A Church Full of Missiologists

How to Exegete Your Community (Part 1) - The Urban Loft A great article for church leaders, pastors and especially church planters. Something every clergy person needs to do: exegete their community. Do you know the community, the people and the culture you live and minister in? What do they do with their time? Where do they spend their money? What are their values and priorities? What are their dreams, hopes, desires? What do they yearn for? Do you speak their native tongue and appropriately use their colloquialisms? Do you know the streets, parks and icons of the community and the actually history of the area -- both actual and legend? Have you read a demographic report of your community or at least the census data? Clergy are more accustomed to thinking about these matters -- at least increasingly so amongst younger clergy. However, I believe lay people need to be trained to be missiologists as much as the pastors. I wonder how our VBSs or other children's outreach might look if our lay people are trained in missional thinking and exegeting their culture. What about youth ministry or small groups --- even our worship? This kind of training might prevent or diffuse many a church conflict when pastors are proposing some new fangled missional idea.