A Neighborhood Block Party

By Wayne Story
Posted on March 30, 2005

Value the Community Around your Rio Link

Over the past 6 years, I have been on a quest. I’ve been searching the New Testament, looking at history books and asking God the following question. Why was the first century church so successful that the pagan temples of the day were becoming empty? Here are some thoughts that I believe the Lord revealed to me.
Take a moment and answer the following questions to yourself. Don’t brush by this, take the time to think about it.
What does the non-Christian community in the U.S. think of the Christian church and Christians in general? What’s their opinion of Christians and therefore the Christian religion? What do you think has caused them to have that opinion? How have you and I and Christian friends around us contributed to that opinion?
Let’s look at a bit of history that I discovered in my search for this truth about the first century believers.
Halley’s Bible Handbook has the following historical antidote:
“Pliny, who was sent by Trajan, the Roman Emperor (approx. A.D. 110) to Asia Minor, (where Christians had become so numerous that the heathen temples were almost forsaken) to punish Christians, wrote to the Emperor Trajan: ‘They affirmed that the sum of their crime or their error, whichever it was, was to sing among themselves, in turn, a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and to bind themselves by an oath, not to do any wickedness, but that they would never commit theft, or robbery, nor adultery; that they would never break their word; that they would never deny a trust when called to give it up; and after these performances, their way was to separate, and then meet again to partake of ordinary food.’ ”
Let’s break this statement down. First they were being so effective at winning converts that the pagan temples of the time which appealed to the base desires of mankind were not being used much at all.
Why was this important? There was probably less evil in the area as a result. That had to be good for the Roman government, right?
Why were they effective? Because they made an oath to live by a creed that said they were not going to live wrong lives. They would not break their word (any contract verbal or written which they gave someone else). Pliny didn’t understand it but it was based on the principles Jesus taught.
For instance they would not have tried to break the lease on the rental of an apartment or a house. If they told their boss they would get something done by a certain time, the boss would have been able to count on it. They also pledged that when something was told to them in confidence that not even threat of death would have allowed them to tell what they knew. There was no gossip among them or about what their neighbors told them.
And, they fellowshipped together and took care of each other and the people in need around them. So here is Pliny. He is supposed to kill and punish Christians. But, once he knows them, he can’t find a good reason to persecute them. He felt strongly enough about this that he would buck the command of the Roman Emperor. What would it take for non-Christians in America to feel that way about Christians?
If church people today lived up to the above statement, based on the same commitment to the teachings of Christ that these early church members displayed, there would be no stopping the growth of Christianity in our nation and the world. Another key to the success of the early church was that they repeated and renewed their vow every time they came together, most of the time in their homes.
What did Jesus teach us to be like around our neighbors and the world around us?
Matt. 5:38 through Matt. 5:42 (NLT)
38“You have heard that the law of Moses says, ‘If an eye is injured, injure the eye of the person who did it. If a tooth gets knocked out, knock out the tooth of the person who did it.’ 39But I say, don’t resist an evil person! If you are slapped on the right cheek, turn the other, too. 40If you are ordered to court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. 41If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. 42Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.
These are standards that Jesus gave us. It is also how, much of the Christian community of Peter and Paul’s day were acting. How does this translate to today’s society? What would be equivalent today?
Do we as a Christian community exhibit behavior like this? Why not? Is this maybe some of the reason that people around us have a negative view of believers? Why did Jesus want us to act like this? Why don’t we?
Luke 6:31 - 36 (TMNT) “Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.
“I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.”

This should be something we repeat every time we come together in our Rio Links. Jesus said: “Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never—I promise—regret it.”
What can we do to begin to change this opinion of the Christian community? How can we help the people around us begin to value this kind of change? -- A change to selflessness. Go back and read that word again. I didn’t say selfishness. I said selflessness. They are two words that are very close in spelling but worlds of difference in action.
One way we need to start implementing this kind of change is by modeling selfless acts for others in our community and encouraging our people to do the same. Maybe even leading our groups in regular group activities designed to help them develop this mindset in their daily activities outside of Rio Link.

