Name a church “Child Church”?: Context 4

 Would you name a church, “Child Church”??    Depends on your context.

The context of a church’s ministry/mission can be delineated into two categories:

1.  Immediate: The local community in which a particular congregation exists. 
2. Larger:  The wider influences in which a congregation exists, like time in history, region, country, etc.

We’ve looked at larger context the last few weeks, now we turn to immediate context:

• Demographic trends (age, ethnicity, etc)
• Life style and psychographic trends (will unpack that in later blog)
• Pressing needs and challenges that exist
• Other organizations, particularly those addressing the needs and challenges.

Today, I’m going to focus on “pressing needs and challenges.”  These would be the unique issues present in one’s community.  These can be obvious and glaring, or hidden and hard to see.  Determining how many children at the local elementary school are on the free lunch plan could be an example at how to see the hidden need.   Some issues scream for attention, others simply whisper.

In Mark 5 Jesus encountered both.  Jairus, ruler of the synagogue, had no problem making his need known in a clear, public way (not quite a scream). His daughter was dying, would Jesus come and heal her?  The woman with a 12 year bleeding condition whispered her need; she simply touched the hem of Jesus’ clothes, hoping for a quiet and anonymous healing.  Both these individuals pointed to a very real challenge in the First Century context that Jesus encountered, finding relief for physical illness in a time before medicine.  As the story goes, Jesus stopped after the woman touched his cloak, and drew attention to her and her faith in his ability to heal.  He enabled the whisper to be heard by all.

As we live out being the body of Christ in the world, we often follow Jesus’ example of drawing attention to the whispers and screams of human suffering and need in our immediate and wider context.

This Saturday, my family and I will be boarding a plane for Uganda, along with 3 other families and 1 college students, to build a classroom in a village for AIDS/war orphans.  I am intrigued to see the church behind this ministry up close and personal.  They have been a congregation that has claimed as their main purpose caring for orphans and widows in Uganda. 

Theirs would be a country that has many pressing needs and challenges that scream for attention, yet they have focused their energy around this one need.  So much so, that they have recently changed their name from Kampala Pentecostal Church to Watoto Church.  (“Watoto” is the name they chose for the ministry arm of the church with orphans, and means “child” in Swahili.”)  I’m not sure what I think of naming a church “Child Church,” but I do admire their focus in reading their context well, and focusing their energy on one thing they discern that God is doing in their immediate context–caring for the orphan and widow.  

In their part of the world this need screams for attention, but they also are playing a role in helping those of us on the other side of the world hear the whisper.  Perhaps that’s also part of how the church participates in what God is doing in the world—-like Jesus— helping the whispers be heard.

What are the pressing needs and challenges in your church’s immediate context?  What are the screams and the whispers?