Do you know what your community wants and needs?

How well do you know your community?  What gifts, strengths and wants does it have?  What services does it have or need?  Doing justice means being with people, and not providing for them or doing justice to them.  Knowing our communities means listening and supporting people as they support themselves.

You could carry out a listening exercise with people in your community, exploring their dreams, gifts and wants, for example:

• What do you like about this community? What makes it a good place to live?
• If you could change three things, what would they be?
• If you had the chance to help, what would you want to do?

You could explore some of the issues facing your community.  The Evangelism and Growth Community audit suggests some questions.

It is important to resist the temptation of leaping straight into action!  Catholic community theologians developed the model of See-Judge-Act (or See-Discern-Act) to help people to reflect critically and theologically on the realities of a situation. 

For more on using this method, see grassroots.caritas.eu/see-judge-act