Friday, August 17, 2007

Random Acts of Kindness - Celebration Stillwater

I am hoping to encourage Sunday School classes, our Life Groups and other small group ministries to participate in Random Acts of Kindness during Celebration Stillwater activities beginning September 9th – 15th.

Chip and Kami Parks will be our Sunnybrook Coordinators for encouraging and coordinating Sunnybrook groups that will be participating in Random Acts Activities. Chip and Kami will be making appearances before Sunday School groups and contacting our life and small group ministries to catalogue the list of groups and their planned activities so we can report our participation to the organizers of Celebration.

These random acts of kindness will be a bold statement of the love of Jesus Christ expressed through the hands and feet of Stillwater’s community of faith. Participants will be encouraged to wear special “Celebration Stillwater” Tee shirts. We can make these available to you. Check with Chip and Kami.

The list of kind acts you can do is limited only by your imagination. Individuals, families or groups can participate. I have listed below just a few suggested activities. We can help you with others. We invite your suggestions and postings on this Blog. I will look forward to hearing from you.
· Cold bottles of water at Boomer, Couch, OSU Track and other exercise venues
· Last year, a group from Sunnybrook took box lunches to every sanitation worker at 5 A.M. before they started their shift.
· Take 5 cents off every gallon of gas purchased at a selected gas station for a two hour period.
· Fill a box with fun things, great food, and other niceties, Put the box on the front door of someone you know. Ring the door bell. RUN BACK TO THE CAR... and LEAVE WITHOUT BEING SEEN. ( An anonymous Sunnybrook life group favorite Christmas activity )
· Disassemble and clean bug and debris from every front porch light on a city block
· Give a very generous tip to every wait person at Sonic during a morning, afternoon, or night shift. Walk into Mom’s or Perkins and 7 A.M. and do the same thing.

· Fill ice chests with water and pop, drive around town, and look for people working outside.
· Provide quarters for the people doing laundry.
· Deliver cakes , pies, or cookies. to the police department, fire department or postal carriers.
· Wouldn”t it be fun to rig up a “popsicle pick up truck” complete with a loudspeaker and drive through neighborhoods on a Saturday morning looking for kids ? ( Terry Carpenter’s suggestion)
· Your suggestion goes here!

First Impression (FIT) Teams

This Sunday will be one of our most well attended Sundays as public school and OSU begin fall sessions, and families have completed vacation travel.

Our FIT (First Impression Teams) teams have been busy all summer modeling and “tweaking” our new format of welcoming and providing assistance to our membership and especially our first time visitors. We want to spread the ambit of our welcome and appreciation of visitors from parking lot to pew. We are always looking for ways to connect our visitors to Sunnybrook ministries, programs and activities. Our goal is to move“ Beyond hello” . Taking advantage of the opportunity to escort visitors to child care areas, Sunday school classes or other Sunday Morning activities is certainly a better alternative than pointing in the general direction of their journey with a less than helpful “it’s over that-a-way!”

Our First Impression Team ministry is part of our “Go…Gather…Grow” vision of Sunnybrook, Specifically; we are GOing and reaching beyond traditional boundaries every Sunday morning as we invite people to encounter God. We have enjoyed ourselves all summer and look forward to the coming Fall and the opportunities to make connections with an even greater number of first time visitors.

You may have some comments about what we are doing, or perhaps suggestions how we can do this more effectively. I have made this forum available for you to respond, critique or make suggestions. This is a standard blog format where you will register your E-Mail on Google with a secure password to respond to my comments or comments from other contributors to this blog. And as you know, other readers and contributors will be able to respond to your comments and suggestions.
Have fun with this; I will look forward to your postings.