Kumar Luv [a.k.a -- Kindness 2 Go]

I was talking to Kumar Dixit at the New Hope Adventist church in Maryland a year ago. In his church, he does this thing where he invites guests at worship that morning to stay after the service for 7 minutes or less. He gives them a gift bag full of goodies and then explains some stuff about their church.

I liked what he did so much that I decided to steal it. But instead of giving the gift bags just to guests, we decided to line the stage with them once a month on First Serve Sabbath and call them Kindness 2 Go bags. At the end of our service, we pray over those bags and the conversations and questions they generate and then invite every guest and member present to come forward all together and take a bag home with them—as long as they promise to give it away to someone else during the following week. The next Sabbath, I interview a few folks in church who did so simply asking them what they said before giving the bags away and what their friend’s response was.

I’ll never forget what this one college student told me. I had told him he could say, "This is our Kindness 2 Go bag. My pastor told me to give this to you for Jesus sake." But when I interviewed him, what he said he said to his friend instead was, "This is a Kindness 2 Go bag. My church is giving these away for some reason. So take it for Christ’s sake." And he did! And a couple weeks later, both of them were in church.

You see it really doesn’t matter what you say or even how you say it. Because being normal and ordinary like Jesus is way more effective than being technologically advanced. Acts 4:13 [NIV] says it this way. "13When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus."

So you don’t necessarily have to go to seminary or boot camp. All you have to do is know your name and be willing to get to know someone else’s. Not as a target for your next conversion. But as a treasure for your next conversation. Because "Iron sharpens iron" [Proverbs 27:17] And because both of you were bought with a price.

Once you commit those two mind boggling details to memory, you’re good to go. Walking and talking. Eating and drinking. Praying%