My friend, Justin, recently posted this on his blog and I LOVE it, so he said I could repost it. He got it from Jimmy McCarty, who got it from Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and convicting.
50 Ways to Love and Serve Those Around You
1. Sponsor a child in a poor country through an organization like World Vision or Compassion International.
2. If you’ve got an extra room in your home open it up to a refugee living in America. You can find such a person in need through organizations like World Relief. (Or maybe you can offer it to a family that just lost their house to foreclosure.)
3. Write or call your congressman or senator and ask them to support public policy that shows mercy, compassion and justice to the “least of these.” Tell them you care about peace. Let them know that you will not give them any more votes if they are not promoting the common good.
4. Give up “your” seat at church to a visitor and then invite them to lunch after service.
5. Go to your local homeless shelter, encampment or “tent city” and offer someone there a job mowing your lawn, cleaning your home, washing your car, fixing your fence or whatever else you need to have done. While they’re at it serve them lunch and some cold lemonade, and then pay them more than fairly for a job well done. THEN recommend their services to all of your friends.
6. Take several friends and provide free condoms and clean needles for those who are in prostitution and addicted to drugs.
7. Pray with them when they desire it. Pray for them always.
8. Start a small group where each meeting the group looks at a different country around the world (Zimbabwe, Congo, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti and Sudan are good places to start), studies the social and political climate of said country, studies a relevant scripture that speaks of mercy and justice (not hard to find), provide a meal with food from that country and commits to some act of justice as a group on behalf of the people there and pray specifically for that nation until the next time you meet.
9. Pray for the soldiers and families of those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
10. Pray for the Iraqi/Afghani soldiers, families and terrorists/combatants dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.
11. Ask your family and friends to donate any money they would have spent on a birthday/holiday gift for you to a specific charity or ministry. I’d recommend Invisible Children or Mercy Ministries 12. Stand in solidarity with tomato workers who are not being paid fair wages and are often modern-day slaves by refusing to eat at Chipotle until they agree to pay tomato pickers in Florida fair wages and insure their safety.
13. Buy a goat, cow, chicken, mosquito net, well, or some other fun gift for a poor individual, family, or community somewhere around the world.
14. Throw a party at a park, or some other place where the local homeless community gathers, that is open and free to all. Play games, eat good food, have good conversations and make new friends.
15. Offer to provide free babysitting for, Christmas and birthday gifts for, or even to adopt the unborn child someone is considering aborting. Don’t condemn her unless you have done all you can to make it easier for that child to be born.
16. Send a birthday card to the co-worker, boss, ex-girlfriend/boyfriend that you get angry just thinking about. Tell them how you appreciate something about them and that you wish them a day of joy.
17. Become a regular volunteer at a local charity/non-profit/ministry that focuses on serving the young and poor. Be a mentor to someone who may not have one.
18. Take Jesus’ advice and at Thanksgiving invite the homeless, the prostitutes, the AIDS victims, the parolees and immigrants to dine with you. If your family decides to eat elsewhere accept it and if not rejoice!
19. If you live in southern California, New Mexico, Arizona or Texas cross the border on a Sunday morning and have communion/the Lord’s Supper/Eucharist at a local congregation. Do so prayerfully considering the global nature of God’s family and kingdom. Come home and serve your “illegal” sisters and brothers in Christ in your community.
20. Take a group to eat at a restaurant and have every one leave a 50% tip for the waiter/waitress who is spending their night serving you dinner instead of taking their children out or studying for their exam in the morning.
21. Offer your home, or if you can your church, as a place of sanctuary for someone who is threatened with deportation and separation from their family, especially their children.
22. Give money to charities that serve disadvantaged children in both Israel and Palestine.
23. Do advocacy work for those facing death row in your state. Do this especially if you find their accused crime particularly heinous.
24. Find a park that you consider too unsafe for your children to play in or a school where graduation rates are too low to send your child there and work to make it so that it is safe enough/good enough for your children to go there since someone’s children will have to.
25. Start a business and only hire those who are homeless or ex-felons to work there.
26. Buy gift cards to local restaurants and give them to those holding signs on the corner or that ask you for money in a parking lot. Then ask if they’d mind you joining them for the meal.
27. Pray for a political leader you dislike (Maybe Barack Obama or Sarah Palin?), a celebrity you dislike (maybe 50 Cent or Britney Spears?) and for someone at your job/school/church that you dislike. Pray for their well-being and God’s favor upon their life.
28. Do a “water only fast” where you stop drinking anything but water (yes that includes coffee, soda and alcohol!) for a set period of time and donate that money to an organization that is providing clean water for those in places without it. (World Vision is a good option again. So are Water Wells for Africa, African Well Fund and The Water Project.)
29. Seek advice from someone who is a different race/ethnicity and/or gender than you. Really listen to what they have to say.
30. Get a group of people together and map your community for possible slave trafficking.
31. Post this phone number (888-3737-888) and this website (http://www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/) around your community, in your church, in public bathrooms, etc. to let those who are victims of slavery know where they can get help.
32. If you’re young like me (almost 26, wow!) find an older person at your church and ask them about their life. Listen to their stories. Really listen. You’ll learn a lot and love them in the process.
33. Move into a community where you are the minority, learn the culture of the people in the community and live life with them. Be open to learning from the people you are then surrounded with. Worship how they worship, read the Bible with the lenses they read it through, celebrate births/deaths/baptisms/holidays the way they do. You’ll see Jesus in a whole new way and truly live out the call of the church to be of all nations.
34. Ask friends of a different race than you (this implies you must have a significant number of them!) how they are reacting to and interpreting different things going on in society. (The recent election of Barack Obama, conviction of OJ Simpson or the Olympics would have been good opportunities.) Truly listen and learn from their perspective. Reconciliation will be happening before your eyes.
35. Learn the language of the new ethnic community forming in your city. Then go do your shopping in a grocery store in that area and get your hair cut in a barbershop there as well.
36. Bake cookies and give them to your neighbors just because.
37. If the church you attend has a separate “ethnic” service attend it once a month instead of the “regular” service.
38. Stand near the door and give everyone who enters church on Sunday a big hug.
39. Perform civil disobedience in response to a local injustice and be willing to go to jail as part of your witness.
40. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper in response to a local injustice, and if possible have as many people from area churches sign on to it.
41. If possible, rearrange your work schedule to be 4-10hr days and spend that extra day off doing any of the other things on this list.
42. Refuse to be a part of the chain of gossip about someone else; especially about the person you love to gossip about.
43. Be a Big Brother or Big Sister.
44. Use your vacation time to volunteer at a summer camp for kids or doing disaster relief here or abroad.
45. Cook a meal once a week for an elderly person in your church or the single mother/father and her/his children you work with.
46. Volunteer a night to babysit for a couple you know so they can have a date night.
47. Turn an empty lot or other public area into a community vegetable garden. Do this especially if you live in an urban area.
48. Use your professional skills to serve those in need. For example: if you are a lawyer offer pro bono services to the homeless or if you are a teacher mentor an at-risk youth. The options are limitless.
49. Become a foster parent and take in those with no family. Or go a step further and adopt a child with no one else in the world. Or, mentor an emancipated foster youth (16 and up) who may be completely on their own with nowhere to spend holidays, no one to ask for money from when when they need it or have someone older to get advice from.
50. Or you can do what the rich young ruler couldn’t and sell everything you have and give the money to the poor. Then follow Jesus and see what happens…
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