Super Businesses support MHA Party

One of the true  blessings is that area businesses and enterprises get the Serving In Love message and want to help.   Papa Johns and Dominos are donating pizzas to make the Super Bowl party a  huge success.  Please think about what these donations mean beyone the material.  These businesses are showing God’s Love in a Practical Way. 

Of course we are blessed to have the Coke folks supporting us every time we ask.  Thank you for all you do….this Coke’s for you!   See you at the Party!!!

A Party with a Purpose

You know it’s not about us….

Once again this year Serving in Love is hosting a Super Bowl Party in conjunction with the Mental Health Association and several homeless and crisis agencies.  The reason is to provide a party for some people who might not have the opportunity to be at a party otherwise.  The purpose is to show God’s love in a practical way. 

Everything is free.  Pizza, soft drinks, snacks, and desserts.  We use a home theater system to display the picture on the screen (of course, we never “measure” the screen).  We provide rides if needed and we have games – bingo, crafts, and activities.  This year we are hosting the party at “The Connection”.    The Connection is the new community facility at (North side of parking lot) Morning Star Church.  The Connection has a theater size screen, complete kitchen (and the East Side Cafe) and a full gymnasium. 

Our good friends at Coke and several Pizza shops are pitching in to help as well.  It looks to be a great event again this year (our 4th year).  So come on out and join us, February 3rd at 5:30 pm.  See you there!!!

KCTSB January 15th Meeting at Darrough

The Kokomo Canter Township School Board will meet from 5-7 pm on Tuesday January 15th at Darrough Chapel School.  This is part of  a series of meetings to decide if Darrough Chapel Elementary will remain open.

If you live in the neighborhood or  care about the school, you  need to be present.   According to the Board website, ” The Trustees of the Kokomo Center School’s Board of Education invite you to come take part in School Hall Meetings and give your input on the proposed District Facilities Plan during the month of January.” 

We will have a Team Member present.  The  future of our tutoring/mentoring program will depend on these decisions.  Please come out and join us. 

Forget about meeting needs – Meet people instead

You asked for it.  After dozens of requests (it’s on our Community Page).  we  are  reprinting our “Business Model”.   The old outreach models were about finding needs and providing services.  We don’t do that…..we create relationships and connected assets.  We are creating communities and here is the new model:

ADOPTING A COMMUNITY – ADOPTING A CONGREGATION

 

In each of the past five years, Serving in Love has documented performing an average of 25,000 acts of random kindness.  Serving in Love has sponsored programs and initiatives that have provided dozens of mentors in Elementary Schools, free meals for special occasions and holidays for neighborhood residents, clean up and repair programs, but most of all we have sponsored dialogue.  We create conversations as we deliver batteries for smoke detectors, replace light bulbs, shovel snow, mow lawns, rake leaves, ……and when we start these conversations, we listen.  We want to know what neighbors care about.

 

Think about it – People act on what they CARE about.  Persons of faith know that something unusual happens when people care enough to act.

 

A critically important asset in any neighborhood is what people want to do because they care.  Tragic or uplifting, acting because we care is a great and powerful force.  All the assets in a community are woven like threads in a tapestry by a willingness to act on care.

 

Care is a fabric of those threads woven through every community to form a tapestry that people can come to recognize. We can make the texture and strength of this community fabric become more visible through asking and listening, “What do you care about? What will you do about that?” When this tapestry is clearly displayed, people find common interest and the power of acting together. 

 

At its essence, community building is the result of laying cornerstones consisting of three interacting activities: personal dialogs to discover what people care about, meaningful action upon what people care about, and the nurturing of community when neighborhood care enough to act together. These three foundation blocks are different manifestations of the same central certainty, the living heart of every community and a path to social and spiritual vitality.  When believers intentionally build relationships inside the congregation and outside in the surrounding community, a new energy for life together is discovered. 

 

 

LIFE HAPPENS – WE ARE BELIEVERS LEARNING OUR WAY INTO LIFE

 

We are intimately involved in the Darrough Chapel neighborhood and the
Kokomo metropolitan area because we have found that when congregations with their neighbors commit to learning together as a community, a new orientation to experience develops moving from “deciding” what to do towards “discovering” what to do. Where is life calling us? What is the future that wants to emerge among us?  How do we recognize and encourage our creativity and insight as we develop action? A learning congregation lives as though the gospel is true now.  Right now.

Life is like hot chocolate…..

Our friend Deb Robinson from South Bend sent us this:  

 A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired.  During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives.  Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups – porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said:
“Notice that all the nice looking expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones.  While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.  The cup that you’re drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink.  What all of you really wanted was the hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups.  And then you began eyeing each other’s cups.

Now consider this: Life is like hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups.  They are just tools to hold and contain life.  The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have.  Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us.

God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups.  The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything that they have.

Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.
And, enjoy your hot chocolate with all the marshmallows!