For the third summer we are gearing up for an event called, Community Makeover. This is a once a year catalyst event of churches serving their community in a variety of different ways. It is the largest event on the calendar for a non-profit that I direct called, Engage Atlanta. This non-profit was started by Pastor Brian Bloye at the request of other Pastors in our community. That’s a whole different story.
What is amazing is who the ‘We’ is participating in the Community Makeover. This year we have 80 churches in 5 Metro Atlanta counties serving together on one weekend; July 23-25. The churches are all of different size, shape, color, and denomination. It is an amazing, unifying experience that becomes a catalyst to ongoing acts of service all around the region.
I get some common questions about this:
Why? We are motivated to put a different face on Christianity in this area. People on the outside of the church often look at people inside the church as being nice (most of the time), but also as a group of stingy, closed off group of people who like to keep their own environments under control by creating a lot of rules about who gets in and who doesn’t. That would not be an accurate description of the people in most churches, but those on the outside of the church are not always willing to come find out how great a church can be because of the stigmas they have. So we go out in the community to them.
Why would a church participate in this?
I’ll give the most personally appealing answer to a church leader who asks this question first. People are added to our own congregation because we do this. We know the stories. The classes that define our path to membership bare this out in the months following the event. I now have people stop me in public (because they know I direct this crazy thing) telling me they have become part of other churches who have participated with Engage Atlanta in the Community Makeover.
We have now heard stories of people coming to Christ who had a project done at their home or who came to the Celebration Service at the end of the weekend. It just doesn’t get any better than those stories.
There is one last part to answering this question. The world is now a flat, intricately woven, social place. That includes the church. If you think what happens at the church down the road doesn’t impact how people feel about you, that is a sad mistake. For far too long churches have privately cheered and puffed up in pride when they hear that other churches are not up to their standard, or that something negative has happened. That means more people will visit your church instead of theirs right? Wrong. It probably means they are going home and will try again years or months later at best.
People on the outside of the church see us as all being on the same team from the same God. It’s time we start acting like it.
Everyone Belongs,
Paul
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