Hi Everyone!
Our birthday celebration is just around the corner! This Saturday (10/25) from 10-1, we will be out in the neighborhood surrounding Mellette Elementary building relationships, and serving our community with some fall clean-up! Saturday also happens to be “Make a difference” day and we hope to do just that! Here are the details;
-Meet at the Yoders (210 5th Ave NW, just south of Mellette) at 10:00am. On Sunday, it was announced to meet at the school, but this has changed.
-Bring with you;
-Gloves
-Leaf rakes
-Extra leaf bags you may have laying around (we will have some ready for you too)
-Maybe a small hand saw or lopper and the like if you have one
-A smile!
The whole family is welcome and encouraged to come. We will be going out in groups of 5-6 people and hoping to connect with 60 households.
The first and most important thing we are doing in this is to connect and build relationships with our neighbors near where we worship. Not every door we knock on will be home, or will want to chat and that is ok, but know that our goal is more in the relationship area than it is the “neighborhood clean-up” area.
That said, we will be armed with leaf bags, rakes, gloves, and woman/man-power so we will ask if they have any fall clean-up projects we can help them tackle. Things we may encounter might be; raking leaves, cleaning windows, trimming bushes/small trees, moving things around in garage or shed to access for winter, etc. There is a possibility they may ask about cleaning gutters and higher elevation jobs like that. We don’t plan to carry ladders with us, but IF they have a safe ladder, and IF you have a person(s) in your group willing/able to do that, go for it. If not, or if for any reason you don’t feel comfortable, equipped, or safe helping with a specific job, please feel free to politely decline! If there is a genuine need we feel we might be able to meet at a later time, we could work with them possibly as well. But so as not to confuse/over-promise, it is a good idea to keep that kind of planning within the group that is on-site. Otherwise someone may be volunteered for the next 3 weekends before she/he even knows it! We may not be able to do everything for everyone, be we can do what we can do! And remember, the focus is on relationship building, not getting everything done for them.
Lastly, as we go we will have a card to hand to them that has our information (time/place of worship, website, etc) on one side and a powerpoint slide from the sermon series I’ll be starting on Sunday called “I Matter.” The sermon series will be going through a few of the “I” statements Jesus made (“I am the bread of life, I am the good shepherd, the vine, the resurrection and the life, the light of the world,” etc) and what those statements mean to us personally. We will leave them with that invitation to join us and a thanks for making a new friend. If no one answers the door, we will leave them a card hanging on the door.
To greet someone, you might say something like, “Hi, my name is __________. It is “make a difference day” and we’d like to make a difference in our neighborhood. Do you have any fall clean-up chores we could help with?” Please feel free to change this to your own less cheesy, and more comfortable style. Important things to remember are; Identify yourself, “mention make a difference day,” ask if we could help them with any fall clean-up items. They will likely ask who we are with and at that point, we can mention the Bridge (relationship first!). If they do not ask, there will of course be the opportunity at the end to share that with them with the invite card.
A couple of other things to note; it is likely that we will have many doors we knock on that go unanswered, or who don’t want to chat or have anything done with their yard. That is OK. Some will want some work done, but won’t want to chat. Some will want to chat but have no work to be done. Some jobs will take 5 minutes, and others may take an hour or more. We might be done by noon or we may go a bit past 1. Stay for as long or little as you can. All of that is OK. This will be done at a much different pace than the last couple of years where we said a quick hello and dropped off 500 invitations. This time it is about building relationship and community…getting to know those who are open to getting to know us. In the meantime, be praying for God to open those hearts and ready them for our visit. I know many of you have been praying that way already!
Please shout with any questions. Phone, email, text, whatever!
Be a witness,
Nate