When’s the last time you sat across the table from your mayor, city council member, or school superintendent not to complain, not to lobby, but simply to listen?
Too many churches talk about “being the hands and feet of Jesus” but never step into the very community where those hands and feet belong. If the Church is going to matter in 2025 and beyond, we have to stop hiding inside our sanctuaries and start showing up in city hall, school board meetings, and local events.
And here’s the kicker: it starts by asking the right questions.
The Wrong Approach
Most pastors and church leaders walk into meetings with city officials ready to pitch. Here’s our program. Here’s our event. Here’s why you should support us.
It’s well-intentioned, but it puts us in the driver’s seat of a conversation we shouldn’t even be steering. Civic leaders don’t need more pitches. They need partners.
The Right Approach
Instead, what if we walked in with genuine curiosity? What if our posture was, “We want to hear your heartbeat for this community, and we’re here to ask how we can serve”?
That shift in posture changes everything. It says:
- We’re not here for power. We’re here for people.
- We’re not trying to use the community to grow our church. We’re trying to serve the community because we are the church.
- We’re not coming with all the answers. We’re here to listen.
Five Questions That Open Doors
If you want to build real relationships with community leaders, you need questions that unlock their vision and invite collaboration. I recently met with the leaders in my community and here are five questions that I used:
- “From your perspective, what do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges facing our city right now?”
(This honors their leadership and gives you a pulse on the community. It also shows you as a leader where the biggest needs are through the eyes of the very men and women leading the charge.) - “What are some of the priorities you’re most passionate about for the future of this community?”
(This digs beneath the job title and into the heart of the leader. You can hear their heart come through. This question helped let the guard down. The response wasn’t a cookie cutter answer but really opened the heart.) - “Where do you see gaps in community life? What are some areas where families, kids, or neighborhoods could use more support?”
(This helps you identify where the church could step up and fill a need. Remember the posture of the church isn’t to be the savior or even have all the answers. Our posture should be that of a strategic partner to help lift the arms of the community leaders to support the work they’re already doing.) - “How can local churches come alongside the city to help strengthen the community?”
(This signals you’re not just asking what’s in it for us. Instead, you’re asking what’s needed from us. This is a partnership kind of question instead of a church as hero kind of approach.) - “What would you like to see more of from civic organizations, nonprofits, or churches in town?”
(This opens the door to expectation-setting and future opportunities.)
Why This Matters
Look. Jesus didn’t sit in the synagogue waiting for people to wander in. He walked into villages, sat with community leaders, dined with tax collectors, and asked people questions. If our Lord Himself thought it was important to sit at tables of influence and listen, shouldn’t His Church do the same?
When we show up and ask good questions, walls come down. Strangers become partners. Leaders stop seeing “the church” as a disconnected institution and start seeing us as allies in the work of building a thriving community.
The Challenge
Here’s the bold truth: the Church is irrelevant in a city where leaders don’t know our names.
So go schedule that meeting. Sit down with your mayor, your school principal, your police chief. And don’t go in ready to pitch your next event. Go in ready to ask better questions.
Because the future of the Church in your community won’t be built on programs or platforms. It’ll be built on relationships. And relationships start with a question.
