19 May What is Love Where You Live?

What is Love Where You Live?

Well, let’s start by talking about what it’s not:

• Love Where You Live is not a campaign to make people feel guilty;
• It’s not an arm-twist to make someone do something they hate;
• It’s not more pressure to add something to your life or overcrowd your schedule!

So, what is it? Well, it’s a number of things:

1. Love Where You Live is a city-wide effort, coordinated among many churches in the Austin area, to connect neighbors to one another and to help Christians discover areas of practical need they can meet in their neighborhoods.

We will be encouraging everyone to find a community group to participate in (or start one themselves!), so they can find a neighbor of someone in their group that has a level of need they can meet. I know all of us would say that Christians should take the lead in serving their neighborhoods, that Christians should be at the forefront of caring for those around them, and this is our opportunity to live out what we all believe in a practical way.

When was the last time you really served a neighbor? For many of us, it’s been awhile—maybe because the level of need in our own neighborhoods isn’t as great, or we just moved in, or we are about to move out—no matter; no problem. The beauty of doing this in a group setting is that you get exposure to a variety of people with needs and can live out the Great Commandment tangibly.

2. It is a 4 week sermon series during the month of June, where we will look at 4 ways to love our neighbors and city:

Through our Work
Through Loving Justice
Through Gospel Generosity
Through being People of Presence

Because of our church calendar, I didn’t really feel we were able to wrap up the book of Proverbs how I would have liked, so we will be taking these 4 topics from Proverbs once more.

3. It is, again, a great opportunity to get connected to one of Mosaic’s 35 or so community groups. I say “or so”, because there are new ones launching all the time (we’ve gone from 25 to 35 over the last year), and I know there are another dozen or so about to launch soon!) We will have another GroupLink coming up on June 5th to help you in that process.

I’m excited to walk through this with you as we begin the summer together!

Before we get there, coming up this week is a special one-off message about the importance of vulnerability and transparency in our lives, and the special connection those things have with Gospel courage. Although every week is a great one to invite someone with you, if you have someone who has a perception of church as a place where we are mandated to keep a stiff upper lip and never become real with others—well, this Sunday is a great space to invite them into.

I’ll see you then!

Morgan