Listening to Your Neighbors
Practical Steps to Prepare for Outreach
The following is Part Two of an excerpt from my talk at the FXUM National Gathering a few weeks back. You can read Part One here. Fresh Expressions are new forms of church that connect with spiritually open people who are not a part of Sunday morning church. Learn more about Fresh Expressions in my recent article for Resource UMC.
Listening to God is the inner work of starting a fresh expression. It requires slowing down, talking with God, being honest about our inner motivations, and being attentive to the Spirit’s stirring. And the question we ultimately seek to discern is, “To whom is God sending me?”
The other half of listening to start fresh expressions is listening to your neighbor. To start a fresh expression of church that your unchurched neighbors will want to be a part of you must first talk to your unchurched neighbors.
Listening to Your Neighbors in Three Steps
There are no shortcuts to listening to your neighbors. Demographic studies are great, but they are no substitute for real conversations with your neighbors. If you rush or skip listening, at best you’ll be throwing spaghetti at the wall, and we don’t have the resources to do that. At worst you run the risk of colonizing these spaces or networks.
I’ve consulted with churches that see a pub open across the street, they go in wearing t-shirts, or singings songs only Christians know. Pubs are places built for conversation. And we bring our audience culture into those spaces. That’s colonization. Take time to listen, see what the culture is like, see how the Holy Spirit is already at work, and add to that. No more colonization.
So how do you go about this?
1. Locate gathering places in your community and be present in them.
Whether you attend events or simply loiter in these spaces, make a habit of being a regular for a while. Be attentive to the culture of the place and get to know the other regulars. As Andrés Pérez González was starting Brazos Abiertos, he spent time in the pool halls and the Hispanic Markets of Greensboro.
2. Identify networks and invest your time in them.
What are your interests? What life stage are you in? How do you spend your time? What are you passionate about? Think about who you share these interests, life stages, passions with. How can you connect with them more?
Bob Jette and Ron Johnson experience God while hiking. Ron just completed a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail last year! They have found plenty of people like them in Asheville and most of them are not a part of a church. Their fresh expression is called Worship in the Wild.
As you go into gathering spaces and networks, go with open eyes and open ears. Observe and talk to God about what you observe. I’ve developed a practical tool for doing this.
Lectio Divina offers a helpful framework for observing and reflecting with God. Lectio Divina traces back to Saint Benedict and the early monastic movement. In Lectio Divina we read a bible passage in four stages. And each stage involves prayerful conversation and listening to God. I’ve discovered that we can do this with community listening as well. Below is a handout you can print and try out.
3. Follow up with Good Questions.
As you spend time in a place or among a network, questions will arise. Find someone in the space or network who you can talk to and ask them a few good questions to help you understand the culture there better. Community organizers call this a relational 1 on 1. One of the churches in our conference is launching a new worshipping community and has committed to having 100 of these with their neighbors.
Here are a few suggestions for a good relational 1:1. Many of these lessons came from my social work background.
Ask strengths-based questions. Don’t start with questions about what they need. Your neighbors are gifted and interesting. Start with their passions.
Ask open-ended, non-leading questions. Work on a few questions ahead of time that will invite deep reflection from your neighbors.
Include a few spiritual questions. Don’t be afraid to ask your neighbors about their spiritual lives. Most Americans are spiritual whether they attend church or not. Information about your neighbors spiritual lives is super important for your work.
Ask follow up questions for more depth. When someone says something that piques your interest, reply with, “Tell me more about…”). Try to get deeper with your neighbor without sounding like you’re grilling them.
Practice snowball interviews. In your first neighbor interview start with someone you know or have talked to before. At the end of the conversation ask them if they know someone else you should talk to and if they would be willing to connect you to them. This is a way of getting out of your own social network with your interviews without having to door knock or make cold calls.
A list of some suggested questions can be found on the interviewing activity of my Spiritual Listening Plan.
Taking the Next Step
After you practice community listening, you can bring what you observed to God and to friends who can help you discern what God is inviting you to. You can do this through journaling or through conversation.
As you work through discernment, you will then look for the faithful next step. Out of your discernment, what is God inviting you to do next?
Healthy fresh expressions are motivated by love and begin with listening. If we are to love God and love our neighbors, we must listen to God and listen to our neighbors. So go out and listen up!
Love this, Luke! Thank you!