How can we reach our communities if they have no idea we love them?  And how will they know we love them if we don’t work alongside them?  Here are some reasons it’s important to work with secular nonprofit agencies in our church’s communities.

It Increases Our Sphere of Influence

There is more good work being done by churches than any other group of people in the world.  But many folks outside the church don’t know that.  Because we often insulate ourselves from others as we do it.

How can we be light in the darkness when we only hang out with other candles?

Every time we partner with secular groups our influence grows.   And there are greater opportunities for Jesus to touch more lives.

It Changes Their Perception of Christians and Jesus

When a local school had to cut their budget the music program was a fatality.  A local church raised funds to support the music programs that had been so severely cut.  Several of the public school teachers we so stunned by the church’s support that they were in near tears.  When asked who they were so surprised one teacher responded, “We thought you didn’t like us.  This is the only time in my two decades of teaching that I’ve heard anything from a local church other than complaints.”  Ouch!

How can we reach our communities if they have no idea we love them?

It Bursts Our Church-World Bubble

When we break out of our bubble of preconceptions and work alongside unchurches people, we have a better chance of meeting the needs and healing the hurts that actually feeling, not just the ones we think they have or should be feeling.

Church people tend to see one set of problems, challenges, and sins.  Unchurches people often see an entirely different set.

It Shakes Up Our Comfort Zone

I like my comfort zone.  It’s comfortable.

Hanging around fellow believers is easy.  Too easy.

We might have to engage in conversations with people who express ideas we won[‘t hear in church.  And we might have to listen more than we talk.  But it’s a discomfort that can drive us to be better, more Christlike examples.

It’s Less Self-Serving

When we only partner with fellow Christians, especially when we limit it to our own church, we will never reach our full strength in serving Christ.  But when we reach to secular groups in our communities, those people get to experience Jesus’ love through us.

It is a love without an agenda.

It Stretches Our Faith

When we work with unchurches people, we often hear unchurches language and see the less-than-holy behavior.  They can ask some pretty blunt questions about our faith.  And we have to be ready to answer, listen and love them.  No matter what.

It’s humbling

Christians aren’t better people than non-Christian people.

We all need Jesus. But we don’t always express that very well.  Sometimes, in our enthusiasm to share our faith, Christians come across as…okay I’ll say it…we can be arrogant, rude, prideful know-it-alls.  Arrogance is not a Christian virtue.

Yes, we have the answer.  Its name is Jesus.

But we don’t have all the answers.

Working alongside people toward a common goal is a great way to break us of that arrogance without compromising our values.