It doesn’t have to be a huge carnival. It doesn’t have to be a musical that takes months to prepare and dozens of volunteers. It doesn’t need a whole lot of money to make it happen. I’m talking about showing God’s love by blessing your community.
Churches have an amazing opportunity to touch people with the love of Jesus by doing good and performing random acts of kindness in their community. When they do this on a consistent basis, it builds bridges with those who received the gift and creates a reputation that the church is a positive force in the community.
Steve Sjogren has been leading the way on the conspiracy of kindness since the mid-’90s. His work on loving your neighbour by giving them a no-strings gift has resulted in millions of people following Jesus. A simple can of coke or box of donuts has often been the open door to a spiritual journey that has resulted in the salvation of souls and the changing of eternal destinies.
Churches who adopt a posture of blessing their community will sow seeds of God’s love and lower presuppositions that people have towards church and the Gospel. If we can adopt a “pop up” approach to blessing our community, we will see the fruits of this activity as the church gains increasing favour with the people in spite of their beliefs.
Here’s how a church can do “Pop Up Blessings”
Set a goal. How many people will you touch with the love of Jesus this quarter? I recommend a church plans to bless as many people as attend their church. So if you’re a church of 40, you bless 40. If you’re a church of 1,000, you bless a thousand. If you do this every 3 months, you’ll have blessed 4x as many people as attend your church in the course of a year.
Use your community connections to discover opportunities to bless people. Forming relationships with your local school, neighbourhood association, or adopting a block around your church will help you engage with other community advocates to discover needs. It may be a pre-school needing slippers, or a homeless agency needing warm clothes. Whatever the connection is, your church can be an answer.
Utilize 4-6 volunteers. Pop up blessing shouldn’t be volunteer heavy. Keep the team small and utilize your small groups, youth groups, and kids’ ministry to bless your community. Four people can shovel driveways for seniors. Four people can give out free pumpkin pies to 3 dozen homes. Four people can set up a Tim Horton’s appreciation for teachers. The fewer people you use, the more blessings you can give.
Keep each blessing in the 0-50$ range. It shouldn’t cost you a lot to bless your community. In some cases, you may need to ask for donations from your congregation or even ask a few members to sponsor some of these outreaches. If you can keep the cost low, you can do more. Consistency and quantity is the key here.
Make sure each blessing communicates 2 things. Whether you put a tag on the box of cookies, a label on the bottle of water, or a banner, or thank you card, each gift you give should clearly communicate 2 things:
God Loves You. It’s important to include this message so that this gift automatically draws a spiritual connotation. We are giving this gift in the name of God who loves you. This will move a mere physical gift into a whole other realm.
The Name of Your Church. Let people know the name of your church and website. This gift you are giving has been donated from the good people of your congregation so let people know.
Take pictures and post on social media. Whenever you bless the community, take a picture and post it on social media to your own church page and other community group pages. You can say, “so excited to have handed out 30 dozen cookies to our community today, we love __(community name)___” and show a picture of the cookies. When you do this, you make it known to the community that you are for them and that you are here to do good and bless the community. Some may say that’s braggadocios but I say it’s spreading hope.
Pop up blessings don’t often result in deep spiritual conversations and the opportunity to lead someone to Jesus right on the spot. Instead, they build connections from your church to the community; they lower an aversion or presupposition that someone may have towards the church or the Gospel. And, they sow a seed, a gentle reminder to the recipient that “God loves you and has not forgotten about you”. This, my friend, is where the miracle of the drawing of the Holy Spirit takes effect, and little by little, a life is transformed.
So what about you, how many people will your church touch with the love of Jesus in the next three months? Let’s get to it. Here are some links to ideas to bless your community.
Jeremiah works as an Effectiveness Coach with the ABNWT District of the PAOC. He is a passionate and creative leader who believes that the church is the hope of the world. He uses collaboration, innovation, and inspiration to challenge churches and their leadership to engage in the only mission Jesus ever sent his church on: making disciples.