What does it mean to do a selfless act? If Christians typically help non-Christians in the community what do we expect to happen? We expect the non-Christians we help to come to our group or to our church. Are we disappointed when we don’t see them start coming to our church? Why?

Mark 4:26 - 29 (NLT) 26Jesus also said, “Here is another illustration of what the Kingdom of God is like: A farmer planted seeds in a field, 27and then he went on with his other activities. As the days went by, the seeds sprouted and grew without the farmer’s help, 28because the earth produces crops on its own. First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens. 29And as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it with a sickle.”

Because we are in the United States we have been taught that any effort without a positive outcome is a wasted effort, right? So how do we get our people to begin giving without any expectation of return? Why would we want to?

John 4:34 - 38 (NLT) 34Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. 35Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields are ripening all around us and are ready now for the harvest. 36The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! 37You know the saying, ‘One person plants and someone else harvests.’ And it’s true. 38I sent you to harvest where you didn’t plant; others had already done the work, and you will gather the harvest.”

Why would Jesus be talking about people that plant and don’t get to enjoy the harvest? Or, Why talk about people that are involved in the harvest but not the seed planting? Jesus wanted us to understand that we are to do what is right and live by Jesus principles even if we don’t see the outcome. Jesus/God understands that when we serve, the outcome will almost always take some time to develop. But he knows like the wheat in the field it will happen eventually if we are patient and obedient. He also wanted us to be careful not to get full of ourselves when we do get to experience someone coming to know Him around us. We probably weren’t the total reason they came to accept Him into their life. Even though we would like to pat ourselves on the back. We need to focus on the goal. The overall outcome not our outcome.
So, let’s look at a way we have decided to approach this. We wanted to get our people involved in a mindset of doing selfless acts for others. Many times that is difficult to do to people around us who know us like our neighbors or friends or relatives.
So we decided to follow the example of a Church in Cincinnati, OH. It is what they call servant evangelism. We are starting to plan and execute servant acts of kindness events in our group at least once every couple of months. We are going to go out into the community and do something that serves the community in an unexpected way. Here are a couple of things that we have done so far in our Rio Link.

Give out free iced down soft drinks at a large park in the area. We just gave them out and people couldn’t believe what we were doing. They were shocked. It was awkward at first but the people in our group really got into it after a few minutes and had a great time.

Neighborhood Block Party
Another idea we tried that really worked well was having a block party in our neighborhood. We invited all the people in our neighborhood to come to our house to get to know their other neighbors. We put out signs leading into the neighborhood and we put out a few flyers explaining what we were doing. You notice I didn’t say we invited them to get to know us. That is an important distinction. Were we serving our community or were we just going to serve our selfish interests?
You wouldn’t believe the response we had and the surprise. Our neighbors couldn’t believe we would open our home to anyone in the neighborhood and include their children. People who came just kept commenting that they couldn’t understand why we would take the chance to invite just anyone into our home. That we would risk that their kids might damage or destroy something in our home. We had to show them by our actions that we didn’t hold our self worth in the things in our house that might get damaged. They were just things that could be replaced.

By example we were establishing a new standard of behavior. It is an old cliché but ‘our actions speak far louder than our words.’ Were Linda and I really willing to risk putting action to the things we say we believe? We wanted our guests to understand (by our actions), what could not be replaced were the positive relationships we wanted to develop with them. The lasting friendships caused by people helping others.

