committees and volunteering at the events in practical ways. We are now known right throughout Clarence Plains as a church that cares and have had doors open up to us with people of influence simply because we did what Jesus has called us to do – help those who are in need.

An unexpected bonus for taking this approach was it meant that the burden of running meetings wasn’t carried by us. When you are few in number that can be incredibly draining. However we were now able to help lots of people outside of the church without having to run events to reach them and because we were there to help, it made connecting so much easier.

Matthew 23:15
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

An important consideration in making this approach work for us has been to set aside the idea that we were doing this to grow our church and simply approach our service as our way of doing good deeds in obedience to Jesus’ command in Matthew 5 and Matthew 25. The issue that we were trying to address was that quite often the good that we do in our community is because we want something back from them in exchange – their souls. This then makes our love transactional which in itself, negates our loving service and turns it into a marketing strategy to grow our consumer base. Where we only do acts of service as a means to an end rather than an end in itself.

When you decide to do good in your local community Jesus’ love will be seen through your actions. When you love your community with no strings attached, without an ulterior motive, they’ll start to see what God’s love for them is really like. To do that we need to go and sit with them and hear from them about what their needs are and then partner with them to see those needs met. We’re working for their benefit not our own. Loving others is the evidence or proof of true discipleship.

It starts with the Pastor and leaders

Matthew 23:1-4
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

If your people were to follow your example would your community be reached over the next 10 years? Not saved, but reached. If not, why not?