From Matt...

I remember being a kid and selling candy bars as a fundraiser for my marching band...I hated it! Going to the neighbors’ doors and asking them to buy something was fraught with opportunities for rejection.

That feeling returns to me when I start walking through SoCe to interview people for SoCe Life. I have a little seed of dread that is planted in the back of my mind. But then it all changes!

I just came back from interviewing a neighbor and it was fantastic! Myrna was with me and we asked the neighbor for about five minutes of her time. Then we started asking her about her work experiences and what she likes to do. Soon we had gone past 5 minutes because we were laughing and sharing stories and hopes for the future.

SoCe Life isn’t like selling candy bars! In fact, it is the opposite. It is refreshing and energizing. And here is why: we aren’t taking from people, we’re just asking them to talk about themselves--and people don’t actually get to do that very often. When we interview people, we aren’t using people to build up ourselves, we’re connecting with people because we care about them and our neighborhood. For me, this type of caring and this type of connecting and this type of encouraging is what the kingdom of God is all about! (Maybe the church needs to spend less time taking from people and spending more time just listening to them.)