Kindness to Go! 2nd Saturday of Kindness

This weekend was a Kindness To Go! weekend and 2nd Saturday of Kindness weekend...We chose the 'give them the bag' outreach for both.

On Saturday four teams headed out into the community in Beavercreek, Kettering, Dayton, and Centerville. Each team received 30+ bags to give to shop keepers in the area. The outreach was scheduled from 10am to 12pm. Interestingly, there were several new people who came along. 

The stories were pretty amazing. One lady, 'The Vineyard. I've heard about you.' When asked, 'What have you heard?' She replied, 'You're that church who cares for our community and always seems to be doing good things.'

One of the highlights during the training instruction time (10 to 15 min) was the story from Greg and Julie. 

Julie is a child care manager for a large child care group. A few years ago one of our teams visited her center and delivered a bag, just to say 'we care', and 'thanks for being in our community'. A year and a half later Julie and her husband were making some life decisions and decided to go back to church. The decision was 10th on the list of 10. They discussed were to go and she mentioned, 'Let's go to the bag church.' They visited, sat in the back. to ensure a quick escape, and began to attend. Both encountered Jesus, were baptized and Greg is now on staff. Amazing.

Kindness to Go!

It's always fun to watch people as they realize it's a KTG weekend...Big smiles, some people usually new, pausing to read the instruction sheet then smile and grab a bag. Those in the know usually grab their KTG item on the way in to the service to ensure they are locked and loaded for the outreach.

Here's the info how we develop this outreach. I think 1/3 of the people will participate this is an average. So if you have a 500 member church. Maybe 150 bags.

Behind the scenes:6 to 10 hrs

Team: orders the items from Sam's Club online

Team: drives to Sam's picks up items

Team: Unload items and prepares for packing

Teens: Set up tables, packs 500 bags, place bags in safe secure room. 30 teens x 30 minutes. We share the value of outreach through encouraging teens to participate in pre-outreach and 2nd Saturday of Kindness.

Team: Goes through bags, fills any light bags, puts iridescent film into bag and places two connect cards in bag.
Team: prints out Instruction sheet and has them photo copied enough for every bag
Team: Place bags on our Kindness To Go! cart and on tables for each of the 3 services

Church on Weekend: grabs bags and goes out into the community to share God's love on the weekend or through the week.

Our Instruction sheet.
Kindness to Go! Ok, How’s does it work?
It’s simple:
Step one: Grab a bag
Step two: Transport the bag to your favorite restaurant, after or before the meal hand the bag to the person serving. Say, ‘This is a small gift for you and your team.’

key… tip big and smile.
Or

Step one: Grab a bag
Step two: Take it with you the next time you go grocery shopping, put the bag at the end of your shopping for the person checking.
Or
Step one: Grab a couple of bags
Step two: Take the bags to your local police station, fire station, emergency room or post office. Say, ‘Just thinking about you this time of year.’

When asked, ‘Why are you doing this?’ Reply, ‘Just showing you God’s love in a practical way.'
Or
Be creative...choose your location, smile and have some fun!

If you participated and have a great story to tell. Please reply to post.