media salt

The second half of my job title, at The Chapel, is “Community Engagement.”

Usually, I just tell folks it’s “external communication,” or “marketing.” Those are correct to an extent, but I’m starting to realize more and more how much disservice I’m giving “Engagement.”

I just started reading an awesome book, by Mel Lawrenz of Elmbrook Church (Brookfield, WI), titled Whole Church: Leading from Fragmentation to Engagement. It’s really opening my eyes up to new things including the whole notion of “engagement.” There will definitely be more posts that come out of my reading.

“Engagement” Defined

According to Lawrenz,

Engagement is bringing together God’s supply and human need.  It is the “bringing together” that is the transformational process for individuals and for a local church because it is extraordinarily easy for us to say we believe in divine supply and human need, but then in our ministry to fail to bring together the supply and the need.

Four Areas of “Engagement”

Throughout the book, Lawrenz discusses four areas of engagement.  These are just as important for creatives as they are other church leadership.

1.  Engage with God.

That’s what people need.  That’s what they want.  That’s what God has called us to do.  A hundred years from now, nobody is going to care who had the biggest church or the most-quoted catchphrase.  What will matter is whether we engaged with God.

2.  Engage with each other.

A church can be and must be a movement of people coming together, living the shared life, finding grace in the other.

3.  Engage with community.

We release [our people] into the great mission.  In the world, but not of the world.  The community of Christ infiltrating the surrounding community.

4.  Engage with the world.

But we don’t need plane tickets to be world Christians.  Our vision of the great mission is only as limited as our spiritual imaginations.  When we tell stories (and tell them well), our people will thank us for transporting them to a higher place where nations are not distinguished by crayon colors as they are on a map.  People will thank us for giving them an authentic sense of purpose.

As creatives, communicators, and techs, what tools are we creating to help our congregations “engage” with God, each other, their communities, and the world?  How are we contributing to the “story?”