In Mark 12:31, Jesus told His audience, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” In fact, the command to love one’s neighbor appears ten different times in the Scriptures. At Lancaster Baptist Church, we have set aside a special week to devote special attention to following these instructions.
Our strategy is that every member of Lancaster Baptist Church would perform “intentional acts of kindness” to demonstrate God’s love to coworkers, neighbors, friends, and complete strangers.
The idea behind Love Your Neighbor Week is that we would point our community to the Lord Jesus Christ through our actions. With each act of kindness, we follow up with a simple reminder of God’s love—a card that says “God loves you” and has our church’s name and contact information on it.
As a church, we are looking this week for creative ways, as families and individuals, to demonstrate Christ’s love. And we are praying for those who will receive these acts of kindness, that seeds of the Gospel will be planted in their hearts.
Love Your Neighbor Week inspires creative ways to touch people’s lives for eternity—and to have a great time doing it!
(Visit strivingtogether.com for a free download of the Love Your Neighbor card and a handout to give your church family of ideas to love their neighbors.)
Ideas for Children:
- Bake goods for a police or fire station
- Take stuffed animals to the hospital’s children’s wing
- Take coloring books to a doctor’s office
- Make bookmarks and hand them out at a library, hospital, or school
- Give out free lemonade on the front lawn
- Take dog or cat treats to a veterinary hospital
- Take dog food or cat food to an animal shelter
- Make crafts for local city officials to use as office décor
Ideas for Teens:
- Wash windows in a parking lot
- Take a pie to an elderly neighbor
- Mow someone’s lawn
- Rake someone’s leaves
- Take up a neighbor’s trash cans
- Trim a neighbor’s bushes
- Sweep a neighbor’s patio
- Host a free car wash
- Clean bathrooms at a local business
- Volunteer at a nursing home
- Volunteer to be a tutor in a public school
- Plant flowers in a neighbor’s flower box
- Offer to babysit for free
- Paint nails or do makeup for ladies at a nursing home
- For musicians: give a brief recital at a retirement community or in a public place, such as a park
Ideas for Adults:
- Bake goods for someone down your street
- Wash windows in a parking lot
- Take a pie to an elderly neighbor
- Mow someone’s lawn
- Take up a neighbor’s trash cans
- Pay for the person behind you at a drive-through
- Trim a neighbor’s bushes
- Sweep a neighbor’s patio
- Take baked goods to the office
- Fill a coworker’s candy dish
- Fill a coworker’s fridge with water
- Buy a coworker coffee, a snack, or lunch unexpectedly
- Place a tissue box on a coworker’s desk
- Take hot chocolate mix and marshmallows to the break room
- Take free newspapers to the office
- Buy your neighbor a newspaper
- Take flowers to work and share them
- Treat a coworker to fresh fruit
- Paint nails or do makeup for ladies at a nursing home
- Clean bathrooms at a local business
- Meet the mailman with a bottle of water
- Volunteer to be a tutor in a school
- Leave an extra big tip for the waiter/waitress
- Rake someone’s leaves
- Serve refreshments to customers at a retail center
- Plant flowers in a neighbor’s flower box
- Let your staff leave work an hour early
- Offer to return a shopping cart for someone loading a car
- Let the person behind you in the grocery line go first
- Slip some money to someone who you know is having financial difficulty
- Leave money in the vending machine for the next person to get a treat
- For musicians: give a brief recital at a retirement community or in a public place, such as a park
- For business owners: donate a percentage of revenue for the week to a special cause or serve refreshments to customers
Ideas for Families:
- Take baked goods to a fire or police station
- Take baked goods to a neighbor
- Take stuffed animals to the hospital’s children’s wing
- Take coloring books or magazines to a doctor’s office
- Take a pie to an elderly neighbor
- Rake someone’s leaves
- Visit the elderly in a retirement community
- Take your dog to a retirement community
- Host a free car wash
- Host a free garage sale
- Take a bag of groceries to a needy family
- Make bookmarks and hand them out at a library, hospital, or school
- Plant flowers in a neighbor’s flower box
