Winter has finally arrived and settled in here in Ottumwa Iowa. The good news is there are more eagles in town because of the open water on the river. The difficult news has been every Sunday this year has been snowy, icy, extremely cold, and we even cancelled worship once.
A colleague of mine (who I happen to live with) suggested there a conspiracy for our churches to have low attendance so far this year. I don't believe that to be true but I have been thinking about a conspiracy the church might take on.
A conspiracy of kindness, grace and love for those in our community. What if each person in the church were to find at least 3 random acts they could do for different folks every week especially during Lent.
Ottumwa, Iowa has shy of 25,000 people living here. I have well over 250 active people in my church times 3 a week would be 750 random acts. If my church alone were to work on this at 750 random acts per week it would take us 33 weeks to saturate the community.
It takes 21 days to make a habit stick. 33 weeks of this kind of conspiracy and we could not stop ourselves.
As the church we often ask the community for things such as attendance at fund raisers. I would love to see a conspiracy of kindness, grace and love. If other churches and Christians joined us we could really get people's attention and get them asking about the "conspiracy" of love being shown.
Just a thought or two.
Grace and Peace to you,
Leila Disburg, pastor
Willard Street UMC in Ottumwa Iowa
A colleague of mine (who I happen to live with) suggested there a conspiracy for our churches to have low attendance so far this year. I don't believe that to be true but I have been thinking about a conspiracy the church might take on.
A conspiracy of kindness, grace and love for those in our community. What if each person in the church were to find at least 3 random acts they could do for different folks every week especially during Lent.
Ottumwa, Iowa has shy of 25,000 people living here. I have well over 250 active people in my church times 3 a week would be 750 random acts. If my church alone were to work on this at 750 random acts per week it would take us 33 weeks to saturate the community.
It takes 21 days to make a habit stick. 33 weeks of this kind of conspiracy and we could not stop ourselves.
As the church we often ask the community for things such as attendance at fund raisers. I would love to see a conspiracy of kindness, grace and love. If other churches and Christians joined us we could really get people's attention and get them asking about the "conspiracy" of love being shown.
Just a thought or two.
Grace and Peace to you,
Leila Disburg, pastor
Willard Street UMC in Ottumwa Iowa
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