Can you imagine if disciples of Jesus actually began to obey the words of Jesus? What if we, as a church, began to interact with our neighbors in ways that both displayed the love of Jesus and declared His good news of grace? In the words of Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon,

When you love God and love other people, deep spiritual things transpire … The beauty of [loving your neighbor] is that it’s simple and genuine. You don’t need to memorize any pitches. You don’t need to chart out a master plan for evangelizing your neighborhood. You don’t need to worry about having a canned speech in your back pocket. In short, you need not make your neighbors your “pet project”; make them your friends. You simply need to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and body, and love your neighbor as yourself.¹

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR

It is more than just a program, it’s a movement – a movement where followers of Jesus seek to take seriously the command of Jesus to love God and love our neighbors.

In practical ways we desire to get to know our neighbors, using our God-given personalities and gifts to interact with our neighbors, develop authentic friendships, and display the love of God in Christ Jesus.

When we learn to live out genuine love for our neighbors we will find our opportunity to display and declare the love of Jesus increases. In other words, obedience to the Great Commandment often involves and causes greater opportunity to obey the Great Commission.

Obedience to the Great Commandment often involves and causes greater opportunity to obey the Great Commission.

The links below will guide you through different elements of what is involved in loving your neighbor. The goal is to provide some practical insights and helpful tools in your efforts to display and declare the love of Jesus. ²

• Know
• Pray
• Connect
• Speak

KNOW | PRAY | CONNECT | SPEAK

¹ Pathak, Jay, and Runyon, Dave. The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door, p 114.
²These goals have been adapted from Six Steps to Talking about Jesus, Matthias Media, 2006.