Kindness Outreaches

Yesterday around 9:00am, I participated in my first Kindness Outreach at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, my home congregation.


We handed out about 200 free bottles of water to people who stop at a red light.


One of the most memorable things that happened was when I handed a bottle to a man and his son in a truck.  The son offered to give me his entire allowance from that week, (a dollar), but I declined and said the water was really free.  They both smiled, said thank you, and took the water bottles.  (We don't take money for these kindness outreaches.  We're trying to negate the idea that churches are only looking for people's money.)


Another memorable thing was when a woman running with her dog stopped.  We asked if she needed some water.  She declined, but said her dog loves to drink water from a water bottle.

From Pastor Mark's Blog

We do these kindness outreaches to share the love of Jesus in a practical way.  Pastor Steve Sjogren created this program in order to do just that.  My pastor, Mark Daniels, did this in his former congregation at Friendship Lutheran Church.  He and his congregation took cold cans of Coca-Cola and handed them out to folks stopped at intersections.  He recently decided to do the same thing at St. Matthew, his current congregation.  So far, the members that have participated have given over 500 bottles of water to people stopped at Hunter St. and Zanesville Ave. in Logan.




Another thing we're doing is a paying for people's meals at fast food or restaurants.  We hand out these cards.....

....and pay for the meal for the person behind us in the drive thru or for some family at a restaurant.  It's really satisfying when you do something like this.  Kindness does't have to be for summer mission trips.  They can be used any time of the year.




Why don't you do this?




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On another, unrelated note, I will be at Parade Of The Hills this week at the stage between the post office and the library in Nelsonville helping the sound guy.  Come say hi!