Impact Blessing...

From early in the Bible, God tells his people that they are blessed to be a blessing. They are sent to be a blessing to others in the world.

What if we, the church, instead of having an "evangelism strategy" adopted a blessing strategy... what if we decided that each day we were going to bless someone with God's love by doing something nice/helpful for them?

What if we, the church, decided that we were going to go into the community to bless others that we find along the way? Would it make a difference?

I am confident it would! In a BIG way!

I recognize that the first step to adopting this blessing strategy is prayer... we need to ask God to give us his eyes and his heart to see the needs and to love the people we see as God sees and loves them. So, to help this... I am suggesting that we begin prayer walking in our neighborhoods and as we do, we ask God to open our eyes and hearts to the needs, hurts, and joys of the people who live in our community. Or how about Prayer-scaping... which is asking God the same things as we do whatever we do each day... drive around, shop, eat in coffee shops, wherever we find ourselves we can seek God's eyes and heart for the people around us....

I read a story the other day about John, who decided that he would ask the baristas in the Starbucks that he frequented a question, "How can I ask God to bless you?" After the initial reluctance and a few days of this practice, the baristas began opening up to this John and meaningful relationships developed that were a blessing to all. John then shared his excitement with his small group from church and they began doing the same in Starbucks shops that they frequented. One day John was in a Starbucks about 13 blocks from where he usually went and he asked his standard question and was amazed when the barista pulled back the coffee cup and asked him, "Are you one of those blessing people?"

Wouldn't it be awesome for the church to be known as the Blessing People!?

Check out this video and song....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OihvG607W-c