Outreach Witnessing
As you’ve no doubt noticed, many of the projects the Garden supports require only you to complete them. Some are great ways to involve your family and teach your children about the importance of loving your neighbor through concrete acts of support.
There’s another set of projects that create an opportunity to build closeness within your church by involving many members in the project. For example, purchasing and assembling the personal care items for the Boxes of Love is an example of a project that can be done by a group of brothers and sisters meeting in a garage or church hall, perhaps even having lunch together beforehand. Similarly, assembling school supplies for poor children in our Kits4Kids project is another way to get a group to work together.
These projects where a group can usefully work together offer an opportunity you may not have thought of – witnessing to the love of Jesus and your faith. You may want to invite unbaptized family members to join you so they can see how faith is important in your life. Perhaps you have a neighbor or personal friend you could invite to help assemble the items or to come with you when you deliver the gifts to the local charity. Perhaps this will create an opportunity to talk about your own faith (while listening attentively to what they have to say about theirs) and thus open up an ongoing conversation with them.
Ask the Lord to create such an opportunity with the next Garden project you sign up for.