What is Jesus doing in your heart to increase compassion for others?

How can you practice opening to compassion?

Where do you see a need? What do you think the invitation from Jesus is to be part of the solution?

Where, when and how will you spend time praying for what God wants to do in and through you?

START HERE
Pray for compassion for the people that you encounter each day, and the place where God has planted you.

STRETCH
Download, explore and engage a prayer practice known as lament for your neighborhood or city (Nehemiah leans into this same practice in the opening scene of chapter 1.)

What does it look like for you to answer, “How can I help?”

What might you need to give up?

Who is around you to help?

Where is God sending you? Each day, week, year?

What are you dreaming about?

START HERE
Serve in a practical way where you work.

STRETCH
Keep a journal during the coming days.

1. What is it in your neighborhood and community that is broken that you are being invited to notice, to lament and to do something about?

2. Where has God already planted you? How can you serve there?

3. Who are you with throughout the week - where you live, work and play? Who, in those spaces, might God be connecting you with in order to be a partner in addressing the brokenness you feel compelled to do something about? (Tip: Ask God to give you eyes to notice this, even if the person is someone you’d never imagine partnering with because of differences, etc.)

4. What would you ask for in regards to the brokenness you want to be part of the solution to if someone said to you, “How can I help?”

1. When was the last time you talked to a stranger? How did it go?

2. What teams are you currently on? What is it like for you to be part of a team?


3. Who would you consider your teammates as you journey with Jesus?

4. In what ways is this team doing good? Or could do good?

START HERE
Find something in the community to partner with.

STRETCH
Download the Take A Learning Walk In Your Neighborhood & City practice, gather a friend or two and set out…

1. How do you procrastinate? Where are you on the procrastination cycle?

2. What change do you wish you could see in our community?

3. What will move you to “break ground”?

4. Which of the three ways to break ground stood out to you most (serve with family, network with people next to you, champion people doing good work?) Why?

START HERE
Have three intentional conversations this week about how to engage what needs repair in the community: family member, neighbor, co-worker.

1. When was the last time you heard you were doing good work? What was that experience like for you?

2. When was the last time you told someone else they were doing good work? How did they receive that encouragement? How was that experience for you?

3. Where have you experienced opposition? What was it like to navigate that opposition? How did it turn out? What did you learn through that situation?

4. What would it look like to invite Jesus into those moments of opposition? To respond instead of react?

5. Who are your reinforcements? Who are you a reinforcement for?

START HERE
Encourage someone you see doing good for the sake of the community.

Where have you seen internal problems? Why do you think they happened?

What do you think is the biggest problem we face right now?

What is the invitation we see in Nehemiah on how to respond?

Examining the difference between Equity and Equality, how do we see this in the Kingdom of Heaven as presented by Jesus throughout the Gospels?

What is Jesus inviting you to sacrifice?

START HERE
Give something of value away to someone who could benefit from it.

STRETCH
Nehemiah encountered a brokenness in addition to the walls of the city, a broken community marked by inequity. This practice, a grattitude, contentment and generosity survey, is designed to help you respond to such brokenness in your own community like Nehemiah did in his.

What do you tend to be the most distracted by?

How do you navigate being distracted by “good” things that keep you from the “better” thing?

What helps you focus? How do you intentionally cultivate this into your life rhythms?

What has helped you stay focused on God in the midst of distractions? (Great work, Close friends, Core beliefs, Something else?)

How have you seen the benefits of focus play out in your life? (Renewed determination, Sense of accomplishment, Discernment, Something else?)

*BONUS*
If you feel like there is a lack in any of these areas what would it look like to take a step in moving toward one (or more) of these in your life?

START HERE
Take the “no phone” challenge. Whenever you find yourself waiting - at a traffic light, in the checkout line, while picking up kids, whatever… instead of taking out your phone, simply notice what’s going on around you and who’s there and see what happens. Who might you meet? What might you observe? How might such a simple act help you experience a life of presence and focus?

What happens when the wall becomes the focus?

What does it take to shift that focus?

How are others filling the city? How are you filling the city?

Which point stood out the most to you? Every Person Counts; Life is Measured by What You Give Away; Joy is a Force; Humility Reconciles Us Back to God. Why?

What is your invitation to participate in filling the city with the love of God?

START HERE
Write down a plan for how you will tangibly love where you live, both now and in the days ahead. Start where you already are - at home, at school, at work, with the people you encounter each day, etc.