Meeting Community Members (Finally)

I finally know what it’s like to have strangers slam a door in my face.

Well, okay, it only happened a few times, and it wasn’t really a slam as me getting two words out and the residents backing very quickly into their homes with, “We’re really not interested,” and a quick closing-and-locking maneuver.

This week, we finally started going out and gathering data from the community residents. We are cavassing – going around to the nearest houses to each of the three churches and polling residents on how they feel about the community and things they might like to see happen, things that maybe the churches can help proved. There are three churches, so we are doing one church per week, which will carry us (almost) till the end of the program.

Most people, I have found, would just…not answer the door. (One humorous residence had an open window near the front door, and after I knocked, both myself and my canvassing partner heard someone yell at the dogs to stop barking, yet nobody came to the door. Truly, the epitome of stealthily pretending not to be home.) Those that did answer the door were often fairly non-verbally confrontational – opening their front door only enough to allow their head/body through, giving us extreme looks of suspicion even after we explained that we weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses and were not trying to convert anyone (though I think some people still thought we were trying to convert them, and thus reacted quite hastily).

While I haven’t really gathered a whole lot of information so far, I have definitely seen some personal growth. As I keep harping on in all of these blog posts (but something that I feel is very important for my placement), I am not a religious person, and do not belong to the faith that I am representing this summer. It was very interesting seeing others’ reactions to my announcing, first and foremost, “Hi, I am from Immanuel Lutheran Church.” Some people seemed more willing to talk to us after we announced the church we were representing, but they were most definitely the minority. Often the community members heard “church” and either reluctantly talked to us or decided they wouldn’t like to speak with us.

It made me re-examine how I’ve behaved when strange people have come to my own front door, and how I’ve previously reacted when people have told me they were from a church. I often assume other people think I will convert them because that’s what I would have thought before I started this program. Now, being someone who doesn’t belong to the faith but is still representing the church has really opened my eyes and made me stop and recognize the importance in truly listening to others, and not to judge based on group membership.