Most pastors know a lot about their community that turns out, on closer examination, to be assumptions.
We assume what the young families in the neighborhood are struggling with. We assume what the older residents are worried about. We assume why the new folks moved here, what the longtime folks feel is changing, and what the teenagers think about the church two blocks from their high school. Some of our assumptions are right. A surprising number are not. The only way to find out which is which is to ask.
The Quiet Discipline of Asking
Asking is a discipline because it requires restraint. The pastor’s instinct is to offer. To explain. To suggest. Asking means holding all of that back and making space for another person to tell you something you do not already know. It is harder than it sounds, and it is more valuable than almost anything else you can do to know your community.
The good news is that you do not need a survey, a focus group, or a formal process. You need a handful of open-ended questions you can drop into ordinary conversations with neighbors, with visitors, with people you meet at the coffee shop or on the sidewalk. The questions are the tool. The conversations are the practice.
Six Questions Worth Asking
These are not magic words. They are simply open enough to invite a real answer and natural enough to ask without sounding like you are running a study.
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What do you love about living here? This is the best opener. It tells you what your neighbors value about the place, in their own words.
- What has changed the most in this community in the last few years? The longtime residents will tell you things the data never will. The newer residents will tell you why they moved here, which is almost as valuable.
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What is the hardest part of living here right now? Asked gently, this question opens doors. People often have something they have been carrying and will share it with someone who seems genuinely interested.
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Where do you find community? This question reveals where the real belonging happens in your town. Sometimes the answer is the church down the street. Sometimes it is the bowling league. Sometimes the person has not found it yet and is hungry for it.
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What do you wish more people here understood? This question gets at the frustrations and hopes that do not usually come up in casual conversation.
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Is there anything you think this town needs that it does not have? Sometimes this produces gold. Sometimes a shrug. Either is useful.
How to Actually Use Them
You are not going to ask all six in one conversation. You are going to carry them in your mind and let one or two surface when the moment is right. A conversation with a neighbor while you are both waiting at the school pickup line. A chat with the owner of a local business. A longer visit with a church member who has lived here for 50 years. Any of these is a setting where one well-placed question can change what you understand about your community.
After each conversation, jot down what you heard. Not word-for-word, just the patterns. Over three months of this practice, you will have a much more accurate picture of your community than any assumption could ever give you.
Why This Is Pastoral Work
Asking is not research. It is love. The neighbor who feels genuinely heard by a pastor, even in a 10-minute conversation at the grocery store, experiences something they rarely experience elsewhere. The listening is itself a gift. What you learn from the listening becomes the material out of which real ministry is built.
Churches that build a culture of asking, not just in the pastor’s practice but across the congregation, begin to know their community in a way that most churches never do.
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Dr. Tracee J. Swank guides Kingdom-minded leaders, churches, and entrepreneurs to clarify their purpose, reimagine mission, and multiply hope—so they can lead entrepreneurial movements that transform communities and advance the Great Commission.