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Neighbourhood Prayer

Last night four families from our neighburhood met to pray.  Among them were Pentecostal, Baptist and Reformed upbringings.  During this time I encouraged each of us to see ourselves as the neighbours who know much about grace, mercy, forgiveness, peace...more so than those who do not know about the Kingdom of God.  I challenged us to dream and envision what our neighbourhood could be like, and how we could each see ourselves in that vision.  Among the beauty and the brokenness is death and loneliness, growth and celebration.  Since we all have church experience, we understand beauty and brokenness.  And we understand them to be very real as we discover our neighbourhood together.  As a result, we will be bringing a card to a man who lost his mother to cancer 6 months ago.  One of the families extended an invitation to a widower to join them for dinner on any Tuesday from here on in.  And we will keep going.

This is just one neighbourhood.  Perhaps your neighbourhood has another family that would be willing to come over for some food and engage in a little dreaming or praying?  To be intentional is key; who could you invite and with whom could you pray?

Neighbourhood Life Gatherings

Here is the first season of Neighbourhood Life gatherings in 2015.  We meet at the YU Turn Center in Lacombe (5025 – 50^th street), unless posted otherwise.  The time we gather is from 4:30 – 6:30 pm and includes a potluck meal, prayer and Scripture. 

January 11 – Nathan/Brittany share their neighbourhood.  Luke 10:25-29  - “Who is my neighbour?”

January 25 - Henry/Joan share their neighbourhood.  II Kings 6:8-23 – “Eating with the enemy”

February 8 – Rick/Joyce share their neighbourhood.  Psalm 23 - “Setting the Table”

February 22 – Brian/Bente share their neighbourhood.  Romans 12:18-21 – “Leaving room for God”

March 6-8  - NEIGHBOURHOOD ENGAGEMENT RETREAT at Camp Nakunum (north/west of Edmonton).  We register as a group.

March 15 – “A tale of three friends” discussion. 

April  5 or 12^th -  Neighbours and the Easter story.

April 17-18 – Inhabit Conference in Seattle, Washington.  See more at www.inhabitconference.com

May 3 – Debrief and brainstorm for the summer months.

May 24 – Prepare for block party month.

June – Block party month.

Neighbourhood Life intentionally seek to build community through God’s love (in us) for the purpose of transforming and renewing our neighbourhood.  This “community-building” includes neighbourhood parties, tournaments, the sharing of material items, and enjoying our unique neighbourhood with our neighbours.  Through this, we value our practice and posture over the program.

We feel called to identify where God is already at work and join His mission, as we seek to alert others to His reign.  Our role in the neighbourhood is to be the new community of Christ, demonstrating His grace and power and inviting our neighbours into His body, the church.  In essence, we “become the church” in the neighbourhood, rather than “attending church” outside of our living space.  The gospel becomes more accessible to those who otherwise would deem it irrelevant, simply because its message is now active among them.

We have embraced “transforming lives and communities in Christ” as central to our vision and mission.  This Neighbourhood Life strategy seeks to embrace this vision by recognizing that one of the communities that needs the transformational presence of Christ is our neighbourhood.  This approach takes seriously a theology of place, in which we are called to “bloom where we are planted”.  At the heart of this model is the call to love our neighbours, the certainty that our neighbours’ lives need transformation, and the assurance that Christ “dwells among us.”

The Spiritual Side

I recently attended a conference to learn more about how the Holy Spirit moves. Those words by themselves elicit a variety of reactions:  some people get really excited, others roll their eyes, and still others ponder the mystery.  Those of us in attendance were simply given permission to share our thoughts and inhibitions. We came to the conclusion that we all believed that the Spiritdoes move and work, but were unclear as to how that is relevant to our lives. The teaching came from Dunamis (http://dunamisfellowshipcanada.org/) which taught the approach of listening and following the Holy Spirit. This spiritual act is simple, yet demands our attentiveness. Perhaps a walk through your neighbourhood leads to an unexpected moment or event that you sense as opportunity; different than a few moments ago when nothing grabbed your attention. On one occasion, I was walking through my neighbourhood and noticed a neighbour trimming bushes at 8 am Sunday morning. This was unlike him, and I had a subtle prompting to just say “hi”. It turned out that he had just experienced the death of a loved one, and within one minute, his eyes teared up as he shared the story- this was what he needed.  Was this the Holy Spirit nudging me?  I believe it was.  So perhaps we can give ourselves permission to try to respond to the Spirit at work in us, always reminding ourselves to do it in love. No weird stuff is necessary and we do not need to manufacture anything in order to call it a “spiritual event”.  We must simply be willing to listen and perhaps gently act on the Spirit’s promptings in truth, grace and love.

Operation Christmas Child

Are you filling an 'Operation Christmas Child' shoe box?  The shoe box that you put together for a child, somewhere around the world, is a great idea to do with neighbours.  And this is truly an intergenerational idea.  Elderly and children alike can easily participate.   Samaritan's Purse has made these shoe boxes available through various churches.  All the directions come with the shoe box.
More at: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/.  Simply invite your neighbours to the challenge of blessing a child by filling one of these shoe boxes.

Prayer Walk

This past month, a group of us started to take prayer walks in our neighbourhoods.  Simply put, we walked about two blocks.  With an undivided attention, we observed beauty and brokenness, such as clean yards and empty lots.  On one occasion, just as we turned the first corner, we met an elderly man coming out of his home and our conversation revealed a little of his personality.  Before we were done, we prayed for a home which had a cross embedded in its gable end...near the peak.  And at that very moment, the home owners came out to thank us for praying.  They also began to tell us their journey, which included the salvation story of the husband's father on his death bed just recently.  All in all, the prayer walk was another creative way to help us understand the places in which we live. Walking your neighbourhood with prayerful purpose is highly recommended and is an easy thing to do.