8 Front Doors Initiative - Northfield Edition

Last Thursday we began the 8 Front Doors Initiative in the neighborhood around Northfield School of the Liberal Arts near Friends University in Wichita, KS. We have enjoyed working with Northfield students in our own neighborhood. In the fall of 2019, they put in a lot of hard work laying down cardboard and raking many wheelbarrow loads of mulch at the Funston Neighborhood Garden. It was great to return the favor and partner with Northfield in furthering connections with their neighbors.

Read More

What We Do: Our Identity Markers

What We Do: Our Identity Markers

This is a continuation on the series What We Do.  In these blog post we are taking some of our most important concepts and tracking them through all the way to day to day actions.  Today I am taking on what I call the Identity Markers.  These are three concepts that we have discerned...

Read More

What we do... The Founding Belief.

As we expand our circle people often ask, 'so what is it that you actually do?'  To answer those critical questions I am embarking on a blog series titled "What We Do..."  Each post will take a foundational component of SoCe Life and break it down to the core task.  

Today I'm starting with our founding belief, 

God has gifted everyone.  As individuals share their gifts for the common good they experience wholeness.

This belief has two parts.  

First, God has gifted everyone. 

  • Because we believe this we intentionally seek out conversations with people the world has written off. In SoCe that is often our neighbors. This belief drives us to the streets it is why we've knocked on hundreds of doors and will continue to knock on more. With every conversation we are trying to look past the narrative of scarcity and uncover the God-gift of each person.

Second, As individuals share their gifts for the common good they experience wholeness.

  • Because we believe wholeness is a result of sharing gifts we see our role as facilitators not experts. When we host college students, youth groups, or interns we break our time into workshops led by the people we've met in the neighborhood. At our last retreat that meant college students spent a few hours learning the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous from a friend we met in our door to door interviews. Not only did the college students get to learn the power of AA our friend was able to experience the wholeness found in sharing your gifts.

So, what does SoCe Life do? 

We discover God-Gifts and find places to share them.