Love your neighbor Sundays.
(most) Fourth Sundays.
We believe the call to love our neighbor extends far beyond simply telling people about God’s love, but showing God’s love in real and tangible ways — with no strings attached.
That’s why once a month (usually on fourth Sundays), we intentionally carve out space as a community to serve and bless our neighbors and to work together for the common good.
Additionally, Love Your Neighbor Sunday is an opportunity to expand our understanding of what it means to care for the poor, oppressed and marginalized by bringing attention to different issues happening around us and by highlighting the work and stories of community leaders and organizations who are on the ground loving and serving our neighbors on a regular and ongoing basis.
Our hope is that as we practice loving our neighbor together in community once a month, we would be empowered and inspired to live a holistic lifestyle of love for neighbor, every single day of the week.
Sunday, April 28th
CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
Sunday, April 28th is Love Your Neighbor Sunday! While we won’t be organizing any church-wide service projects this month, we encourage you to find meaningful and creative ways to extend the love of Jesus to those around you. For this month, we’ve provided a few specific ideas to help you think outside of the box as to what it can look like to love your neighbor well.
Suggested Ideas:
Who’s your actual neighbor? We often don’t take the command to love our neighbor literally, but what if you did? Challenge: Go do something nice for an actual neighbor that you might not know very well.
Is there a church family member in need? Loving our neighbor includes loving those in our own church family. Challenge: Do something kind, loving, comforting or an act of service towards someone in our church family that you haven’t seen in a while, or that you know might be going through a hard time.
Inclusive Evangelism? We know evangelism and evangelizing can get a bad rep. But when is the last time you told someone about the expansive and radically inclusive love of God? Challenge: Share the all expansive and radically inclusive love of Jesus to someone who you would have never thought needed to hear it.
What does it look like to love our neighbors?
While there are endless possibilities for what loving neighbor can look like, the following four categories might be helpful to consider as you discern how God might be inviting you to engage. We’ve also curated a list of community partner orgs here that you can connect with for a variety of volunteer opportunities.
Relationships.
Who outside of your immediate circle can you intentionally build genuine relationship with and invest in?
Hospitality.
How can you create a safe and inclusive space where someone who feels alone can belong and feel valued and loved?
Service.
How can you give of your time, energy and resources to bring help, relief and aid to someone that is hurting or in need?
Advocacy.
How can you use your voice, privilege, and influence to address broken systems and structures that are oppressive?
Community partner conversations.
If we’re truly going to be for the common good, the scriptures challenge us to pay special attention to caring especially for those who have been ignored, forgotten and deemed the least and the last in our societies (Matthew 25:31-46, James 1:27).
Check out some of the amazing conversations we’ve had with community leaders and organizations that are doing great work in service to some of the most vulnerable in our communities.