Phase 1: Congregational Assessment | Phase 2: Community Engagement | Phase 3: Making Commitments
Community engagement is a strategic process of involvement in a particular social group or geographic context (i.e., town, neighborhood, city block) with the purpose of understanding and improving the community’s well-being.
When asked what the greatest command was, Jesus said that it was to love God with every fiber of our being but that the second greatest command was of equal importance—to care for our neighbors, in the same way, we care for ourselves (Matthew 22:37). As congregations, we are called to do the same and the practices of community engagement can help.
We are called to love our neighbors. We can’t love our neighbors in meaningful and relevant ways if we don’t know them. This community engagement process will allow you to get to know, listen to, and learn from your neighbors.
the process
This community engagement process is conducted over two months and is comprised of three phases:
Phase 1 – Congregational Assessment
Phase 2 – Community Engagement
To get started sign up to join a cohort, build a team, participate in an introductory session, and begin selecting and scheduling your activities.
Form a Community Engagement Team Build a team of at least three people – one person to act as a facilitator, one to document learnings, and one to ensure that updates are regularly shared with the congregation.
Participate in an Introduction Session Teams from multiple churches will go through this process together as a cohort and participate in an introduction session to get a better feel for the vision, purpose, and process.
Select Activities and Schedule Them Each church will complete a number of key activities that all of the churches will do. There are also optional activities; your team will be invited to decide from among them which ones you’d like to do.
To learn more, contact Canon for Mission, Jason Evans at jevans@eds.org.