By unSeminary: Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to be talking with Kyle and Justeina Brownlee from Xperience Church in Ohio.

At Xperience Church, going beyond their walls to serve their community isn’t just something they do, it’s who they are. Listen in as Kyle and Justeina share about how to build a culture of meeting the needs of your community both practically and spiritually.

Look beyond the walls. // Kyle and Justeina worked to plant Xperience Church back in 2012 with the help of the Association of Related Churches. They ended up in the rural community of Defiance, OH and didn’t realize community service would become such a big part of their church’s culture. When a church is just starting to get established and grow, it’s easy to get focused on what’s going on inside the walls and forget about going beyond the walls. At the same time, Kyle says that if we have encountered God’s love—a love that never fails—it’s part of our calling to go share that love with others. Focus on actual needs. // Xperience Church didn’t want to wait for people to come to them; they wanted to be intentional about going to people who needed reaching. And that began with identifying needs in their community. Do your homework and be very intentional about going out into the community and asking what are the needs. Reach out to government officials, schools, city parks and other nonprofits. Rather than doing what’s easiest to serve people in your city, do what is really needed. Each community has different needs, environments, and cultural focuses so take a look at the specific needs around you.Partner with others. // Most cities have organizations that meet needs within their communities. Check in your area to find what nonprofits already exist and what’s working. Ask how you can join and support them rather than creating something new to compete with them. The church grows more rapidly when we learn to partner and support. Xperience Church reached out to another church in a rougher part of town to support work that they were already doing and it turned into a beautiful partnership where the churches would adopt certain neighborhoods and serve them with meals. Adopt a Block was so successful that the Chief of Police contacted them and told them that crime had actually gone down in the neighborhood.Hand-up instead of handout. // Early on Kyle admits that serving the community was also part of marketing their church plant to attract people to it. But as time went on and they engaged in more service opportunities, he realized it didn’t matter. If people got plugged into another church in the area, the Kingdom was winning. Outreaches became about not just giving people a handout, but about giving people a hand-up so they would never go back to that place they were in. Focus on loving people and connecting them to God, even if they don’t start attending your church. Meeting the physical needs in your community will open the door to meeting spiritual needs.Start serving. // The first few years after their establishment, Xperience Church would gather their church and volunteers once a year for a big Serve Day to work on multiple projects around the city. This event began to plant the seeds for future opportunities at the church. They learned that some projects went over great while others didn’t bear fruit because they weren’t serving actual needs in the community. Over time the city took notice and expressed needing more from the church and so they started doing outreaches more regularly. This became the foundation for their current serve culture – they taught people within the church how to get outside the walls and also facilitated opportunities.Creating a base camp. // The Dream Center in Defiance grew out of these cumulative opportunities. Now the Dream Center is their base camp for addressing needs in the community. Some of the unique issues they address include a workforce program where high school students can come and learn about trades to prepare for a job. They also have a car program where volunteers service cars for single moms and widows. Additionally they have first Saturday serves and tackle different projects each month. To discern what sort of projects you could tackle, ask yourself what resources and skills God has placed in your congregation, and how can those things be paired with the needs of your community.Create a culture of community outreach. // If you want your church to move more in this direction, but aren’t sure where to begin, start by praying and asking God what He’s leading you toward. Plant seeds in your congregation by talking about serving in sermon series. Lastly, ask God for open doors and contacts so that you can start reaching out whether it’s to other nonprofits, school systems, or the city.

You can learn more about Xperience Church at www.xchurch.tv.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Industries

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Source: Connection Between Community Service & Church Growth with Kyle & Justeina Brownlee

The post Connection Between Community Service & Church Growth with Kyle & Justeina Brownlee appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by unSeminary: Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Alan Murdock, who works with the organization Project Connect Nashville.

Project Connect Nashville was formed in response to some historic flooding which occurred ten years ago in the Nashville area. But today rather than solely focusing on disaster relief, they primarily build relationships with individuals that are stuck in the cycle of poverty and connect them to a church that will walk with them throughout life’s joys and struggles.

Alan is with us to talk about serving the poor in our own backyards and how finding connection and community with the church is an integral part of healing.

