“You know how we at church will have testimonies to bear witness to ways that God has been at work in our own lives or in the various ministries of our church?” Kim said. “This is like national testimony time.”
“It’s a time to record what churches, thousands of churches across America, are doing,” he said, “and to bear witness to the transformational work of Christians following Jesus in their communities and serving out of love for their neighbor and love for God.”
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Many churches, of course, are already doing service projects in their communities. So why should they sign up for Good Neighbor Day America? Kim said this is a unique opportunity for the church’s corporate witness.
“There is power in togetherness in the kind of corporate witness that occurs when a day is chosen, and we’re just doing this nationally,” said Kim. “There is momentum that’s built, the visibility that’s built, a credibility that’s developed when the nation could look and say, ‘Wow, see these Christians, see how they love one another, see how they love their neighbors.’”
“And so we’re not particularly asking that you invent something new if you’re already planning on doing something,” he said. “Maybe move it to that day, register it, so that we have an opportunity, again, to bear a national witness that I think would be a very compelling way to compound this gospel witness in our nation.”
Those interested in participating can go to goodneighbordayamerica.com to register for a service event and to access various promotional materials.
There are “templates for how you might write a city leader for solicitation of needs,” Kim explained, “you know, what does the community need? There are templates for how to plan events. There’s actual comprehensive, web-based tools to record those events.”
“And the thing I love about it is,” he added, “while it’s preparation for a particular day, it’s actually equipping you for engagement long past that day. So everything that would be used for that day to help you pull off a day, an event, could be used at any other point later in the year.”
Kim was clear that Good Neighbor Day America is not a one-off day of service but is meant to help churches build long-term relationships in their communities.
“There are all sorts of ways where a particular day can lead to a long-standing set of relationships,” he said, “and it requires us just to ask, ‘Lord, what are the resources? What are the relationships that we have? What are the needs of the community?’”
Listening to the specific needs around us is essential to serving our communities well. “Curiosity is so incredibly important,” said Kim. “Just as individuals have different languages of love, different needs that are visible and invisible to us, so too our communities have different languages of love, different needs, different entry points of pain and desire and longing.”
“Asking questions is not only strategic in terms of making sure you’re addressing the right needs,” he pointed out. “It’s also dignifying. When you ask those questions, you are actually helping the other person have agency, partnership. It reduces this sense that we’re the experts and we’re just going to fix you.”
