The Intellectual Community…. 

This material is adopted from the Abundance & Generosity blog incorporated published material from Mike Green. He created the text of the Abundance & Generosity blog which pulled from some of the work he had compiled and published in his most recent book “When people care enough to act” (2006, Inclusion Press, Toronto).  We want to appropriately credit this material.

ADOPTING A COMMUNITY – ADOPTING A CONGREGATION

In each of the past five years, Serving in Love has documented performing an average of 35,000 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.