Sunday, December 10, 2006

Missional Kindness

I've spent alot of time recently dwelling on the verse in Ehp 4:32

"And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you."

I have been finding recently that the most powerful missional momments I'm having are coming from simply being nice and tenderhearted and forgiving towards others.

Cool things happen when your nice.

I have a small thing I do during Christmas season when its cold. Our local salvation army has a donation box at of all places, our local Dollar Store! It's manned by men from their homeless shelter. So once it gets cold, the first couple weeks it hasn't been very cold, each nite I try to stop and give who ever is working a large cup of coffee. I don't say anything to them, just stop and drop it off and head on my way. These guys have very little and stand in the cold to help the organization thats helping them. $1.05 for a large coffee is very little.

Strange things then happen. I was in the store where I get my coffee last nite and there's a manager there I've become friends with. She asked me why I was only getting coffee, I usually get more stuff there when Im there. I told her what I was doing, and she said "Tell me next time and the coffees free" so now all I have to do is take 5 minutes out of my day and bless those bell ringers, cus touching others has touched the heart of someone else.

2 relationships are being built - one with the manager and one with bell ringers. I think on a cold nite it's a great investment.

Maybe those of us trying to be missional could put a daily random act of kindness on our list of things to do. Just to constantly remind us what we are here for.

Could daily missional living really be a matter of applying Eph 4:32 to our lives?


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4 comments:

Shannon said...

Wow, pretty much my challenge to my church tonight...find someway to help someone everyday. It really isn't that hard to do.

Adam said...

It shouldn't couldn't hurt, right?

Good words - good reminder. It's not complicated but it's very significant.

Barry O'Connell said...

Dear Missional Jerry,
Wow I feel so ashamed. God showers good stuff on me all the time and I never help anybody. Tomorrow I am going to try to be nice and I will look for ways to live Christianly. How about if I chip in a few bucks and you can get them a pie to go with the coffee. Please keep God within you shining forth as a beacon of hope to poor miserable sinners like me.
(Not very Missional) Barry

Unknown said...

Jerry another great example. I really loved this.

Again, another example that is easy to reproduce.