By Tom Bandy
Focusing Outreach Ministry
Outreach is important for a church both to transform society and to mature Christian disciples through service. Yet as we wrestle with the business – or “busy-ness” – of outreach, we forget that outreach is about embracing people and not just managing tasks.
Church people know that they are called to serve. They want to get involved in outreach. But they start out by asking the wrong question. We ask: What does God call us to do? What we should be asking is: Who does God call us to be with? This is why PeoplePlot is so beneficial to our outreach planning. PeoplePlot helps us visualize and understand the connections between congregation and culture.
The answer to the questions Who and Why are related to each other. This is the link between what I call “Heartbeat” (shared core values and bedrock beliefs that are observable and accountable in church behavior) and “heartburst” (the publics or lifestyle mosaics for whom we feel urgent compassion). The first step in all strategic thinking is to answer these questions. Why should we act? Who do we serve? What should result?
- What specific public(s) are we moved to serve?
- What’s so special about our church people that we should act?
- What specific changes do we expect to result from our service?
- Are we ready to take the risks and make the sacrifices to help the people for whom our heart bursts?
When churches try to focus outreach, they often brainstorm tactics, or race to fill perceived social service gaps, without a deep understanding of who they are now and who God wants them to become in the future. Without doing PeoplePlot, their methods and tactics are unconsciously limited by the lifestyle assumptions and risk management habits of church insiders. Outreach ministries may start well but cannot be sustained long term. In other words, good seeds are sown in unprepared soil, but fail to sink roots into the community; they spring up quickly but wither over time.
Use PeoplePlot to connect motivation with expectation.
When we complete PeoplePlot, and create a ComparativeInsite report, we can compare lifestyle representation between membership and mission field. This is not just about percentages. It is about portraits. Experian research and MissionImpact Guide commentaries allow us to explore in both images and words the attitudes and habits of each lifestyle mosaic.
There is often a difference between what a lifestyle mosaic seeks and what a lifestyle mosaic shares. To initiate and sustain outreach ministry, we must connect the needs of diverse community publics with the passions of church volunteers. Volunteers eventually burn out if they are just acting under obligation. They thrive when they are following their hearts. Similarly, outreach ministries fail when they are just pursuing the agenda of an institution. They succeed when they substantially benefit the public.
The lifestyle mosaic of a congregation predisposes the church to connect more successfully with some publics than with others. Using the ComparativeInsite report, contrast lifestyle representation between church and community (page 5). Note especially the “Analysis” columns on the right side of the chart.
- The report automatically calculates the “Estimated Household Penetration Rate” (PenRate) of your church in the designated area and lists the penetration rate (relevance) of your church for any given lifestyle mosaic. Note which ones are higher or lower to discern the relative success of the church including a mosaic in its ministries.
- The report also provides an “index” to measure household participation in the church. An index for each mosaic well above 100 reveals a strong connection between church and community. An index that is well below 100 reveals a weak connection.
Note especially those lifestyle mosaics with mid-range index numbers between 60 and 100. Here there is strong potential to expand your outreach because there is already some connection between the motivation of the church and the expectation of the mission field. Invest resources there. And look at index numbers higher than 125. Here you are already successful connecting the church with the public. Challenge complacency and move on.
Use PeoplePlot to connect tactics with training.
What about those community lifestyle mosaics with whom you have very little connection (i.e., index numbers well below 60). Does God call us to embrace them? The answer is yes, but it will take more work! Outreach may require very different tactics (e.g., unfamiliar programs and communication methods). It may require greater risk and involve higher stress on the part of church participants. Like St. Paul, you might have a vision to serve the Philippians (Acts 16), but no idea how to do it or what it will cost, and greater anxiety about going there.
PeoplePlot (and the ComparativeInsite reports generated out of it) helps you develop a continuing education plan for church membership and a training regimen for church leaders. You can discern what you need to learn, look for places and partnerships to learn, and discover new and different learning methods that may be unfamiliar to you but very commonplace among lifestyle mosaics under-represented in the ministry of the church.
