Missional Suggestion #12

Be a Friend to Someone

It may not seem like it's very missional to be a friend to someone, but the whole world is crying out for friends. Becoming a friend to someone is really a commitment. A friend is someone that we take time to be with, to help and to encourage. It's really a discipline to be a friend. That may seem like a strange way of looking at friendship. Statistics tell us that the United States is one of the loneliest nations in the world. As we go about our daily walk being a friend is by necessity a part of being a person who is doing the mission of God here on earth. We as missional people have a desire to reach out with love to people who need the loving touch that only a person who knows and feels the love of Jesus Christ can give.

How do we do that you say?

• Write an unsolicited note to someone.
• Take someone to coffee or lunch.
• Make a phone call to someone who doesn't receive many.
• Intentionally develop a new friend.
• Give your time someone.

All of these small things can make a tremendous difference to someone who's lonely. For in helping relieve loneliness in our world we are truly people who are spreading the grace and love of Jesus Christ who are world. How many times in life have we failed to do what we could do if we just tried? I urge all of you just try. For in trying we can find the glorious blessings that God just has stored up for us.

Be a friend to someone this week

Missional Suggestion #11

Share a Laugh with Someone

Laughter is the best medicine. I know you have heard that statement before. There is a true story to back this up.

Laughter healing benefits and healing with laughter have become synonymous with Norman Cousins, the man who laughed himself to wellness. Norman Cousins was the editor of Saturday Review for over 30 years, and was the author of a number of books including 'Anatomy of an illness.'

In 1964, he returned home from a meeting in Moscow, Russia, experiencing severe joint pain and fever. He was diagnosed with Anklyosing Spondylitis, a collagen illness that attacks the connective tissues of the body. He was told that most likely the cause was from his exposure to heavy metal poisoning. He questioned this diagnosis, because his wife who had accompanied him on this trip never experienced any of these symptoms. While hospitalized, he began to research the effects of stress on the body, and found that it could be detrimental to the immune system. Because of his position as editor of Saturday Review, he was able to utilize the magazine's research department for information on his symptoms.

He read about the theory that negative emotions are harmful to the body, so he thought that if negative emotions were detrimental to health, then positive emotions should improve health. He checked himself out of the hospital and into a Manhattan hotel suite. He hired a nurse who read humorous stories and played Marx Brothers movies for him. Although his physician did not endorse this, he took massive doses of vitamin C. The only reason the physician went along with this was that Cousins so strongly believed in the vitamin C supplement. The treatment proved to be so effective that in very little time Cousins was off all painkillers and sleeping pills. He found that the laughter relieved the pain and would help him sleep.

He returned to work and wrote about his experimental treatment in his book 'Anatomy of an Illness.' In 1989, it was finally acknowledged in the Journal of the American Medical Association that laughter therapy could help improve the quality of life for patients with chronic illness and that laughter has an immediate symptom relieving quality.

Just think what a miracle worker you could be if you made your mission to make people laugh.

So the Missional suggestion is:

MAKE SOME LAUGH TODAY

Missional Suggestion #10

Start a Conversation

You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

Matthew 5:13

How many people do you meet on an average day ? Do you bother to even say hello ? Most of us go through our days ignoring the persons we encounter on a typical day. Christians are the salt and light of the world. It is our presence in this world that can make all the difference. If we are silent and fail to engage the world in conversation ten we have little impact. I can't help but regret all the nice things I have left unsaid. all too often we are quick to criticize but oh so slow to compliment.

In our busy and anonymous world people are just blurs that pass us by and we think nothing of them. I wonder how different the world would be if we all just started a few conversations. Just randomly and casually. Here's the suggestion. Take a day, just one day, and be very intentional about saying more than hello to the people you see that day. Who are those people ?

A possible list: (yours may be different)

• The cashier at the coffee shop,grocery ...
• The postman
• The garbage collector
• The person who is 50 feet away from you at the office.
• The kid in your class that never utters a word.
• The members of the church choir.
• The person who walks (jogs-they may not want to speak but who knows)by your house every day.
• That person you see every time you are in that restaurant.

That just a list to get you started. There are so many more. If you have a few suggestions just send me an email or post a comment. Take time to be the "salt and light" of the world.