Think differently about poverty. // Normally we think of poverty locally as being a financial problem, and sometimes even a lazy problem. Project Connect Nashville provides a lot of education to debunk those myths and help the church understand that poverty is a lot more complex than that. People aren’t lazy, but rather traumatized and without hope. Poverty is about broken relationships and one of those broken relationships is with the church. Focus on your own community. // As believers we’re challenged by the fact that local missions doesn’t sound as exciting as going overseas to serve. It also doesn’t seem to be the reality in what is needed because while we have relationships with missionaries, we may not have relationships with the people in our communities that are suffering. As a result it’s hard to understand what the poor in our own backyard may be going through and it’s easier to look at them through political eyes and expect the government to take care of it. Connecting is the important part of the mission. // Many churches and pastors want to help the poor in their community and they want their church to live on mission in this area, but they don’t know where to start. When trying to do something in the local community, church leaders have reported getting pushback from their congregation for political reasons. The reality is that the church itself is the answer in these situations. Once people from your church get into everyday relationships with these people who are suffering, we learn to both sympathize and empathize, and we become transformed because of connection. Give your people the opportunity to connect with the poor and those who are suffering in your community.More than practical needs. // It’s great for churches to meet practical needs, such as providing blankets and meals to the homeless, but use your benevolence to do more than that as well. Meeting needs are the beginning of building a relationship with hurting people who may still be struggling with addictions or mental health issues. They still need the gospel, and to hear it regularly, in order to move beyond their circumstances. The church can aid in developing those relationships and support.Educate and focus on scripture. // When seeking a nonprofit that can work with your church like Project Connect Nashville does, look for one that wants to embrace your people as part of their team and works to help them understand the people they are serving. As Project Connect comes in to churches to do trainings, they redefine poverty and people start to recognize the poverties in their own lives which creates connection and breaks down walls between “us” and “them”. Rather than using loaded terms like “social justice”, which can be politically charged and can change based on what the media says, Project Connect focuses on loving your neighbors and biblical justice as found in scripture. The power of community. // People suffering and in poverty need help reconnecting with healthy community, and the community needs to accept them back in. That is how the church needs to look at those who have gone through hard times in life. People wrestling with addiction or those who have felonies or misdemeanors are still made in the image of God, just like us. Above all else, realize that we all need healing. Not everyone has had a community to come around them and walk with them when they’ve experienced suffering or trauma, like we may have.

You can learn more about Project Connect Nashville visit their website www.projectconnectnashville.org.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Carey Nieuwhof

Surrounding yourself with other high capacity leaders is so important right now. When you’re well connected, you can put meaning to content and make well-informed decisions.

Carey Nieuwhof created The Leader’s Circle in March 2020, an inner circle of high capacity leaders who have direct access to him and to one another. If you want to stop leading alone and start leading together, apply now to join The Leader’s Circle.

Source: Positive Partnerships for Community Impact with Alan Murdock

The post Positive Partnerships for Community Impact with Alan Murdock appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Patrick Bradley: Networking is when you’re meeting with civic officials, business leaders, community groups, nonprofits, etc. Here are 6 great reasons to go network in your community today.

I’m sure I don’t have hard numbers to prove it, but I would argue that there’s a tangible difference in the health of a church plant between planters that intentionally network and those that keep to themselves. These may give you a hint why:

Uncover Real Needs

Most community leaders are leading because they want to make a positive difference. Which means that they’re in touch with real needs in the community. Networking with them allows you to ask questions about community needs that get past the online demographics report level of general info.

Find Community Partners

As you sense the calling to address a community need, networking helps you find like-minded organizations to join forces with. What a shame it would be to approach the community with a savior complex and blow right past other groups that are already valiantly addressing the same issue.

Connect Other Groups

Eventually you may have the privilege of connecting other groups together. I sat in on a call this week where the planter had introduced a local coffee shop to a local nonprofit they had never heard of (right in their own community). Through that connection, the coffee shop began donating its day-old pastries, which they had previously been throwing away. The church and the planter didn’t directly benefit from that connection, but the community is better for it.

Make a Friend

As a church planter, you’re a risk-taker and an entrepreneur. You will run into a higher concentration of similarly-wired leaders as you network in your community. Maybe a new friendship is waiting to be born, one with no agenda other than being good friends with things in common. Who couldn’t use a few more of those?

Find a Facility

Sometimes finding a facility to host worship gatherings is a challenge. When you network with realtors, city planners and the like, you are connecting with people that know every facility in the community. They might be able to suggest something you haven’t thought of, or provide entree to a facility that wouldn’t initially have considered you.

Boost Your Energy

This is an common side effect when you go to network in your community: planters are people persons, and being out talking to people is likely to charge your batteries more than sitting behind a laptop screen checking things off a to-do list. You have to do some of that, too, but why not be more fully alive by spending time with other leaders in your community?

Networking isn’t just going to happen. There will be so many demands competing for your attention. Resolve to meet with at least 2 community leaders every week for the next 6 months and see how your ministry changes!

The post 6 Great Reasons to Network in Your Community appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: 6 Great Reasons to Network in Your Community

The post 6 Great Reasons to Network in Your Community appeared first on Passion for Planting.