Steve Sjogren mentioned giving away baggies with 5 things in them, things like gum. So I started this Sunday. I gave everyone there a baggie with 5 packets of Doublemint gum and challenged them to give it away as servant evangelism.
If you listen to the sermon (called “Did God Miss?“), you’ll even here us practicing saying, “Here” as we handed out a pack.
Well I finally started today. The “here” didn’t come close to working. But “Do you chew gum?” was a GREAT opener. Then I followed up with something equally clever like, “Would you like some?”
This really caught people off guard! Surprisingly, less than 50% said yes.
When I gave the gum, I said things like,
“Our church is experimenting with random acts of kindness to show people Jesus’ love”
or
“Our church is experimenting with ways to show Jesus’ love. We feel people have heard about God’s love, but don’t often get the chance to SEE it.”
I’ve had very positive responses to this…even from those that took and those that didn’t!
I still have 2 packs left but watch out. Giving stuff away is addicting.
Thou shalt be cast onto a steaming dung-heap, O ye sulphurous nonentity!
A colleague at Inland Hospital keeps me up on what cool cutting edge churches are doing. Today, he mentioned something he’d heard about churches in Second Life. I’d heard of SL but had no desire to go there, especially because I thought I’d get hooked.
We celebrate our 12th anniversary in a couple weeks. Right around National Penny Day.
So we’re combining the events and having a party at our house.
If you’re in the Waterville Area on Friday, May 25 around 5:30, come by our house. And bring your pennies. We’ll collect them to purchase something from the Heifer Project’s Gift Catalog.