An Easter Thought

Easter

It had been a long three days. They had known the feeling of terror in the face of false accusations, the trauma of a mock trial, and the helplessness of standing by while a loved one was convicted of a crime he had not committed. Yet, this was only the backdrop for the deep agony of nameless, hopeless grief that would crash around them like a tidal wave when the one who had been son, brother, teacher, and savior was brutally killed. There is no making sense of such aching sorrow. The first days after such a tragedy found the women who were closest to Jesus in life wanting only to touch and prepare his body one last time in death. He had talked of resurrection. He had said that in three days he would rise. But it was not resurrection that was on the mind of those women. It was death. Imagine the moment of recognition when Jesus stood before them again. Imagine the elation of re-union. Imagine the radiant hope that followed those three days of pain. Imagine the faith that was kindled as a result of that "Easter" experience. But the Easter story is not only an experience, an event. It is a way of life. The resurrection of Jesus created the hope in Christians that death is never the end -- resurrection is. We not only look forward to an eternal future with the Holy One, we have the opportunity to experience Easter moments in the midst of our everyday lives. We know that death and sorrow stand nearby -- whether it be physical death, the loss of a job, the loss of a relationship, the loss of a dream -- but resurrection also waits to be noticed at the edges of our life. We have all known the wonder of a healing, a new job, a new love, a new dream being born out of the agony of hopelessness. Making Easter a way of life means that we are unwilling to settle for death in any of its forms. We are unwilling to give up hope and belief that new life is always being offered to us by heaven. We are unwilling to be ground down by grief when God's goodness is extended to us. Making Easter a way of life means that we turn our eyes toward resurrection each and every day, searching for its signs, believing in its truth, living into its glory

MissionalSuggestion #9

Practice Being Non-Mean

Martin Marty once said that you can divide religious people into two groups. Not the liberal and conservative, not the Catholics and the Protestants, but the mean and the non-mean. That hurts, but it is also true. This seems to ring so true in our world today but if we are to be a missional people we must practice at being non-mean. Non-mean people know what they believe and practice the red letters (words of Jesus)of the bible. The real question is what does that look like? NON-MEAN PEOPLE

• Love and respect people who disagree with them.
• Give without qualification.
• Never expect payback.
• Know that they are sinners.
• Say hello first.
• Forgive the unforgivable.

That's a bit of a tough list but it is a good beginning. We as missional people must be kind and likable so that we have opportunities to be the salt and light of the world. After all if we don't help-WHO WILL ?

Just a Thought #1

Dry Inside

There is a powerful scene in the movie, The Godfather, Part III. Perhaps some of you remember when the Godfather, Don Corleone, is forced to visit the distinguished Cardinal Lamberto to tell him the bad news that a legitimate business deal involving the Vatican Bank has gone bad. The bank is run by the Archbishop and a coalition of Catholic businessmen. The Cardinal listens to the Godfather; then the Cardinal says something quite profound. He picks up a stone and says, "Look at this stone. It has been lying in the water for a very long time. The water has not penetrated it." Then he smashes the stone. "Look," he says peering at the smashed insides of the stone, "perfectly dry. The same thing," the Cardinal continues, "has happened to men in Europe. They have been surrounded by Christianity for centuries, but Christ does not live in their hearts."

Missional Suggestion #8

Practice Ministry

SUPER-SERVICE

"After all, who is Apollos? And who is Paul? Simply ministers through whom you became believers, each of them doing only what the Lord assigned him." —1 Corinthians 3:5

Any kind of Christian worship or work is ministry, but there is a special gift of ministry . This is the same word used for the deacons who waited on tables for the early church. The gift of ministry is serving people in very practical ways by supernatural power. Paul called "ministry" collecting money which he delivered to the starving believers in Jerusalem .

We all need practical help in living each day; therefore, we need ministry. Without it, we have faith without works, which is dead . Without ministry, Christian community is impossible and everyday life becomes unbearable. Ministry applies God's love to the details of life. Jesus came to serve, not to be served, even giving up His life . We must follow in His footsteps by washing one another's feet and bearing one another's burdens. And thus we will fulfill the law of God.

This week's challenge is to find ways to do ministry. Your ministry may be prayer or to be an activist for somone less fortunate than yourself. Try to think of some little way you can serve.

Here are a few possibilities:

• Do a chore for someone who is sick
• Invite someone to have coffee with you
• Write a note of encouragement
• Pray for strangers

I hope you get the idea. Just take the time to give of yourself by serving others.