Halloween is a great opportunity...

To meet your neighbours.

To work together for the greater good of the neighborhood.

To be kind to others.

Become a living tract...

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Are you willing to notice unnoticed neighbours?

Matthew 10
Don't begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don't try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously.

Don't think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don't need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.

Life in the neighbourhood...

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

It's Your Kid Not a Gerbil

I love this book idea!

"Do activities rule your family?

Do you have a superkid - or a super-stressed kid?

Does your busyness keep you from leaving the indelible imprint you long to have on your child's life?

Does next week's schedule leave you exhausted at the mere thought of it?

Most kids today can text faster than a woodpecker with ADHD. But do they have the relational skills that will bring with satisfaction and fulfillment in life?"

It's no wonder so many families struggle with the idea of Living Local & investing in their neighbourhoods.

We tend to be preoccupied with ourselves and we feel overwhelmed when others threaten to occupy our space & time.

Neighbourhood hospitality helps create spaces & places where strangers can become our friends.

John 1:14
The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.

Don't name your baby, "Mars Hill."

Does God really care what you call your church?

Whose church is it anyways?

Aren't all the churches in the NT identified geographically, such as a city or neighbourhood?

The Church is the largest company in Edmonton.

It is the only group that has everything it needs to change a neighbourhood from the inside out.

Does God have an opinion of where we live?

Til in the garden where he put you.

Build together in the neigbourhood...

How you do life is your real & final truth.

God is already arranging the building blocks...

Is someone showing you how to grow old with grace?

Some of the examples pop culture chooses scream out the wrong way to do it.

Maybe the right example lives next door to you, or just down the street.

Find life in your neighbourhood...