We wanted to start looking like the First Century Believers. Here is what we did and what we experienced. We had no idea how many people would come, or if anyone other than our close friends would come. It was strange, from the time we put out the signs till the day before the party, people kept driving by our house very slowly. Our street is a little more isolated. There is seldom any traffic. But those two weeks before, people were constantly driving by our house very slowly. We imagined they were saying to themselves. ‘What kind of people are these that would invite stangers to their house.’ ‘Is this going to be some kind of an Amway party?’
We ultimately had 27 family units come. Some were just a husband and wife or a boyfriend and girlfriend living together. A majority however, had children of all ages. We decided our only purpose was to introduce people in our neighborhood to each other. ‘No expectation of return.’ Our purpose was not to get people to come to our Rio Link or to Soul Rio. In fact, we did not even talk about church unless we were directly asked. And then we only did it in passing. We did not try to seize on the opportunity to do a “Christian Brain Dump” on them. It was just dealt with as an integral part of our life; who we were.
We decided to hold it on Sunday afternoon. We felt that was the time that the most people would be available. That is generally considered by the non-Christian community to be the family day; a day available for doing non-daily life activities. We scheduled it to last two hours. But we were open for people to stay as long as they wanted. The last couple of families left after 4 hours.
Everyone in the neighborhood and the people from our Rio Link had a great time. We did not plan any activities except for the children. We just let people talk about themselves and to others that they did not know. Linda and I acted as hosts. We spent all of our time greeting the neighbors and learning as much about their life as we could. We were constantly asking questions about their families, jobs, hobbies and fun activities they like to do.
We wanted them to know we were interested in them as people not in what they could do for us. It also gave us an opportunity to identify specific people with needs that we might be able to serve. One young lady was new to New Mexico and her husband was on the road all the time. She needs someone to check in on her from time to time and be a friend.
Another couple had several children and needed to find some positive kids for their children to play with. Others had neighborhood issues they wanted to discuss and organize solutions for issues in the neighborhood. These are just a few examples. There were many more.
Because we wanted to value people’s children, we decided to do something to entertain them while they were here. We wanted the kids to feel like it was fun coming to this party not a drag. So we planned things for them to do. We ordered a fun jump to give them an activity that was their own. That way the adults were able to enjoy themselves without having to constantly worry about what their kids were doing.
Another concern: we did not know how many would come. We bought plenty of food and snacks and decided to trust God that he would lead us to know the right amount. It turned out that we had more than enough. We decided to do hamburgers on the grill while people came and went. We cooked hamburgers for almost 2 hours. Everyone received at least one freshly cooked hamburger. People in our group came and volunteered to serve in various areas of the party. One couple helped supervise the fun jump. They were able to spend time with all of the parents as they brought their kids to enjoy the fun jump.
Others took all of the food preparation responsibilities. We had several that spent most of their day cooking hamburgers and hot dogs and serving food. Then others stayed and helped us clean up after everyone left. By the time the last neighbor left the whole place was pretty well cleaned up. We are going to do another party in the spring. We would like to become know as a friendly place people can gather and enjoy each other. That way they can begin to see how we care about them. There may come a time where this will give us an opportunity to tell them about why we are the way we are.
In order to be healthy, a Rio Link must have an inward focus component that meets needs and helps the people in our group grow closer together. However, this is only half the ingredient to a successful group experience. It must also have an outward focus or it becomes stale and does not fulfill the mandate that Jesus demonstrated to us. Jesus sent 72 followers out to spend time in the community. He told them not to take anything. Just go. He was trying to get them to get out of their comfort zone and meet people so they would have a chance to share their experience with Christ.
We have to do the same thing to remain healthy. The great news is that we don’t have to have any significant evangelism skills to reach out to our community. But our people believe they do. How difficult is it to go hand out Cokes in the name of Jesus? How hard can that be? How hard can it be to hold a party for the neighborhood?
Steve Sjogren says in his book “101 Ways to reach your Community”: “Our job isn’t to see everyone we encounter come to Christ on the spot. …. We exist to love our city into a relationship with Jesus Christ.” What do you think he means by that?

If you have Questions or want to discuss this further? Call Wayne Story, Rio Rancho, NM. 505-892-2771 Work, 505-994-8470 Home

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