THE NEIGHBORHOOD CHURCH: Survival Kits

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

by Michael Klassen, co-Pastor of The Neighborhood Church

“Mike, you have no idea what a difference your church has made at our school,” the Dakota Ridge High School teacher exclaimed to me on the phone last night. “So please tell your congregation ‘thank you,’ ‘thank you,’ ‘thank you!’”

At The Neighborhood Church, we’re experiencing our most exciting season in our short history.

Last spring, I met with the principal of Dakota Ridge High School and proposed a ridiculous idea: supplying back-to-school survival kits for every staff member of the school. That’s 150 kits—a pretty big order for a very small congregation. “But,” I told him, “in order for us to pull this off, we’d like to invite the community to join us.”

“I love your idea,” he said. “Just tell me what to say and I’ll shoot out an email to everyone on my email list.” And he did.

So on August 9 and 10, I set up a table at the school registration and invited parents and students to sign a big poster board with their names and any words of appreciation in multi-colored Sharpie markers. While they were signing the poster boards, I asked them to contribute toward the survival kits. By the end of the second day, we had filled four poster boards full of names and collected $1,000. People associated from our congregation collected another $1500 which gave us $2500 to spend. They also asked local merchants to give toward the kits—which they did willingly!

The next week, I found myself addressing all 150 staff members of the school, thanking them for investing themselves in the lives of their students. A week later (August 23) we hauled into the school 150 survival kits filled with legitimate stuff like coupons for free pizza, subway sandwiches, appetizers, Starbucks gift cards, ibuprofin, green tea…and an orange.

The signed poster boards now hang in the teachers’ lounge.

Since then, my email box has been filled with thank-you notes from the staff. The teacher who called me on the phone last night told me, “Your church has helped our school start the year off in a new direction. There’s something different about this year.” All I could say was, “Thank you” and “We’re just trying to show God’s love in a practical way.”

In the meantime, we’re starting a mentoring ministry focusing on fatherless teenagers, which we’ll launch this month. The high school counselors have already agreed to help us identify the students in need of mentoring.

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop with this. Friends at Lookout, because of your partnership with us, this is your story too. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your generous financial support.

Here’s how you can pray for us:

· Pray for continued favor in the eyes of the Dakota Ridge High School staff.
· Pray that God will mobilize a strong team of mentors for the DRHS students—and students will who be receptive to our mentors.
· Pray that the hearts of the people in the DRHS community will be receptive to the gospel.

If you’re interested in learning more about becoming a mentor, please email me at mjk@tnc3.org.