One of the pleasures of being part of the team here at the GCM Collective is that I get to hear amazing stories from around the world about how God is working in and through the lives of his people.  I thought I'd share one of many that I recently read.  

I met Blake Thompson how I meet many these days, over twitter.  We started an email exchange on what it looks like to be on mission and he just hammered me with questions.  What I think he found out is that he can ask all the questions to someone 3000 miles away, but it's not the same as simply asking the Spirit, "what's next" and then living in the power that only the Spirit can give.  Recently, he shared with me a story of something he did with his neighborhood and I asked him if I could share it.  Here is Blake's story of getting to know his neighbors...simply. 

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So we decided to do the ice cream thing at our house to get to know our neighbors a bit better. No strings attached. We put out 165 flyers around the 'hood and I also had an old email list of folks from when some tried to get a home owners association set up. So I emailed that out to everyone knowing that some had moved away and some had moved in and the email wouldn't get to them.

Sunday afternoon we start the ice cream makers. Probably a little too early, but we wanted to make sure we knew what we were doing and the recipe tasted good. Maybe we started a little too early because some finished way early and was a touch soft by 7pm. But we made up about eight things of cream. 

We honestly had no idea how many to expect. It was Father's Day so some would be out of town w/ family. So would there be five people or ninety five? I honestly thought it would be closer to five. And at 7:02 there was one person at our house. But folks started to trickle in. Quite a mix of folks. Older, retired couples then a single lady, then some older ladies, then a few families with kids, and then they kept coming.

I realized quickly that I would never remember everyone's name. I need a trick to get better at that (any tips?) But I was okay with that. We had kids playing tag (or tackle) in our front yard, neighbors meeting neighbors for the first time, and about six flavors of ice cream with a smorgasbord of toppings. All in all I think we had about 45 adults and 20-25 kids there. The last guy, a neighbor that just moved in across the street last month, walked home at about 9:20 pm.

So it was a good night. Got to meets lots of folks. And many folks said they were really thankful that'd we'd had everyone over. And they were open to us doing something like it again sometime they said.

Well Tuesday night an older gentleman walked over to our home and hand delivered a card and told us thanks for having the ice cream social and that if we ever wanted to set out the flyers for everyone he'd like to help out with the thing. I thank him and shake his hand a few times and after coming inside I open up the card. He wrote a nice note and there was as $100 bill inside! (specifically it was for ice cream supplies) What?!?

And then yesterday we got a few cards in the ole mail box as well from neighborhood folks thanking us and saying they look forward to maybe doing it again sometime.

So now the ball has started to move, and I want to get it rolling somehow or another. So it's back to asking God what is next. And asking how he wants to use those relationships and conversations for his purposes. 

We'll see how it goes. It's a major "stepping out" of some comfort zones and doing life as a church. But, again, we feel God is saying, "C'mon, let me show you something awesome about the Church. Just trust, Me."

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If you are encouraged by this story...make sure you tell Blake @statedog 

If you have any questions on how the GCM Collective can aid you in the mission that God has sent his followers on, or further questions about this story, feel free to email me at