When you have worked through the various conditions and factors, you will know enough about your situation to begin thinking about what you want to do. Below are a number of steps designed to help you decide how to begin fostering a greater level of Scripture engagement in your community.
1 – Evaluate hindrances to Scripture engagement in your context.
As you developed your community profile, you were probably able to identify one or more issues or problems that need to be addressed in order to improve Scripture engagement in the community. Begin by listing all of those issues or problems. Once you have listed them, identify the ones that seem to be creating the greatest hindrance to people engaging with Scripture. (this doesn’t mean that you will ignore the rest just that you will focus more on the ones that have most impact)
2 – Identify who and what is available that are available to you for addressing those hindrances.
Available ‘assets’ can include people who can help, funds that can be used, people who have special expertise you can draw on (local or outside), and how much time you have available to work on Scripture engagement.
3 – Decide which issues you listed in Step 1 you want to focus on first.
Look at the list you developed in Step 1 in light of the assets you identified in Step 2. Which items on the list do you have the capacity to address with your existing assets? Which ones will require finding additional assets, either from within or outside the community? Based on your evaluation, decide which issue(s) from Step 1 that you want to focus on first. At this stage, don’t be too concerned if you don’t know how to deal with an issue or need outside help to do it. You will find help in later steps.
4 – Identify potential strategies and resources for addressing the issues.
- What can all of you do to encourage Scripture engagement without additional resources from outside? Can someone visit each pastor and share how the Bible can be more a part of what his people are doing? Are small listening groups or Bible studies a good thing there? How about worship and praise songs that use or refer to Scripture? Many of the best Scripture engagement activities don’t require outside help, though some will require training from outside.
- In addition to the activities mentioned above, there are many outside resources that have blessed other communities and are ready to be used in your community. Go to the Resource section of the SE Guide and use the search function develop a list of training and other resources that might be helpful in addressing the issue(s) you want to work on first. If you don’t find a resource that meets your needs, please click on the button below and send us a message describing your situation and resource needs. We may know of more resources or people who can help. In addition, your needs provide ideas for new resources that someone can develop and add to the database.
5 – Narrow the list of resources to what you have the capacity to do
There may be several quick and easy improvements that will make a difference, but only one or two bigger projects that you do at once. (perhaps identify what can or should be done now, and what can be done later)
Look at the list of possible resources and activities that you developed in Step 4. Which of those resources do you have the capacity to develop for your community now? Which ones would require finding additional assets in order to develop them? Decide as a community which activities you want to work on first and the resources to call on to make those activities effective.
6 – Development of additional assets (if necessary).
If you want to develop a resource for which additional assets will be needed, produce a plan for obtaining those assets.