Who are the People in Your Neighborhood? How Knowing Your Neighbors Will Strengthen Your Sermons
The Rev. Stacy Walker has served God in the Church and in the World as an Episcopal priest since 2006: 16 years in parish ministry and, since 2022, as a community organizer with DuPage United (a Metro IAF affiliate). She is canonically resident in the Diocese of Chicago and lives in the suburbs of Chicago. She is also a single mom to twin sons who are currently college students. Her three favorite preaching questions are:
"Ok, so what? Where's the invitation to transformation?!"
"Where's your curiosity about your neighborhood reflected in your preaching?"
"Where's your relationship and experience of Jesus in this sermon's backstory? Show us Jesus, Preacher!”
Stacy will be speaking to The Collective+ on Thursday, 10/16/25.
On an evening in June 2015, I found myself sitting in a vigil at the neighborhood Missionary Baptist Church.
This was a vigil for the victims of a mass shooting at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
I was there as the pastoral leader from the Episcopal Church.
Many of the town’s clergy were there representing their respective congregations.
As the Presbyterian pastor walked to the pulpit, I thought, “Oh, that’s what he looks like. And how ridiculous is it that I didn't know that until now!”
I realized I didn’t know my ecumenical colleagues at all.
As a result, we were not realizing the potential of relational power we could have together as clergy leaders in our town.
I felt the push of the Holy Spirit to ask for more.
After the service, I thanked our host for organizing the vigil.
And then I said, “Pastor, I don’t know you very well, and some of these other pastors I’ve never seen before tonight. And I’ve been in this town for two years! Would you be willing to help me organize all of us for lunch to start getting to know one another?”
He said, “I can’t do lunch, but I can do breakfast!”
And so began a regular gathering based on building relationships with one another.
Preachers Don’t Know who They Don’t Know
I have been active in community organizing since that time—first as a clergy volunteer leader and, for the past three years, as a full time organizer with Metro Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in the western suburbs of Chicago.
In my work, I frequently meet clergy who don’t know their neighborhood colleagues, or only know the people in their own faith traditions, or only know those in their own ideological bubbles.
They don’t know the leaders of local food pantries, transitional housing shelters, and other social services except in a transactional way: the clergy are valued for the donation they can organize or what sound bite they can give.
Most clergy are frustrated by what is going on in the world and take the time to write sermons and letters trying to address the impacts of increasing political polarization in the United States. (Preachers from other parts of the world: I suspect this is happening to some degree in your context as well.)
These sermons are not always well received.
And this can make for plenty of headaches on Monday morning.
Relationships Break Assumptions & Illuminate Connections
What if clergy took the time to build relationships in the community and in the congregation?
What happens when we take the time to get to know the people in our neighborhoods?
Our assumptions about who others are based on their outward appearance or their institution may be proved wrong!
When we listen, we very often find a common connection.
We realize we may have more in common than we suspected, even if we have vastly different ideologies on social issues.
Everyone wants their family to thrive and be well, which is very difficult in the world as it is.
In the world as it is, people are working longer hours for less pay and benefits, the cost of housing is rising and the dream of homeownership and the generational wealth owning a home can produce is increasingly out of reach.
In the world as it is, people go without food to pay the rent.
In the world as it is, some families are afraid to leave their homes because of their immigration status.
Still others struggle with mental health crises.
As preachers, we are compelled to preach a vision of the Kingdom of God—the way the world should be—where all people thrive, have enough to eat, a safe place to live, access to health care, and live without fear of being persecuted.
But how will we get there? To a world where all people thrive as God intends?
How to Meet your neighbor
A good first step for the preacher is to get out of the office and listen to the people in your neighborhood.
What holds us back isn’t a lack of faith, or curiosity, or even time.
It’s a lack of planning and accountability.
Here are some starting steps:
Have a meeting with yourself: Why are you wanting to meet others? What is your self-interest (What motivates you? What keeps you up at night?)? Why do you care about that? What’s your personal story and connection to the issue?
Make a list of 25 people you want to meet, and set a time frame in which you could meet with half as many people, as not everyone will agree to meet. These could be a mix of congregants and other leaders in the community. Generally one to two individual meetings of 30 minutes each a week is a reasonable goal.
Meet with your congregational leadership and share your priority to have 1:1 meetings in the community and why this is in the interest of your congregation: You will have a clearer picture of the challenges people are up against in your community, who your potential partners are to act with locally, and you will have experiences to include in sermons that are more relevant to your local context.
Keep notes of your meetings, themes you are noticing, and how this is helping you understand the local human condition. This will help write a clearer invitation to transformation with a relational action focus.
We Don’t Need an “Organization” to say hello
Remember preachers: Jesus didn’t have an office.
He didn’t have an institution.
He didn’t have any formal earthly power or authority, as his critics often pointed out.
What he had was an abundance of relational power.
He had this because he took the time to talk with people one to one.
He listened to their human condition.
He invited transformation. He had a following of disciples and curious crowds we call the Church.
He empowered the Church to keep pointing to the world as it could be, while having a clear understanding of the world as it is.
We need to preach, teach, and lead the Church today to bring concrete positive change in our communities.
It all starts with doing what Jesus did: Leave the building, listen to the people, build a broad base of relationships.