One of the great initiatives at our church is something called 52Thrive (Five to Thrive).
In a nutshell, I challenge our people to:
– Once a day, pray for an opportunity to plant a spiritual seed in someone’s life wherever you live, work, or play.
– Once a week, offer someone in your circle an act of kindness, no strings attached.
– Once a paycheck, spend 1-2.5% of your income on those acts of kindness (deduct this from your tithe if you have to).
– Once a month, have coffee or a meal with someone in your neighborhood or workplace.
– Once a quarter, do some kind of service project or outreach with your small group.
So here’s my thing: I believe that any church that can get their people living this kind of lifestyle would be radically transformed within a year or two. I don’t really care about the five points, I care about the spirit behind them. Living to bless others. Which is why last night was such a highlight for me.
My wife and I decided to host both our kids’ soccer windups… at the same time. We used our 52Thrive money to buy a whack of pizzas and cake from Costco, sent the invites, and got our house inundated with people (probably 35 or so). They were so amazed that we did this for the teams. Glory’s coach in particular said, “You guys add so much to the community.”
Ah, music to my ears. She was saying, without using the church lingo, “You are salt and light around here.” Which is what every Christian family needs to be, right? A lighthouse in their neighborhood. We don’t always get it right, but we’re learning!
I challenge you to live the 52Thrive lifestyle. It’s a total blast. You can check into this in more detail by visiting our church website. It’s under “Who we are.”