out we go

while at our national convention, we heard a great message from Reggie McNeal entitled, "Refuge or Mission: your choice."

i was excited to hear this message because i had been telling our church for the past two years that we needed to adopt more a mission philosophy than a church philosophy, especially in our neighborhood. just north of us a few blocks is the historic distric, and historically there are good folks there who are connected with churches. but the other three sides of us are declining neighborhoods filled with folks who are either on their way down into trouble or trying dig their way out of being in trouble, starting over for one reason or another. there are also several seniors that have always lived in that area. we also sit right on u.s. 31 (the picture looks south down 31), so we get a lot of folks who are drifting, homeless, broken down looking for help, etc.

i had previously led our congregation members away from Wednesday Night Bible study to engage our community in serving them. (actually, only a few went as i delegated off Bible study to our prayer pastor, and most just stayed in the sanctuary) we went out to the parks where children were playing and people walking to offer cold water and look for opportunities for conversation. we went to neighbors houses in the fall and raked leaves. on one occassion, we introduced ourselves and made the offer to a family that couldn't figure out where that church was--when we told them to look out their back window, they weren't the only ones embarassed

we went into fall, where central time loses an hour of daylight so that its getting dark by 6:00 p.m. (no one in Alabama is excited about opening their door to strange people on the porch with rakes after dark) so we were going to look at other days and times -- but then we faced a lot of inner turmoil that led to us pulling in the reigns

but earlier this year, we again cast the vision for getting back into the community, engaging our neighbors. we had planned to get back out on July 3 (but the holiday weekend along with my extended absence prevented that). So, July 10--but then this little hurricane named Dennis charged through the state. next week...

instead of going out, we showed the DVD of McNeal's message to help drive home the point of why we were going out again. here are some of the quotes that stand out after listening a second time:
"i'm not here to help you do church better, because most of what we're doing is not going to matter. tweakin' this sucker is not gonna get it done"
"God takes attendance by asking, 'who's missing?' and there are a whole lot of somebody's missing--whole generations missing from our churches"
"just bless people--you're more likely to see people open up through blessing them than trying to convict them"

the response was very positive. so, what are we going to do?

after our Sunday night prayer time, we're going into our neighborhoods just to introduce ourselves and offer to serve or pray for folks. we are having some 4x6 cards printed that help explain who we are and the 'no strings attached' offer to serve. the top of the card will have a magnetic strip so they can keep it and our contact information on their fridge. the bottom portion is a detachable postage paid postcard that they can respond to our offer with. some groups could use these same cards while handing out water at a park, or sharing with a neighbor

we intentionally want to go out with these cards on Sundays or Wednesdays because we're more likely to run into people not attached to a church

what we're offering: primarily elbow grease for projects like these...
indoor/outdoor painting
indoor/outdoor cleaning
working on lawns/flowers
other

we're also offering to pray for needs. as we go out, we will be training our folks in a prayer strategy that Kurt Salierno teaches to open doors for spiritual conversations. we will also follow-up on each request regularly

we may have only 1-2 families take us up on the offers -- but the biggest task will be quick follow-up to each response. we'll be ready for helping with what we can right away. but mobilizing our folks to give up time during their week or weekend to meet the needs is the more likely scenario. but that type of love in action could be the difference for someone who's been skeptical, alone, or crying out to God for anyone to help

its not much, but its steppin' outside the four walls (and i think that's where we'll find Jesus at work)