National Night Out is Tuesday October 2, 2012

Do you know your neighbors? Quiet often we are so busy that we don't know who our neighbors are. However there are a number of reasons why it is good to know our neighbors. Yesterday evening I spent a couple of hours with some of my neighbors knocking all 62 doors of everyone on our street inviting them to National Night Out which is Tuesday October 2nd. It was alot of fun meeting all of our neighbors and welcoming 4 new families who have recently moved to the street.

National Night Out exists to help neighbors meet each other to help reduce crime by building community bonds. But events such as National Night Out are also an opportunity to live out our walk with God outside the walls of the church building. It is an opportunity to be a light for Jesus through our actions and attitudes right where we live. It is a chance to allow God to connect us to someone who is seeking Him.

I am a data nut and it can be seen statistically that many of us don't know our neighbors and consquently don't have much impact for Jesus Christ upon our neighbors. An analysis of guests to Sugar Grove during 2011 revealed that most of the guests attending a Sunday morning worship assembly did not live where most of the Sugar Grove members live. In other words we are not connecting with those who live around us.

Is it easy to connect with those who live around us? No. Of course not. We live in a multi culturual community that represent faiths from around the world as well as people whose 'faith' is an active belief that belief in anything is a waste of time that is causing all of the problems seen in the world today. This means that being a light for God is not simply a straight forward invitation to come to church next Sunday but a much more spirit-led effort that involves a continous devotion to being a vessel for God in all situations and all places in our life.

Do you know your neighbors?...

Are you offering yourself as a vessel to be used by God?...

Prayer Triggers

In previous posts I have mentioned how I have situations that trigger me to pray such as when I can't sleep at night and when I am riding my bicycle. Lately I have been chewing on developing objects as prayer triggers. Triggers? Something that reminds you about something like a string tied around your finger or a song you sing.

Prayer is an invitation for God to work in our world. A lack of prayer is a hand held up to God saying "Stay out, I've got this, I can do this on my own"- which is generally not a good thing. Consequently inviting God to work in and around us is very important so discovering things that promote time spent with God in prayer is good.

What if we associated things we see in every day life to prompt us to pray for specific people or situations?

The last few weeks I have been playing with this idea and have found it rather productive in my prayer life. For example every time I see a bag of sugar I am reminded to pray for a specific person who has been upon my heart for a while. The power of prayer triggers is the capture of what might have been wasted time and transforms it into a time to pray. Pushing a grocery cart down the aisle at a grocery store can be a mundane task until a bag of sugar comes into view and BAM! I am reminded to pray.

Try it out. Figure out something you will see from time to time that is associated with the person or situation that needs prayer. Then every time you see that item let it be a reminder to briefly lift that person or situation up in prayer.