Mar 12

Written by: Wee Ventures
3/12/2008 3:20 PM

If you spend any amount of time with me, you quickly realize that I'm a person who loves my to-do list.  I love checking things off, feeling organized, and knowing what I need to do next.  Lately I've decided that rather than letting myself get totally carried away by busy-ness and task lists, I'm going to focus more on building relationships with people around me who are not connected with a church or Jesus.  That is our Great Commission, right?  Well, it turns out that God loves to partner with us when we move in this sort of direction .

My husband (Ben) and I have lived in our home in South Toledo for about 4 1/2 years.  Day after day we drive past the same people, sometimes with a wave, but often without so much as a glance.  We finally decided that something had to be done, so we threw a block party!  We barricaded the street, pulled out a grill, passed out some fliers, and about 40 people actually came!   We discovered that many of our neighbors are single-parent households, many are older individuals who can't get around well, and as far as we could tell, few have a relationship with Jesus.  We spent 4 hours eating, playing corn hole, and just connecting with one another.  By the time the barricades stopping traffic came down, it was obvious that many barricades that had been preventing relationships with one another had come down as well!  Now we have the joy of being able to put names and life stories with faces; we can dream about our next steps in connecting (my daughter, Lydia, is working on some "paintings" that we'll be delivering to single older folks on the street, and I'm even pulling out the mixer to whip up some cookies!); and we can pray specifically for people who need Jesus. 

It's easy to get wrapped up in your life, and not see the people around you who need to know about Jesus.  It's easy to assume that "mission work" takes place in third world countries.  It's easy to forget that we are supposed to start in our "Jerusalem," our neighborhood, our school, our workplace!  Each day God lays multiple opportunities to impact people right in front of us .  May we live in such a way that we take advantage of those opportunities!!!

As we prepare for the Big Push, we must obviously consider who we will invite to church, but let's also ask, whose lives can we really connect with in order to help them relate to Jesus?

- Lauren Snyder

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