Moreover, PeoplePlot will help you anticipate the stress of change. To shift priorities from serving the people you already have, to serving the people you have yet to bless, you must be able to provide a missional explanation that makes sense to the membership. Most lifestyle mosaics within a church (even those seniors who are long-time members and boomers who are satisfied with status quo!) are willing to take a risk, and make personal sacrifices, if they are convinced that it is worthwhile, and God is in it.
Use PeoplePlot to connect needs with resources.
Say the word “outreach”, and many church people instinctively think about survival ministries (e.g., provide the basics of food, clothing, housing, etc.). Yet while these things are important to live day by day, they may not be the priority to help a lifestyle mosaic under-represented in the church thrive into the future. Think about it. The lifestyle mosaics well represented in your church continue to participate because the church meets their evolving needs into the future. The same is true for those mosaics under-represented in the church.
The MissionImpact Guide identifies seven distinct areas of outreach: survival, health, recovery, quality of life, inter-personal relationships, human potential, and human destiny. There are many different mission possibilities. For example, low-income single parent households may value free breakfast for the kids before school … but they may value even more tutoring programs for kids after school, or advocacy for improved public-school education, or protection from bullying or abuse. How can you know? Talk to the people.
PeoplePlot allows you to create a thematic map that identifies the specific neighborhoods with population density of the lifestyle mosaic you are called serve. But that is not all! It reveals the specific households who participate in the church and live in or nearby those neighborhoods. Now you have a “listening post”. You have an opportunity to personally be with the people you want to serve and learn their priorities.
Once you know the priorities, you can build the resources. You can designate giving and target fund raising. You can renovate church facilities and improve technologies. You can develop separate sites for mission. You can partner with the most relevant social services.
Use PeoplePlot to connect life with Spirit.
PeoplePlot (and the ComparativeInsite reports generated out of it) not only reveal attitudes toward the church, but the deeper spiritual yearnings that drive our quests for God. The fact that there are up to 71 lifestyle mosaics in our region may seem overwhelming, but PeoplePlot can narrow that down to less than a dozen of the largest lifestyle mosaics (both in the community and in the church) for special scrutiny and prayer.
We can use the Experian portraits and MissionImpact Guide commentaries to compare and contrast spiritualities, institutional attitudes, and differing perspectives on God, Jesus, and social issues. Most people in America would like to meet God, but different groups of people want or need to meet God in different ways. Jesus interacted with many people in the Gospels records, but different kinds of people sought Jesus for different reasons. The same is true today.
Many church people are “tongue-tied” volunteers when it come to outreach. They may know what to do, but not what to say or how to model the presence of Christ in the life of the community. PeoplePlot helps equip pastors to preach, laity to witness, and volunteers to say the right thing, at the right time, to the people that need it most. More than that, it helps prepare church people to hear the right thing, at the right time, from the people that know it best. The ComparativeInsite report helps you connect the questions of seekers with the answers of the church … but it also alerts church members to new questions posed from the experience of seekers.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that outreach is initiated, sustained, and ultimately evaluated by the depth of our empathy with people other than ourselves. Church memberships are often too homogeneous, including long-time residents and friendship circles, who are good-hearted people but blind to the cultural and lifestyle changes happening around them. Their unquestioned assumptions about congregational participation, community diversity, and emerging social needs limit the possibilities for creative, effective, outreach. This is why PeoplePlot is so important for church people who want to do outreach but don’t know what to do.
MissionInsite does not do the work for you. The connections facilitated by PeoplePlot are not automatic. Each connection requires thought, prayer, and action on your part. This is a valuable tool to help you get out there in the community. It helps you know where to go and what to look for, how to look and how to listen. It provides clues about what to say, how to behave, and what to do. It reveals who might lead, who might host, and who might participate. It prepares you to anticipate stress and prioritize resources.
PeoplePlot is literally your map to focus outreach that truly transforms people and changes society. Study the most relevant Experian portraits and MissionImpact Guide commentaries. Learn where to walk and with whom to talk. Focus intercessory pray for newcomers, visitors, and strangers. Walk the streets and immerse yourselves in new cultures and different lifestyles. Ask yourselves: What does our community look like now? And what will our community look like seven years from now? Then ask each other: Who are we now? And who is God calling us to become?