Are you learning to think differently about life?

Stop racing towards the top and take a plunge with Jesus to the bottom.

Give where you live.

What if I take this stuff seriously?

Your life will probably change.

For the better.

Love your neighbour...

It's not rocket surgery!

Just bloom where you're planted.

It is folly to punish your neighbour by fire when you live next door. (Publilius Syrus)

The litmus test of our love for God is our love of neighbor. (B Manning)

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

Love your neighbour.

I want you to be concerned about your neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor? (M Theresa)

If you must love your neighbour as yourself...

... it is at least as fair to love yourself as your neighbour. (SR Nicholas)

What actually happens when you become a Christian is that you begin the process of being transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ.  Christians are not cured of all sin and imperfection, but in becoming Christians, they have clearly entered the hospital for treatment.

Forgive yourself - God already has.

No opinion is worth burning your neighbour for. (Voltaire)

What's your dream for the neighbourhood?

My neighbourhood...

How about you?

Just Serve.

We are sent into the world, like Jesus, to serve.

For this is the natural expression of our love for our neighbours.

We love.

We go.

We serve.

And in this we have (or should have) no ulterior motive.

True, the gospel lacks visibility if we merely preach it, and lacks credibility if we who preach it are interested only in souls and have no concern about the welfare of people's bodies, situations and communities.

Yet the reason for our acceptance of social responsibility is not primarily in order to give the gospel either a visibility or a credibility it would otherwise lack, but rather simple uncomplicated compassion. Love has no need to justify itself. It merely expresses itself in service whenever it sees need. (J. Stott)

I want to thank you for the profound joy I’ve had in the thought of you.

Can you truly say that about anyone in your neighbourhood?

Please say it to that person.

Imagine all the people...

Imagine if you can what your neighbourhood would be like if Christian people in it easily and routinely did the things Jesus Christ said to do.

Imagine for a moment that the people who are identified as Christ’s actually taught people in such a way that they did what Jesus said.

 Imagine that you are one of those people.

"Next to the blessed sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”

Do you believe CS Lewis (& Jesus!) when he says that?

Do you bring any joy to your neighbourhood?

Joy means that we're glad to be together.

Before someone will hear Good News, they need to experience good news from God's people. (A. McLane)

Be there for your neighbours.

Do you have any real friends in your neighbourhood?

Someone who shares life with you.

A person who accepts you as you are.

An individual you can say anything to & be anything with.

Someone you look forward to sitting down with and talking about what you’ve been up to, as well as your joys and your struggles. (J. Townsend)

Have you tried offering these to your neighbours?

God has an investment in you.

Invest in others.

Act as though the Gospel is true.

Is your neighbourhood a playbourhood?

Are ‘fun,’ 'activity' & 'health' good descriptors of your neighbourhood?

Are you willing to help make it so?!

Could this be said of you?

Jesus listened.

Jesus loved his neighbour.

Go ahead, try it.

Don't know where to start?

Why not host a 'getting to know one another' party for your neighbours?

Health happens in neighbourhoods, not in doctors' offices.

In 1974, 66 percent of all children walked or biked to school By 2000, that number had dropped to 13 percent.

Now that physical activity has been engineered out of children's lives, only a quarter of the children in California can pass a basic fitness test. Two in seven volunteers for the military cannot get in because they're not in good enough physical condition.

There aren't enough sidewalks, nearby parks, and safe places to walk, bike, or play outdoors in many communities. The design of these communities makes it harder for young people to develop autonomy—something that's as important as strength as endurance. (Dr. Richard Jackson)

Let's take the health of our neighbourhood seriously - the spiritual, emotional & physical health.

When we admit that most of us don’t really know our neighbours, we are revealing that the primary site for genuine cooperation is absent from our lives.

Build trust. 

Bring trust.

Inspire trust.

Practice trust.

Loving our neighbour is more than an abstract concept - it is a lived reality.

The Real World

What are you doing to identify the gifts, skills, passion of people in your neighbourhood or the people that you serve?

Do you love where you live?

Does God?!