I might need to release control of these things in order to fully engage with God…

• my parents or in-laws
• my children
• my career
• my dream of being wealthy, powerful, “successful,” retiring early, or?
• my secret habit.
• my habit that everyone knows about but I still hold it.
• the abuse from my past.
• the “old” ways of doing things that I still choose to hold as important.
• my families way of doing things.
• a bad relationship.
• a “seemingly good” relationship.
• my house.
• my car(s)
• cable TV.
• my movie collection.
• my cultural beliefs that keep me from living by faith.
• trying to fix other peoples problems.
• or ___________________

This is not intended to be a list of “things to do” in order to please God. We have purposefully left off any contact information for possible connects to resources to accomplish any of the following. Why? The goal of this tool is to challenge us to engage with God and hear Him. This list then becomes a tool that can confirm what has been bouncing around in your heart, what you have been feeling and seem to always come back to when things are quiet. You might also see something that you just simply must do. If so, please do, search for the contacts and the connections, ask people for help, engage with others to live out that which is in your heart. Mission is not supposed to be easy, for Mission is not simply what you do, but what is done in you when you follow God’s lead.

The following ideas are just ideas, they may engage your heart or they may mean nothing, but there purpose is to allow you to contemplate whether God has been calling you to bless others in one of these ways.

• Bake cookies, a cake, cupcakes, or bread and take them over to the neighbors you don’t know. Walk out of your house and ask God to direct you to the house you need to go.
• Ask your boss over for dinner. (or your child’s teacher, a co-worker, an employee, a single parent and his/her children we have found that school teachers rarely get asked to come to dinner by their students families.)
• Go to a foreign country…not on vacation…but to serve the poor.
• Use your influence to find resources to meet a need.
• Teach Sunday school or serve in the church nursery. (This is a great place for men especially as boys need role models from men.)
• Men: Take some boys fishing, hiking, or to a game.
• Start a life group and stop waiting for someone else to start it.
• Stop long enough to hear from God.
• Move to be closer to family that needs you most.
• Move away from family that is sucking the life out of you.
• Prepare your will and or Living Trust to reflect God’s Mission.
• Reach out and attempt to mend a broken relationship.
• Plan your next vacation with being a blessing in mind instead of “getting away from it all.”
• Get out of retirement and serve others.
• Volunteer at the local school doing something you are gifted or skilled at.
• Become a foster family.
• Adopt a child and give them hope.
• Be a “Big” brother or “Big” sister.
• Lead your life group to take on a new mission.
• Adopt a highway with your family, friends or life group.
• Go on the next House Building Trip in Rocky Point.
• Pick up trash whenever you see it.
• Become a tutor, (join our Tuesday night tutoring ministry.) or just volunteer at your neighborhood school
• Volunteer to give shut-ins free rides to doctor’s appointments.
• Join the visitation team.
• Focus on the needs of your spouse more than your work or children.
• Have more children.
• Adopt a family who could use some mentoring.
• Get out of debt so you can engage the mission instead of being enslaved to interest.
• Give a bunch of your wealth away to a worthy cause(s).
• Go and visit missionaries just to encourage them, bless them while you are there, the best “vacations” you will ever take.
• Serve food at a local shelter weekly so you can build relationships.
• Get sober and free of your addiction(s).
• Use your sobriety and freedom to encourage others to get sober.
• Share your faith testimony with your children/grandchildren/neighbors, friends.
• Adopt a policeman or other public servant and send them notes of encouragement weekly as well as pray for them daily.
• Join a prison ministry.
• Take a parenting class.
• Become a greeter at church and use your smile to welcome people on the weekends.
• Quit talking about what you are going to do when, and do it now.
• Move.
• Resign.
• Take the promotion.
• Refuse the promotion.
• Move to a neighborhood that needs you.
• Downsize your house and use the extra income to bless others.
• Take $100.00 a month (any amount will do) carry it with you at all times and ask God to show you how to bless others.
• Anonymously buy someone’s dinner.
• Ask a starving college student out to dinner.
• Provide free childcare for a single parent to get some time for themselves.
• Move to the inner city and start making a difference there.
• Join your schools PTA or PTSA and get involved.
• Take your child’s principal to lunch and ask them “What is the one thing they wished they had at their school?” Then provide it for them.
• Clean up your yard, paint your house, and fix your landscaping so you will have a better witness in your neighborhood.
• Do a free neighborhood car wash with your family…just because you can.
• Take your kids along with whatever your doing so they can get started blessing others.
• Start on the projects around your house using the time to allow God to speak to you.
• Spend your lunch our praying for specific needs.
• Drive, just drive and ask God to lead you someone who needs you.
• Or ___________________

There are many more ideas and possibilities that our creative God my call on you to accomplish…may you engage with him and be transformed from the inside out.

Here are some helpful ways to find that place of solitude with God. These are based on ideas presented from Running on Empty by Fil Anderson

1. Use your lunch or coffee breaks to intentionally be alone with God.
2. Find special places for solitude, places that help you connect with God.
3. Focus your prayers. Fight through all the internal and external distractions by repeating a simple prayer like “Jesus, I belong to you,” or “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”
4. Stop, Sit, and wait. Remember that God is responsible for the relationship with you, give him time and space to speak to you.
5. Seize the opportunities that are available to you: Stay up a little later, get up a little earlier, just take a few more minutes here or there.
6. Schedule some space into your day: Put solitude on your schedule like you would another appointment and then don’t double book.
7. Drop all expectations: Time with God isn’t an assignment to be graded. Neither is it a means to an end.
8. Slow down: Take a walk, drive slower, let others step in front of you in line, and use this time to focus on being aware of what God might be trying to share with you.
9. Exercise the body and the soul: Using physical exercise as a time to keep the body busy while you allow your mind to focus and your heart to tune in to God.
10. Practice gratitude, thanksgiving, and monetary prayer: Before getting out of bed, while having a conversation with someone, before a meal, while waiting for a traffic light to change, when you are on hold, when you lay your head down at night.