I feel awful because you're asking for feedback right now, and I just can't seem to develop anything worth mentioning. I hope that you're getting feedback through one of the other methods, because I haven't seen any here.

I feel bad because I agree with everything that you're saying. All six points that you've put forward so far seem to be right on and I've been pondering them somewhat. However, I can't seem to think of any practical action steps to take from them, so I feel totally agreeable and irrelevant and don't say anything. Maybe I'm not alone in this reason, but I still feed bad about it, because like you said...time is short, and we should be working on this stuff.

I'll keep thinking and hopefully God will shake something loose, but until then, keep moving. Maybe we'll start moving with you.

I've been thinking about the idea that we need to minister more to our community for a while, and God "shook something loose" last night during the Daniel Bible study. When Dion asked the question, if our church or us ceased to exist tomorrow, would our community rejoice, would we be missed, or, as my wife, Jen, added later could be the worst scenario, would our absence even go noticed at all, I got an idea.

The biggest problem that we faced at our old church in Flint, and the biggest obstacle I feel towards community ministry at St. Matthew is that I don't really know anything about what St. Matthew's civic community needs. And if I can't begin to answer that question, how can I possibly begin to offer help?

Now, I have something of an excuse, currently living in another county, almost an hour away from the church, but, if you think about it, I wouldn't doubt that many at St. Matthew are in a similar boat. St. Matthew is a REGIONAL church, where many of its members don't live in the immediate area surrounding it. They come from West Bloomfield, Wixom, Commerce, Waterford, Novi, and even further away. So I would imagine that most people are somewhat lost when it comes to PRACTICAL ways to serve the community around St. Matthew.

So something that I think St. Matthew needs to do is start to get a finger on the pulse of the city. There are different ways to do that, but there are some practical steps we could do to start.

What about appointing an elder, or some other person gifted with some leadership and discernment to attend city council (or town hall or whatever they are there) meetings? Just listening to some of the things that go through there and then regularly reporting things back to the admin or other ministry boards could really help to bring what's going on in the city to the ears of St. Matthew. It could give our church some very practical ideas about the kinds of things that St. Matthew could be doing to increase our presence where God has planted us.

What about getting involved in helping to put on community events? Within the last month or so, there has been (will be?) at least two major events in the Walled Lake community--the boat race and the beach party. If those are events for and with the Walled Lake community, shouldn't St. Matthew try to have some kind of presence at these things? Maybe a contest booth, or helping the organizers put on special events, or just offering some kind of financial support. Could some St. Matthew members even become part of the groups helping to organize these things? Could we even possibly begin to plan our own?

What kind of relationships do we have with the city? Do community leaders know our leaders at all?

As far as the community goes now, I can't think of much that we do that really gets to the heart of involvement. Someone mentioned things like the community picnic and VBS as ministering to our community, but I really have to question that. Those are events that invite others to join US, to come to OUR house, and ultimately hold the hope of attracting others to become like us, especially since the vast majority of people that come to them are St. Matthew members.

What ministering to our community really should look like is people from St. Matthew finding ways to serve our community to help people that don't look like us, and to do so in a way that doesn't posit some idea that we want them to.

One of the coolest ministries I ever saw was a couple of guys who were bikers/skateboarders/etc. regularly put up a tent in a corner store parking lot like once a month to offer free bike repair to anyone who needed it. In doing so, they got to meet all the neighborhood kids and families and started to form relationships with people in the community. They didn't hand out tracts, they didn't preach to them or pass out membership pamphlets. They were just themselves offering themselves to people with no pretensions whatsoever. To me, THAT'S ministering to the community. Living and growing where God has planted us and with whom God has planted us, weeds and all.

Like I said...just some thoughts.