5 Questions to Ask as We Serve Hunger for Wholeness
Engaging Urban Affinities - Part 7
By S. Crawley
Photo by Ricky Raina on Unsplash
Cities are complex ecosystems of practical and spiritual needs.
Throughout this series, we've been exploring a four-step framework for engaging urban affinity groups in a way that aligns with what God is already doing. We've looked at starting where we are, observing social networks, and listening for hunger in our urban villages.
Now we arrive at the final step in this framework - discerning how to serve.
Discerning How to Serve Hunger for Wholeness
In the previous article, we distinguished between two types of Kingdom hunger: a general hunger for wholeness and hunger that is explicitly spiritual.
Today, we'll focus on serving that hunger for wholeness - the universal desire that people in every affinity have for those in their community to flourish.
The body of Christ has centuries of experience serving hunger for wholeness through education, healthcare, and community development. However, care is needed. It's easy for our enthusiasm and access to resources to create barriers to lasting spiritual fruit in the affinities and villages we serve.
Here are five crucial questions for us to consider:
1. Is the hunger we want to serve felt by the community and leaders?
This is fundamental.
Too often we decide what a community needs based on our outsider perspective. We see lack of literacy, economic opportunities, or healthcare and assume these are the community's priorities. But God is already at work stirring specific hungers within the community itself.
We need to ask - what are the leaders and the community hungry for? What needs do they see?
When we partner with what God is already doing - serving felt needs that people themselves articulate - we work with rather than against the current of His Spirit. The community's ownership of both the problem and solution becomes the foundation for sustainable change.
Look for convergence between what God is showing us and what the community itself is expressing as its deepest hunger.
2. Is the idea practical and sustainable with resources available to us?
Vision without capacity leads to disappointment and broken trust.
We might see tremendous potential and feel God's call to serve, but we must honestly assess what we can contribute in this season. Better to under-promise and over-deliver than the other way around.
It's true that the Holy Spirit often leads us to trust Him beyond our own resources! We need to be ready to respond to His leading with confidence in His provision. If He is not clearly leading that way, we need to be equally ready to start small.
Starting small allows us to test the waters and our discernment with "baby steps", making it easy to adjust our plans as we go (and grow). Starting small also allows us to identify those who God might be preparing to collaborate with us. These people bring gifts and resources that we don't have, and partnerships make for better contributions and stronger witness to the community.
Our ability to deliver on our promises powerfully reflects God's character to the community we are serving - we need to ensure we start things in a way that we can sustain.
3. Do we have permission and blessing from community leaders?
Jesus told His disciples to look for households that welcomed them (Lk 10:1-12).
When we enter a community, we're entering someone's "home" - a space where authority structures and leadership are already established by God (Acts 17:26-27). Working with these leaders rather than competing with them honours what God has put in place and builds bridges rather than walls.
This doesn't mean compromising our values, but it does mean being humble enough to seek permission and blessing from those God has positioned with influence in the community.
Such relationships provide protection, open doors, and demonstrate respect that reflects Jesus' own approach.
4. Does it give us a chance to connect socially?
Ideally we serve in a way that enables us (or our team) to relate socially.
We might meet practical needs from a distance (e.g. through sending funds), but serving in person allows us to understand the village better and creates space for discovering deeper hunger and opportunities to serve. Life-on-life service also exposes people to how we relate to God in daily life - our "transparent spirituality".
Either way, being personally "on the ground" is a powerful way to identify spiritual hunger in the village.
Look for ways to serve that enable genuine relationships.
5. Do we have an exit strategy?
Unless God has clearly called us to permanent commitment, we need to consider how and when our assignment will end.
As we begin to serve, we create expectations within the community we serve. A clear end point avoids creating dependencies and suspicions that we are operating with hidden agendas. We love unconditionally because God loves unconditionally. When we move on, it's important that the village understands why and does not feel betrayed or abandoned.
An exit strategy might be as simple as, "Let's try this for 12 months and then reevaluate together." Such clarity honours the community, manages expectations, and prevents burnout in our team and in us!
Starting with a clear end point in mind is a practical way to love those we are serving and points to God's love and integrity.
Laying a Foundation for Lasting Spiritual Fruit
These questions are a useful resource to help us avoid common pitfalls and align our service with God's work in the urban village.
With prayerful discernment and considering the experience of others, we can identify ways to serve hunger for wholeness that honour both God and the people He loves. That service then provides a context from which we can serve the spiritual hunger that God is stirring in the village.
We'll explore this in our next article.
Getting Practical
As you think about God's vision for your city and/or affinity group:
Which of these five questions challenges your current approach to serving your urban village the most? Why?
What hunger for wholeness have you observed in your urban village that God might be inviting you to serve? How might serving this hunger create opportunities for deeper spiritual conversations?
Who could partner with you in discerning and serving the hunger in your urban village? What steps can you take this week to begin or strengthen that collaboration?
Discipling the Urban Harvest provides practical insights and encouragement to walk with God in multiplying discipleship in an increasingly urban world - growing as children of the Father, serving the communities He has called us to, and discipling those hungry to know Him.