Dive into Community Engagement | Wednesday Feb 7, 2024
Dive into Community Engagement | Wednesday Feb 7, 2024
Deepen your relationship with God
and unleash the power of the Gospel to transform our wider community.
Your engagement is the key to making this mission a reality.
Outline:
Part 1 | Why is Community Engagement Important?
1. Opportunities to Use your Gifts of Service, Mercy, and Giving
2. Serving the Community in the Bible
3. Build Relationships to Share the Gospel
4. Opportunities of Fellowship and Discipleship
Part 2 | Biblical Wisdom in Helping
1. When Helping Hurts
2. Help Those in Need
3. Not the Lazy
4. Levels of Priority
1. Family
2. Church Family
3. Other Churches
4. Non-Christians
Prayer Opportunity – Saturday Feb 10, 9am
3305 Drake Circle, Raleigh NC 27607
Wakelon Elementary | Team Leads
• Prayer Support – Pastor Josh Engen
• Tasks involve the flagpole and addressing teacher/staff requests.
• School Supply Drive – Gail Barker
• Aims to collect school supplies for classrooms based on lists for each grade.
• Lunch Duty – Dickey Bryant and Jean Creech
• Seeks volunteers to cover lunch shifts, allowing teachers to enjoy a duty-free lunch period.
• Teacher Appreciation – Linda Bryant and Pam Sparks
• Focus areas encompass snacks, breakfasts, lunches, and notes of encouragement targeting Fridays.
• School Beautification - Linda Bryant
• Responsibilities include the running track and school entrance.
• Care Packages - Linda Bryant
o Involves preparing gifts for students before breaks and summer, such as books, snacks, markers, and puzzles, tailored to age-appropriate packs as designated by staff.
Full Notes:
Part 1 | Why is Community Engagement Important?
1. Opportunities to Use your Gifts of Service, Mercy, and Giving
Service/Helps - Those with the gift of service/helps recognize practical needs in the body and joyfully give assistance to meeting those needs. Christians with this gift do not mind working behind the scenes (1 Cor. 12:28; Rom. 12:7).
Mercy - Cheerful acts of compassion characterize those with the gift of mercy. Persons with this gift aid the body by empathizing with hurting members. They keep the body healthy and unified by keeping others aware of the needs within the church (Rom. 12:8).
Giving - Members with the gift of giving give freely and joyfully to the work and mission of the body. Cheerfulness and liberality are characteristics of individuals with this gift (Rom. 12:8).
2. Serving the Community in the Bible
While the major emphasis in the bible is on serving fellow believers in our church family, there is also biblical warrant for helping non-Christians as well.
Perhaps the service they rendered to all helps explain why Acts 2:47 says the early church was “enjoying the favor of all the people.”[1]
Acts 2:45-47 Acts 2:45 They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. Acts 2:46 Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, Acts 2:47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
The idea of service is also implicit in the image Christ applied to his followers, who are to be “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” (Matt. 5:13–14[2]
Matt 5:13-16 Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. Matthew 5:15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
Caring for the poor has a long heritage in the church. Paul testifies that he was eager to do so (Gal. 2:10)[3]
Gal 2:10 They asked only that we would remember the poor, which I had made every effort to do.
Gal 6:10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.
While the result of service may be an openness to the gospel,88 and while we may and should give the highest priority to giving the greatest gift (the gospel), still service is legitimate in its own right, as an expression of Christ’s love, and should be offered unconditionally. Pastor Andy Davis says, “every healthy congregation must be involved in mercy ministry, both inside and outside the church[4]
3. Build Relationships to Share the Gospel
4. Opportunities of Fellowship and Discipleship
Part 2 | Biblical Wisdom in Helping
1. When Helping Hurts
Finally, a point of special importance for resource-rich North American churches is learning how to serve others, locally and globally, in ways that truly help, without merely treating symptoms or creating unhealthy financial dependence[5]
How helping hurts - The authors do a fantastic job of appropriately directing this zeal by providing insight on how good intentions can actually make matters worse for those in poverty. (Think of thoughtlessly wrapping a wound with unsanitary bandages.)
What kind of relief is needed? We have to understand the situation first and work with the poor, not for them (111).
Also, instead of primarily assessing what the poor need, we should note what resources God has already blessed them with that can be used to help (126).
What should our attitudes be in helping? Humility is essential. We are all broken (79). We must avoid communicating, however unintentionally, that those helping are superior, which adds to the feelings of shame and inferiority. Many in poverty are plagued by such feelings (65). In other words, it’s not just physical resources they need (53).
1. Those in Need
Jas 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
2. Not the Lazy
2 Thess 3:10-12 2Thessalonians 3:10 In fact, when we were with you, this is what we commanded you: “If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.” 2Thessalonians 3:11 For we hear that there are some among you who are idle. They are not busy but busybodies. 2Thessalonians 3:12 Now we command and exhort such people by the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and provide for themselves
3. Levels of priority[6]
1. Family
1 Tim 5:8-9 1Timothy 5:8 But if anyone does not provide for his own family, especially for his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
2. Church Family
In the next circle we have members of our church community. The principle is really the same: just as we have an obligation to provide for our natural family, so we ought to provide for our spiritual family. The New Testament frequently enjoins us—by example and by explicit command and warning—to care for the needs of the Christians in our local churches (Acts 2:45; 4:32-37; 6:1-6; James 2:15-17; 1 John 3:16-17).
Gal 5:13 For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.
1 John 3:16-18 1John 3:16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 1John 3:17 If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? 1John 3:18 Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.
So in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 Paul clearly wants the Christians in Achaia to generously support the Christians in Macedonia, but he is stops short of laying down a command (8:8) or exacting a contribution from them (9:5).
4. Non-Christians
[1] John S. Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019), 282.
[2] John S. Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019), 282.
[3] John S. Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019), 283.
88 For one example of how bridges of service can lead unbelievers into the church, see Robert Lewis with Rob Wilkins, The Church of Irresistible Influence (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001).
[4] John S. Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019), 285.
[5] John S. Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019), 285.
[6] (https://www.9marks.org/article/journalhow-should-we-think-about-our-obligation-help-poor/)
