The Spiritual Listening Plan is Finished!

A Beta Version at Least...

For the past four months I’ve been working on a community assessment process rooted in contemplative practices that will help churches understand their community better and become a spiritual home for their immediate neighbors. And it’s ready! Well, ready enough to release the beta version.

What is the Spiritual Listening Plan?

The Spiritual Listening Plan (SLP) is an interactive PDF that outlines a comprehensive spiritual community assessment process for churches. It draws from spiritual listening practices and will increase a church’s understanding of their neighbors, help discern where God is inviting them to join in expanding the kingdom, and lead to meaningful ministry innovations. And it’s totally free! It’s twelve activities broken into three categories: Listening to God, Listening to Your Congregation, and Listening to Your Neighbors. Every activity has a link that will take you to a PDF guide or editable document/form.

Why Did You Create This?

I’m far from old and wise, but as I reflect on 15 years of church-based community engagement (at the local and denominational level) I’ve noticed three things:

1. Churches are often disconnected from their immediate neighbors. In North Carolina it’s typically a result of population growth and demographic shifts.

2. Most churches that want to be more connected to their community focus on “meeting the needs” of their neighbors. Often these programs focus on what our neighbors lack and fail to see them as complex and whole people who long for spiritual meaning, belonging, and prosperity.

3. In the mainline church we’ve become overly dependent on demographic studies and consumer reporting. These tools are helpful, but pale in comparison to actually talking to our neighbors. They are one piece (albeit an important one) of a wider puzzle.

With these three things in mind, I started working on a community assessment process rooted in contemplative practices that will help churches understand their community better and become a spiritual home for their immediate neighbors.

Who is the SLP for?

You! I am offering this resource free of charge because I believe every church in this moment needs to become a listening church. In my work, I talk to a lot of churches who at one point had deep connections to their communities and now find themselves in the same building but a different community. A wholistic community assessment can start to address this disconnect and set a church on a new path to vibrant, localized ministry.

What’s a Beta Version?

In short, the resource is ready but I need your help making it better. I would love for you to download the pdf, gather a listening team at your church, and give it a go. As you go send me feedback. What was helpful? What was confusing? What fell flat? What was missing? Shoot me an email at luke@thelisteningchurch.com anytime. Together we can make a resource that opens the ears of the church!

If you find the Spiritual Listening Plan helpful and would like to share it, please consider sharing this link so I can keep track of who is giving it a try!