Longard Log: April 2012

Longard Log

Leon and Tina Longard

Building Bridges from the Local Church to the Soul of it's Community

On Mission Together

In his book, Launching Missional Communities, Mike Breen defines a missional community as "a group of anything from twenty to more than fifty people who are united, through Christian community, around a common service and witness to a particular neighborhood or network of relationships." Though it is not the same size as defined by Breen, we are reorienting the Life Group we lead for Franklin Park Church around this idea of identifying ourselves by a common service and witness which we seek to do together. As we begin to do this we can see God connecting the dots of our various relationships to expand the influence of His Kingdom.

In the past we have identified our life group by the place we met. Now we have chosen to identify it by the common service we engage in. Since we are doing more to connect our Life Group with the work we are doing serving the needy in our community, we are identifying our group around this common mission of serving those on the margins of society. Using the Greek word for "servant," diakonos, we've named our Life Group the Diakonos Community: a community of service.

In addition to our work with the needy of our community at The S.P.A.R.C. Center, we will be creating a garden co-op this summer with clients at S.P.A.R.C. to get them involved in growing fresh produce for their families. Franklin Park Church is letting us use 8 plots in the community garden on the property they rent to create this garden. I believe this will give us more opportunity to interact with people we know from S.P.A.R.C. on a regular basis and help them connect with Jesus in a way that will meet their spiritual needs in addition to their physical needs.

Pray that God would continue to give us vision and the means to reach people for Christ through this expanding network of relationship.

Praise Report:

God has provided a newer, more reliable vehicle for us. A family member was given a car by someone. In turn, they gave us a 2004 Buick Le Sabre with less than 100,000 miles on it. We are thankful to God for His blessing.

Ministry Goals

Train lay people to work with their pastors in fulfilling the mission of Jesus in their communities.
Network with multiple churches to pool resources for community outreach.
Make tools like the Alpha Course, Celebrate Recovery, and KidzClubs accessible to people on a main street level.