Reachout

Gathering Stories

I'll admit that I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping up this blog.

I am sorry.

But I do want to assure you the serving at Restore never stops. In fact, that's one of the reasons I haven't been posting. Since late May (my last post) and today people at Restore continue to serve their neighbors, our city, and the world. Cool things are happening but much of this is happening off the radar and outside of the corporate serving events like Servefest.

So I am redoubling my efforts to gather these stories and tell them here.

Keep reading.

What If video

We rolled this video yesterday during the What If series. We wanted to create something that would inspire people to join us next Saturday for ServeDay.

I think the video also captures something about what we are trying to do overall with Reachout.

What if we served? from Restore Community Church on Vimeo.

Progress?

Friday afternoon I met with the members of our Northwood Hills Community focus group. We spent time celebrating all of the activities we did in support of the Northwood Neighborhood adjacent to Southeast Elementary.

All of us agreed that the community block party we hosted in October was a success.

The parent training night we had in February worked well, although we would have loved  the turnout to be better.

A representative from the Kansas City Police Department informed us that the neighborhood had done a 180 degree change. Calls to the area are down. Instead of being called when neighbors are arguing--the old way--they are now being called for real issues.

We talked about doing something in the summer. But the Park Hill School District, the city, and the community have plenty of programs planned for the summer. Parents of school-age children at Northwood have many options. They don't need us to offer them something else.

We may do some sort of backyard program for kids (something like a character club) although we need some things to fall into place for this to happen.

We will conduct a school supply drive at the end of the summer. (I am thinking of asking some local churches to join us?)

I tell you all of this because it really feels like our little community partnership has made progress in Northwood. As we debated what had changed, we kept coming back to that block party in October. It was the real catalyst for change in this community. We simply invited the residents to a neutral space and asked them to start talking to each other. They've done the rest.

Could it be this easy? Could it be that all we needed to do was to give this community an opportunity for people to break-through the invisible barriers they had erected between themselves? Did we really help transform a community by encouraging people to talk to each other?

It's got me thinking about the power of one catalytic event; it's got me thinking about simple service; it's got me thinking that this serve, love and change thing is working.

Hillcrest Walk for the Homeless Tomorrow

I am really excited that Restore is going to help at the Hillcrest Walk for the Homeless at Zona Rosa tomorrow. We have a team that is going to hand out bottles of water to all of the participants. Another Restore team will ask people to take our 2009 Community Needs Assessment.

Registration starts at 8AM and the walk begins at 9AM.

This is a great opportunity to support one of our partners.

Hope to see you there!

What If is Coming...

What if the Church... Promo from Restore Community Church on Vimeo.

First Restore Team to Haiti Video

The first Restore team is back from Haiti. Check out this video of their experience.

Haiti April 2009 Trip (Restore) from C3 on Vimeo.

Partner With Your Community

Ask your community to partner with you while you serve.

An example of our success came during one of our Replenish events. We knocked on doors in the community and asked people to partner with us to gather food supplies for the Kansas City Rescue Mission. People were really intrigued that we were serving BEFORE we were meeting as a church. This is response is exactly what we wanted: people to be curious about why we serve.

Besides, I think it's way cool to have people who don't follow Jesus contribute to the Kingdom.

Variety During ServeFest

Our monthly serving on-ramp, ServeFest, is all about variety.

We deliberately plan and organize several different kinds of events for people. This allows a prospective contributor to show up to ServeFest and choose a service project that appeals to them.

The point is to make serving fun and one way to do that is to offer variety.

What Does Impact Look Like?

What does impact look like?

I wrestle with as leader of Reachout.

What is the goal? What are we trying to do? Where is this thing going? What is God calling us to be? How do we make a difference?

I pray; I read. I talk to people in Restore and get coaching and advice from those outside.

The word I keep coming back to is impact. As a noun, impact means: forceful contact; influence, effect. As a verb, to have an effect on.

That's exactly what we're trying to do in Reachout. We dream that God would use our community to be agents of impact in our community.

The more I do this Reachout thing, the more I realize that it's up to each of us individually to figure out how to make an impact.

Reachout Leader Meeting

I am really excited.

Tonight our Reachout leadership team is gathering together again. We haven't all been in the same room for a couple of months. We've been busy serving and so tonight is going to be a chance to swap stories and celebrate.

These leaders bring passion to this mission. I am grateful they've made the commitment to help lead others in service at Restore.