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Love your Neighbor Perseverance and Reconciliation

So what were you thankful for and how does it and is showing in your life?

Love your neighbor Perseverance and ReconciliationOne of the main things in loving and investing in neighbors and our communities is perseverance. It always reminds me of Jesus and how he invested in His disciples over and over again. He never gave up on them and always persevered. But even in his own life he never quit even till the cross he was perseverant to finish well.

When we build true relationships we have good and bad days. Especially in the hard days we need perseverance to keep being committed to each other. When you work through hard things together you will grow closer together. I remember situations where we had hard days with people, but instead of walking out of the relationship we choose to work on it. And the thing that happened was that we got closer and had a deeper relationship with each other.

I am sure that you or somebody you know had a bad experience with a neighbor. You had the choice of shutting off the relationship or fix it. Maybe you still have that separation going on right now and you choose not to persevere. So we want to challenge you in this pre-Christmas season to persevere and do your part to fix it. So make this week’s goal to take the first steps by just doing something nice for that person. Maybe bring over some fresh baked cookies or something else. Start walking into this season with a heart of perseverance and reconciliation since Christmas is the time when Jesus came into the world to reconcile us with the father. Let’s persevere so we get to see how it changes our life, relationships and neighborhoods.

Hey our friend

Thanksgiving is over and we hope you made it back out of the food coma! We had a wonderful celebration for thanksgiving which we cohosted with a neighbor. It was a lot of fun! It showed how our area grows closer together which is amazing! We hope that you also had a great Thanksgiving celebration. Jen and I had a few days off after thanksgiving which was fun. For the next few weeks it will be busier with Christmas coming up so it felt good just to slow down for a little bit.

So remember this week to persevere and reconcile with a neighbor!

Have a blessed week and be a blessing!

Markus and Jen

Love your Neighbor True Thankfulness

Did you start giving out invites and get over the fear?

Love your neighbor true thankfulnessFor the last year we talked about loving our neighbor. When we do that we don’t just loveour neighbor, no we also change our community. When we change the lives of the people we love we change our lives. We make our communities better. We prepare the ground for people to start knowing Jesus and to fall in love with him. The door will be opened for others to really see the goodness of God and for us it will create a better life too. When we have a better community it translates into a better place for all of us. When we think about others first, we will change inside and selfishness and looking out for our own best intrests diminishes. We are changing to a person that becomes more like Jesus and loves more like him.

So loving our neighbor is good from all aspects. It brings more thankfulness in our lives when we see how others change and become more thankful. In a few days we celebrate thanksgiving a big holiday all about being thankful and community. When we love our neighbor and community it will not just be a day of thankfulness for us, no it will be for all the people we loved well and all the people they loved well and so on. Why, because they might have never had community and now through you loving them they found it and that is really something to be thankful for. Out of that they might bring community to there neighbors because they saw what it did to them and how it changed them. So lets keep loving our neighbor and keep making a difference in there lives. Let us be thankful this year for what God was doing in our and there life.

Hey our friend

We hope your week was good. We had a normal week here in San Francisco. We started preparations for Thanksgiving. This year we will host together with a neighbor which is exciting! Pray for a good time of connections and relationship. Jen and I are doing well too. We watched a sweet little dog of friends of ours which brought a lot of joy!

Think about 3 things every day this week which you are thankful for!

Have a blessed week and be a blessing!

Markus and Jen

Love your Neighbor what if no one came?

How did it go sharing your love for Jesus?

Love your neighbor what if no one cameWere you ever worried about no one showing up to events you planned at your house? If welcome to the Club. Many times Jen and I sat in our living room waiting to see if anyone would come to a game night. And honestly 90% of the time our fear was proven wrong. But then when I think back in my life, I realized that this fear started a lot earlier.

It’s a Tuesday night and I am getting ready to prepare the room with 2 friends for an event I was going to host. The invites were out and now I just had to wait and see who would actually show up. This night was important for me, because I was sharing with many about the work I would join in San Francisco and to find people who would partner with me in that. So the pressure was on.

All I felt before that night was God saying trust me. But when it came closer to the time and only the 2 friends sat in the room, that trust came under a big test. Now we have 5 more mins till the event and 2 other people showed up. I was excited. I started to walk to the front door to see if there are more people, but I didn’t see anyone. Now its 8pm, the time the event is supposed to start, and I am really nervous since most of the chairs were empty. I send up a quick prayer and all I hear back is trust me. After I heard those words, the doors open up and people start flogging into the room. Very soon all chairs were filled and we ended up setting up more which then got filled as well. The next thing I see is people standing in the back and an overly full room. It hit me in that moment and brought tears to my eyes, God is always faithful.

So the fear of no one showing up is a real fear. But in reality even if no one comes that you invited, they still saw that you care. And that is the response we got many times from people how loved they feel that we would invite them into our lives. And that is exactly what Jesus would do too!

So if you are worried about thanksgiving and Christmas and this is one of the reasons you don’t want to invite people over, let us assure you it’s worthied to do it anyway!! So get those invites out!!

Hey our friend

We hope your week was fantastic. We had one of our wonderful small groups which was again really encouraging. Also helping out with the kids at the boys and girls club as well as helping at the Italian elderly place is such a blessing for them and for us. If you have some extra time find a place to volunteer in your community. You will be a blessing but in return you will also be blessed!! I also cant believe its only 1.5 more weeks till thanksgiving. Time is flying. Make sure to get your invites out to neighbors!

Remember!! Don’t let fear stop you from connecting with your neighbors and putting on an event!

Have a blessed week and be a blessing!

Markus and Jen

Love your Neighbor give the full picture

How did your week go? Did your heart change towards people by inviting them?

Love your neighbor show the whole pictureRecently we celebrated the 500th anniversary of reformation day. The day Luther nailed 95 theses at the door of the church in Wittenberg. He did it so people would have the opportunity to know the full truth and that the church could be reformed. Luther called for repentance and change. At the time people were given wrong information about salvation (the church leaders at that time were more about power, politics and money then about Jesus)and through that they always lived in fear. With Luther bringing the truth and also translating the bible he enabled people to read for themselves and understand what Jesus did for them. He also changed the church.

This is as relevant today as it was 500 years ago. 500 years ago people were misinformed about Jesus as they are today. Many people just hear about Christianity in the context of politics or negativity, but not the gospel message of salvation and hope. How do people want to choose Jesus if they have all the wrong ideas about Him? We need to bring a new reformation in the sense that people really know the full picture and understand Jesus and why he is important for them. This can only come out of honest and real conversation and also by seeing it through the way we live our lives. And when people hear the full gospel, they can make a decision for themselves. Its not our job to force them to do something, no they just have to fall in love with Jesus themselves and choose Him. But again we are all called to give our neighbor friends the full picture.

We want to encourage you this week to show Jesus through little acts of kindness and maybe talk with a neighbor friend about your faith in Jesus and what He means to you. Don’t pressure, just share openly and honest how you feel. That’s all you have to do. Making a decision is up to our friends!

Hey our friend

We hope your week was wonderful. We had a big Reformation day celebration with German food, a quiz all around Luther and his life and then we watched the movie Luther. All of us were inspired by his heart for God and to stand up against injustice. We also had different other events like a brunch and a potato night which were all really wonderful. It’s wonderful to see how more and more community forms when you truly love people and show them that you care about them!

Start this new week with a reformation in your heart and from that let it shine to your neighbors!

Have a blessed week and be a blessing!

Markus and Jen