When the Doors are Closed

Last week, a number of Elders and Deacons from our church walked through the neighborhood surrounding the church in order to invite people to join us for Family Night Dinner and our Worship Services.  We did this for two reasons.  First, we wanted people in our neighborhood to know that they were welcome to join us.  Second, we wanted to learn about the people in our neighborhood, so that we can more effectively reach our community.

Many of our experiences were pleasant as we walked through the neighborhood.  More than a few people seemed to genuinely appreciate the invitation.  Some, however, were less than enthused about being visited by people from the church.  One of the things we learned during our walk was that sometimes people shut the doors.  Sometimes they literally shut the door after explaining they are not interested, and sometimes they patiently wait and listen to the invitation before politely excusing themselves without any response.

As our church tries to become more involved in the life of our neighborhood, we are going to have to learn how to discover the open doors that we can walk through, and the doors that are closed.

During the past year, leaders in our church have been trying to partner with one of the local public schools to begin a mentoring program through the national office of Kid's Hope USA.  This mentoring (or tutoring) program creates a partnership between a church and a local public school, so that  individuals from the church who have been screened and trained, can be matched in a one-on-one relationship with a student from the local school.  Mentors are asked to go to the school once a week, and spend an hour tutoring the students they have been matched with.

The leaders of our church had high hopes that this program would be one way that we could reach into our community.  In the last couple of weeks, however, we were told that the local schools are not currently interested in pursuing this kind of mentoring program.  It seems as though, at least for now, we have run into a door that has been closed.

This does not mean that we are done knocking on doors.  Even though this door has been closed, we are hopeful that other doors will be opened so that we can build a stronger relationship with our local neighborhood.