Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

This past weekend I listened to a panel discussion on Community Schools. These are schools intended to be community centers, offering education, of course, but also services for children and adults, such as programs promoting health. These initiatives are sponsored and supported by local businesses, community organizations, and parents. These partnerships are helping the schools do more than they ever could on their own.

With limited financial resources and staff, most churches aren’t particularly well equipped to offer the services their communities need. Which is why establishing partnerships within the community is something that more churches should consider.

Churches have space to offer, as well as a network of volunteers motivated to do good work, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. The church can help coordinate and connect people; it can be a community center that offers not just liturgies and prayers but help for the physical and social needs of the community. But most can’t do this on their own. Even Trinity Wall Street, which has more resources that most churches, regularly partners with other organizations and individuals to implement change.

To do this well requires listening and getting to know the real needs of the neighborhood. My church, St. Lydia’s, has entered a period of listening, in which members will be speaking with community members—restaurant owners and baristas and social workers and even people we meet on the street—to better understand what issues the neighborhood faces, what its strengths are and in what areas community members need the most help.

We all know that many churches are financially strapped or may not have the expertise to implement programs that offer health services or support teachers. This doesn’t have to keep the church from doing this work. Partnerships with those with the resources or knowledge are not only a way to better use the churches existing assets, they can be a way of rooting the church the community, and doing the work we are called to do.