1000 ACTS OF KINDNESS: Northridge Church spreads love through special initiative – The Union-Recorder

During August, Northridge Christian Church has worked to proclaim Gods love for the Milledgeville community in 1,000 different ways.

Outreach Pastor Kristin Meier said the churchs 1,000 Acts of Kindness initiative came about as leaders began discussing how Northridge could be known as a church that shows the love of Jesus in the place where their members, or partners, live, work and play.

The idea of really doing some intentional efforts to invest in this community was brought up, and once we had the idea, it became very clear that there were a lot of different areas that we could focus on blessing, Meier said.

Each Sunday in August, the church has focused on a certain group within the community that they could bless and pray for. The campaign kicked off on Aug. 1 when the church donated 120 backpacks filled with school uniforms to Communities in Schools of Milledgeville/Baldwin County.

It made a big impact in our community, said CIS Program Coordinator Courtney Bentley of the donation. Because we serve all of the public schools, were always looking for ways to get resources. So, partnering with Northridge Christian Church was a way for us to increase our supply that we have so that we were able to reach out to more of the students in our community.

The church also recognized educators by inviting all teachers in Baldwin County and beyond to attend service on Aug. 1 and blessing each of them with a $25 gift card.

On Aug. 8, Northridge supported Chard Wray Food Pantry by collecting food items through bumper bags. Church members had the opportunity to bring a bag of pantry items and leave them at their bumper while attending church service, and elementary students came around to collect them. Meier said about 200 bags were collected that day.

On Aug. 15, the church began working to highlight local businesses.

We know that local business owners are the heartbeat of our local economy, and we wanted to spotlight a few of those, Meier said.

Four local businesses were featured through Facebook posts, and people who liked and shared the posts were entered into random drawings for $25 gift cards each day that week.

On Aug. 22, a dollar club was sponsored where church members were asked to bring $1 donations for the Baldwin High School Resource Room, a place where students can go to get necessities such as hygiene and food items.

This will be one way that we can help them to be well-stocked for the school year, Meier said.

The campaign will close Sunday with a special breakfast for First Responders with gift cards presented to them in church service.

In addition to the planned activities, the church has also encouraged members to do random acts of kindness throughout the community and to let leaders know so that they can be counted toward the 1,000 cumulative acts. They can do this in ways such as cutting a neighbors grass, making someone a meal or paying for the persons coffee in the car behind them in the drive-thru.

Thats another way that we are hoping to engage our community in knowing that we can really transform things by doing small things with great love, Meier said.

Though the planned activities are ending in August, Meier said the hope is that these random acts of kindness will simply become a way of life.

We want this to really become the culture of our church, she said.

Meier said Northridge Christian Church believes in transforming the community through outreach.

We believe that were blessed to be a blessing, so we really take those values into account when were thinking about how we show love to Milledgeville.

Spreading a little joy along the way is a bonus.

Its my belief that the church should be the most joyful place on Earth, Meier said. I think that we should be the ones that are really leading the charge of spreading love, showing kindness, and not so people see us, per se, but so that people see Jesus and see how he loves. Thats our ultimate goal.

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1000 ACTS OF KINDNESS: Northridge Church spreads love through special initiative - The Union-Recorder