This last month or so our church has been working through a series titled Outflow, based on the book Outflow by Steve Soujorn. Throughout the book we have been challenged to reach out and love our family, friends, neighbors and community as Jesus would have. Jesus showed love in such practical ways. There wasn’t some huge mission trip planned 3 months in advance, it was practical love in peoples daily lives. He met people where they are at.
So in this light we gathered together in small groups and planned a day to go out into our community to serve with random acts of kindness. Our group was involved in two projects.
Last saturday we did a cart run at our local Fry’s grocery store. Not just any grocery store, one of the busiest Fry’s stores in the state, and the main grocery store in town. We spent a good hour fetching carts and just helping people in the parking lot. It was actually really cool. I think the people most effected by our random, small, easy unorganized project was probably the young kids on their cart run. They were shocked anyone would help them. So that was cool.
On Sunday, we closed down church to serve in our community. Yep, if you showed up on sunday you would have found no services, but serving. We had about 6 groups out in the community serving. From cleaning up an empty lot, to taking fully cooked meals to families in need, to painting for the school. Our group held a 100% free (no donations accepted) car wash. We had some great conversations, and met some great people. While our turn out was a little low, we had a great time, and I believe people were shocked, and appreciative of a such an odd thing to do.
here is the action:
while I think Jesus may have done some deeper work, im pretty proud of the random acts we participated in. I hope we can continue to share this love with our community, and really meet the people where they are at in their lives.