This is a blog series based on The Five Congregational Personality Types. I’ll briefly describe each of the five types and the potential dark side. If you want to go deeper with each one, order the book here, and get registered for the free webinar coming up on Thursday May 2nd, 12pm EST. The image generated above comes from the personality assessment for St Marks UMC in Ocala, FL. All webinar participants will be given access to the assessment for free!
II. Outreach Centered
“Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’”
Matthew 25: 34-36
The outreach centered congregation lives to serve its community. Their central value is service (διακονέω) meaning embodying the good news in word and deed. A major personality trait of this congregation is extroversion. Their heart beats to connect with new people and build relationships. Loving and serving neighbors is a primary way this flows from heart to hands.
These people truly understand Jesus’ maxim to be “a servant of all” (Mark 9:35). The idea of serving others is the raison d’être of these congregations. But service is not only about deeds of servanthood. It includes evangelism, social justice, and overall engagement with the larger community. Outreach is a way to embody the “good news” of Jesus Christ. It emphasizes not only the words we speak, but the actions that accompany those words. Outreach congregations know in their bones that “talk is cheap” and that we cannot merely be “hearers of the word only, but doers also” (James 1:22).
It’s a wholistic way to think about the nature and mission of the church, understanding that people can’t hear the truth of Jesus if their stomachs are growling. They can’t see a peaceable kingdom when all they see around them is a neighborhood experiencing racial inequality and systemic oppression. Outreach centered congregations “practice what they preach” and “walk the talk” so to speak. Outreach congregations can emphasize that “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27).
People who join our congregation say things like, I love this church because, “it exists for the community,” “believes in social justice,” “loves everyone no matter what.” These are the heart expressions of an outreach congregation. There is an expectation that the real stuff of being a Christian will include social compassion in some capacity. “No pew potatoes” is a common cliché we throw around. Everything, from the worship to the committees, to the vision and values, is oriented towards preparing people to serve in outreach.
The Dark Side of Outreach-Centered Congregations
People can do outreach for the wrong reasons. One recurrent theme is the phenomenon of burnout. People begin to serve not as an expression of love but become motivated by resentment. They do their work from a sense of religious duty, rather than with a joyful heart. Compassion fatigue is a real thing, and in an outreach congregation we must be ever mindful of it. When we are serving out of a place of fear, guilt, or resentment our spiritual life is burning on the wrong fuel. We can’t create anything good using bad tools. If we blaze new trails using resentment and self-righteousness, those paths will be crooked for the generations who follow behind us.
The outreach centered congregation runs the risk of becoming a community of busybodies. Perhaps we run around doing lots of good things, but we get stuck in a routine in which our motivation goes astray. It becomes a hollow form of works-based religion with no real relationship with God or even each other. Congregations like this are in danger of burnout. First, we are running on fumes, and then we are out of gas. Like the church at Ephesus, we lose our first love, and unhealthy people hungry for power can cause a lot of damage.
This kind of a culture is vulnerable for opportunists. Outreach congregations often function in a team-based way. The expectation is that everyone will chip in and do their part. Outreach opportunities are lifted from the pulpit and featured at fellowship gatherings. Everyone is expected to get up off their “blessed assurance.” People who are attracted to this kind of a culture are often action-oriented folks who love to engage in service to others. But when taken to extremes this can lead to a lack of boundaries. The pastor who is “always on” is trying to model that behavior for the congregation, but people have limits.
When a group is stretched to capacity, we can hurriedly rush people into positions they are not ready for. This can lead to their own harm. Any individual with shining eyes who comes along is encouraged to jump in and get to work, partially because the rest of the group is worn out. But if we don’t balance this with quality time, being together in a non-action-oriented way, we create superficial bonds overly focused on tasks. Doing tasks together is a short-cut to community building. Nothing can bond people together more quickly than sharing in some creative activity or common mission. Yet we need to work harder to make relationships more than that.
In that kind of culture, people can become disposable. We rally people to take the next hill, launch the next ministry, or start the next initiative, but what happens when they lose their energy for the work? Do they become disposable? Do we move to the next warm body with a pulse? Unfortunately, this can be the case in an outreach centered congregation. But people are not disposable.
Outreach congregations must remember the mission is not the mission. Relationships are the mission. It’s the community we build with each other that’s more important than the task in front of us. And it’s our relationship with God that is the absolute center of it all. We can get so busy working for God, that we forget to walk with God.
It’s very important for outreach congregations to remember that faithfulness precedes fruitfulness. Perhaps we are more oriented to action, but spending time with Jesus is even more important for this group. He is the vine; we are the branches (John 15:5). Our role to bear lasting fruit is not about effort and action, but “abiding” in Jesus, and letting Jesus abide in us. This means our doing should flow from our being, not the other way around.
We need to build discipleship systems that encourage practices of stillness, meditation, prayer, and study of Scripture. We can then seek to find a balance between our works of piety, the internal things we do to abide in Christ and love God, and our works of justice and mercy, the things we do to love our neighbors.
If you want to learn more, register for the upcoming webinar here.