Go-Be-Do Weekends

One of the knocks against the Church is that we are notoriously bad at making a tangible difference in the communities where we live and worship. We do a lot of preaching, teaching, counseling, weddings, funerals, music, potlucks, etc for the insider (those that go to church). We even send people around the world to share the good news that that the God of the universe loves them so much that he sent His only Son to show them the way of life and love. However, what we don't do is a lot of important things that show and share that love with those people that Jesus says are our actual neighbors in the communities we live.

And so it's cool to know of churches who say that the value of showing God's love to our neighbor is so important that we are willing to close our doors for the weekend and go be the go be the Church by doing the work of Jesus by loving and serving our neighbor. Literally the church is closed on Saturday/Sunday and projects are set up with community organizations (old folks homes, special needs soccer leagues, soup kitchens, food pantries, home projects for the poor, etc) and people sign up and go. The play "bedside Baptist" in the morning and then go do in the afternoon.

It's really cool.

So Kelly, Sarah, Parker and I went to Oak Grove Park in Centerville and served with about 50+ other volunteers from Living Hope (the church we go to), UD student and other caring people from the community. What did we do? We played soccer with autistic and MRDD kids from the south Dayton area. They play in the TOPSoccer league that has age appropriate teams for kids with ages ranging from 4 years old to adults. We had a blast partnering one on one with Kyle and Reuben. It was fun watching Sarah and Parker love these two little boys by encouraging them on to kick the ball and run fast. Parker even helped me look for geese with Reuben because Reuben so badly wanted them to fly over our heads.

It was really cool.

So big ups to Living Hope Community Church for their "Don't go to church, Be the church" weekend. And big ups to Grace Community Church for their Weekend of Service coming up the first weekend in November. If you are pastor, church leader, or lay person who is reading this and thinking that this is really cool and maybe your church would think this is really cool, too. I wouldn't hesitate to email, call, or drop by these churches to get a blueprint for this kind of weekend.

It really makes me think of what else I could be doing to be the hands and feet of Jesus sharing his life and love in tangible ways in my community with my neighbor. I wonder what more I could be doing in my culdesac for and with my actual neighbors. I have so much more to learn (and put into practice) about loving/serving my neighbor.

So cool to go, be, and do church.