One of the key themes in my new book, Church Inside Out, is the need for the church to be serving the community around. To give you a flavor, here are a few quotes on the topic:

One of the ways to identify the core values of your church is to look at the things that are talked about. In a church with a healthy outward focus, the conversations are about people that are being ministered to, about service projects that are meeting needs, about lost people that are coming to the Lord. (p. 27)

Time resources. Financial resources. Leadership resources. Resources of time and space. In a healthy church, these things have an outward vision, a plan for serving and teaching the surrounding community. In the inward-focused church, resources are for the consumption of church members. (p. 28)

We’ve been selected as representatives of God here on earth. Priests. Ambassadors. Sent from the kingdom of heaven to the kingdoms of this world with a message about who God is and our need to get right with Him. Aliens and strangers, foreigners and exiles, separated from the evil things of this world, but living “among the pagans” so that our lives may serve as testimony to them. We aren’t called to cloister ourselves away in Christian colonies; we are sent out into the world as ambassadors. (p. 70)

In John 13, when Jesus is getting ready to wash His disciples’ feet, John says that Jesus knew “that he had come from God and was returning to God.” (John 13:3) Such an awareness empowered Him to perform the tasks of service He was called to perform, from washing feet to dying on a cross.
If we, as a church, can recapture the sense of having come from God and being on a return trip back to God, we will find the power to do the necessary things to promote the kingdom of God on this earth. (p. 76)

That’s why one of the first steps for turning a church inside out is to see who is in our neighborhood. To whom are we reaching out? Who are the people that need our service? Who are the people who would want to come serve with us? (p. 81)

Too often we attempt to sway the world with thunderous words, but without the lightning of a life of service, our words carry no weight. (p. 107)

As we look to our cities and towns, we shouldn’t be seeking ways to control others; we should be looking for ways to serve. (p. 110)

Where giftedness meets need, that is your calling. (p. 114)

Christians who serve others and do good deeds in their community announce good news through their actions. A presentation of the gospel is merely an explanation of what our friends and neighbors have already seen. (p. 155)