…without adding anything to your schedule
1. Eat with other people
We all eat 3 meals a day. That’s 21 opportunities for church and mission each week without adding anything new to your schedule. Meals are a powerful expression of welcome and community.
2. Work in public places
Hold meetings, prepare talks, read in public spaces like cafés and parks. It will naturally help you engage
with the culture as you work or plan. For example, whose questions do you want to address in your Bible studies – those of professional exegetes or those of the culture?
3. Be a regular
Adopt a local restaurant, park and shops, so you regularly visit and become known as a local. Imagine if everyone in your gospel community did this!
4. Join in with what’s going on
Churches often start their own thing like a coffee shop or homeless program. Instead, join existing initiatives – you don’t have the burden of running it, and you get opportunities with co-workers.
5. Leave the house in the evenings
After a long day, it’s easy to slump in front of the television or surf the internet. Get out! Visit a friend. Take a cake to a neighbour. Attend a local group. Go to the cinema. Hang out in a café. Go for a walk with a friend. It doesn’t matter where as long as you go with gospel intentionality.
6. Serve your neighbours
Weed a neighbour’s garden. Help someone move. Put up a shelf. Volunteer with a local group. It could be one evening a week or one day a month. Try to do it with other members of your gospel community so it becomes a common project. Then people will see your love for one another and it will be easier to talk about Jesus.
7. Share your passion
What do you enjoy? Find a local group that shares your
passion. Be missional and have fun at the same time!
8. Hang out with your work colleagues
Spend your lunch break with colleagues. Go for a drink after work. Share the journey to work.
9. Walk
Walking enables you to engage with your neighbourhood at street level. You notice things you don’t in a car. You are seen and known in the neighbourhood.
10. Prayer walk
Walk around your neighbourhood using what you see as fuel for prayer. Pray for people, homes, businesses, community groups and community needs. Ask God to open your eyes to where he is at work and to fill your heart with love for your neighbourhood.
—Tim Chester is director of The Porterbrook Institute; a church planter with The Crowded House in Sheffield, U.K.; and the author of books including Total Church and You Can Change. This article first appeared at www.vergenetwork.org on Oct. 4, 2011. Used with permission.
