How are your hospitality skills?

Listening.
Including.
Inviting.
Sharing.
Loving.
Noticing.

Build a place where joy and acceptance reign over anxiety and alienation.

Here are some good ideas from the City of Edmonton...

Neighbourhood Engagement Toolkit

Ever been seen trying to run to the bathroom in your underwear early in the morning?

"I think this story illustrates what we all decide to experience when we walk into community. We all must accept that we will get caught in our underwear. The journey into community must begin with the realization that we will all be exposed, that we will all feel vulnerable, and that we will all be subjected to the raw truth about each other. There are reasons people don’t share who they really are. People tend to hide the truth about themselves because exposure would be both embarrassing and offensive…We fear telling others the truth because the truth is ugly and because rejection is likely. We hide because we believe we will be able to preserve more relationships by projecting and protecting a false image of ourselves. I get it. But in community you kind of decide, “I am going to be exposed, and I am going to see if people will still want to be friends with me, if they will still love me once they know me.”

“…All communities are formed ultimately in their underwear. Until you get to that place of exposure, shock, and acceptance you are not really community. In his book Life Together, Dietrich Bonheoffer called it the shock of disillusionment. He argued that life together is not possible until you confront and progress beyond that moment when you say, “This stinks; this is not what I signed up for, and this is not community.” In other words, we all enter into community with false expectations; the problem is we don’t know what they are. Until those false expectations about what community is and who we are as individuals within it are released, there is no chance for real community.”

“…Community is hard only because we like to hide and because we like to lie. Community is hard because we are (more than we like to admit) self-centered and arrogant…If you have no community in your life, you have no spiritual immune system. And isn’t painfully obvious when so many of Jesus’ people seem to struggle with their character, mental health, and integrity in the same way as everyone else? It is not that Jesus doesn’t make a difference; it is that the presence of Jesus often comes in the package of his people (his body), and we have tried to live more as individuals than as part of something.” (Brian Sanders)

When Dreams Meet Reality: Life in Intentional Community (by Jon Huckins)

After years of being a youth pastor, I remember the time I came home from yet another event that required endless administration, energy and resources and asked myself, “Is this what it means to be the Church? And if so, there have to be better ways to embody the supposed life-giving, relational aspects of Jesus discipleship.”

For me, church had become a place that I drove to and “performed,” not a living organism that involved sharing daily life with fellow disciples seeking participation in the Mission of God. Instead of giving life, it drained me of life. I felt disconnected, depressed and alone.

The problem was that I had gotten really good at this version of church. In fact, it was less about the structure I happened to be part of and more about my unwillingness to step faithfully into a life that called me to embody the Church every moment of everyday. When I was finally willing, I didn’t even know what it looked like to live out the Church in this way. It was a paradigm I not only hadn’t mastered, but didn’t know existed.

Despite it all, I knew I was called to something more. Something that required all of me, everyday. Something that was shared with fellow pilgrims living in the way of Jesus as Kingdom representatives in our local contexts and neighborhoods. The Good News was not simply to be preached through spoken word, but lived out in the everyday realities of life. And it could no longer be primarily about building my personal reputation, but about building a communal reputation through a leadership structure that invited all into participation.

The good news is that the Church doesn’t only take one form and I was not the only one with a yearning for a more holistic embodiment of God’s community. In fact, there are communities sprouting all over the globe that are taking seriously their communal vocation of living out the Church in their daily, local contexts. They live where they serve and serve where they live. They don’t accumulate massive numbers of people or physical resources, but they multiply through the continual development and sending of Apostolic leaders.

Life. Church. Faith. Community. Discipleship. Service. Suddenly integrated into something whole. Something beautiful that challenges, inspires and calls all of life into submission to the reign of Jesus.

My wife, daughter and I are now part of an intentional community of missional leaders who are seeking to embody the Church in fresh, yet ancient ways. As a community of faith, each year we make a covenant commitment to commune with God, open ourselves to rich community and submerge deep into our local contexts. It is not simply a dream or a theory, it is a daily reality.

Neighbors coming out to share a meal in the park. The smell of fresh produce as the community walks the streets of our local farmers market. The family that invites us into their home and says, “There is something different about you, and it is really good.” The new life of three newborn babies. Reading the Scriptures with the man living in a backstreet alley. Walking alongside persecuted refugees as they integrate into a new culture. Sending leaders across the globe to use their gifts to advance the Kingdom.

This is the life God’s community was created for and it is the life we can all choose to live. May we be a people who daily come to life as we more faithfully step into our vocation as participants on God’s Mission. May we step into this Mission rooted in faith communities that challenge, inspire and embody the dream God has for all humanity. (Jon Huckins)

When God gives a gift He wraps it in a person.

You have been gifted to your neighbourhood to help others unwrap Jesus.

And you're not the only one either. Go search for the other presents...

John 1:14
The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.

It's Family Day...

Photograph your neighbourhood.

Do it as a project with your kids & your neighbours.

I think you'll find it amazing what you notice - God is at work...

What is discipling?

Needs the Other

The one way that Christ can be seen and felt is in and through His people. Phineas Bresee

We are the letters....

Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it.

(From our friends in Adsideo, Portland)

Fulfilling the Great Commandment in 5 Easy Steps (from Carl Medearis)

Remember how Jesus summarized everything? Love God. Love your Neighbor. And basically the “loving your neighbor” part is how you know if you love God (read the book of James to have that thought reinforced). So the Great Commandment could read – You will know how much you love God by how you treat your neighbor. Yikes!

Now I happen to believe Jesus is talking about our actual neighbors. These verses have been used with every good intention in mind, but we often forget about our physical next-door-neigbors. It’s easier for me to love “my neighbors” than to actually love my neighbors. I don’t want quotes around this word – I want it to be real. Physical. Actual. So how can we do this? (By the way, if you come to my neighborhood you could go door to door and find out that I WANT to do this more than I actually am – so no high-and-mighty over-confidence here).

Here we go:

1. Know their names. Look to your right and left and across the street (or hall if you’re in a dorm or apartment) and make sure you know their names. You cannot love someone whose name you don’t know. Get first names down. Then work on the last name. Their kids’ names. Pets. Etc. Knowing their names goes a long way – you’ll be surprised. In some ways, knowing people’s names is the beginning to everything good that can come from any relationship.

2. Ask questions. Don’t be weird about this – we’re not part of the CIA. But get to know them. And you can’t know someone if you don’t ask them anything about themselves. So without interrogating them, simply ask things that they’d want to talk about anyway. Everyone loves to talk about their kids. So ask about them. What do they do for a living. Their hobbies. These are the easy, low-risk conversations you can have now.

3. Do something practical to help them out. When you’re mowing your hard “accidentally” mow theirs too. Or shoveling your sidewalk – go ahead and remove their snow too. Help build something with them when you see them outside. Cook something for them. Cookies. Soup. Take it to them. Don’t ask. Just do it.

4. This is a big one – make up a reason to have a party. A gathering. And invite a bunch of them (or just one family) over for a barbecue. Lunch. Dinner. Something with food. Nothing all big and spiritual. Just hang out with them. Think about how many times your neighbors have invited YOU over for a meal. Probably zero! So don’t let make you think they don’t want to – they do. But they’re shy like you are. Get over it and invite them.

5. All of us talk about what’s most important to us. For Chris and I, it’s our friendship with Jesus. We think he’s awesome. There’s no way we wouldn’t talk about him. There’s no agenda to this – we just love him. No sales pitch needed. No Spiritual Laws to be explained. Nothing to sign up for. Just a quick and simple prayer before the meal maybe. Something like “Hey, let’s just thank God for this great food and good friends – so…Thanks God.”

Like most good things in life, this is not rocket science. It’s quite simple. But it’s easy for us to miss the most simple, yet profoundly helpful things in life if we never step out and take the slightest of risks. Go for it. Do it. Today. It’s fun. Helpful. Produces hope and good will. And, oh yeah…it summarizes all of the commandments. (Carl Medearis)

yes dear...

Kind hearts are the garden.
Kind thoughts are the root.
Kind words are the blossoms.
Kind deeds are the fruit.

A gentle reminder...