A place for kids to be creative in the summer can influence the outcome of their life and faith. It was the unique combination of creativity and compassion that Jazmin Lopez Geminiano experienced as a child that she would extend decades later for children through Art & Jesus Camp.

The practice began with a question. “What can we do to share the Easter story with people in our neighborhood?” Mark Grapengater had recently moved to the Hampden Heights neighborhood, but in the Spring of 2020, navigating the early days of the pandemic, a neighborhood gathering on Easter Sunday was unlikely. Mark considered the art installation, Stations in the Street, “I think this is something we can do.”

Being freely & lightly attuned to the natural world around us reminds us of the patient pace of the Creator. This is not something to accomplish, but something to enter into, because it’s all happening anyway, and we aren’t at the center of any of it. We are invited to meet God in the wonder, enjoyment, and grief of it all.

A Rule of Life is ancient language for spiritual practices to organize your life around what you love. We all have, consciously or unconsciously, created rhythms of life to protect and preserve what we value. Regardless of our age, gender, or personality type, we all have a Rule of Life. We all have practices we form. And those practices form us.

During the holiday season, sometimes the best thing you can give your friends and neighbors is…less. Not a Christmas party, not even a Christmas gathering—just a few hours to pause, wrapped in a bit of lightness and brightness. That’s how our tradition of “Christmas Cheer To-Go” began. 

My family and I joined Monroe Organic Farms’ CSA this past year. Each week, Monroe would drop off a handful of shares at a neighbor’s home, and everyone would come by to pick up their vegetables. Along with getting big bags of beautiful produce each week, I got to know the Monroe family more deeply, along with Mary Ann, my neighbor, who sat in her garage for two hours every week distributing the farm shares.

The Kallander family attended their first Flower Street block party before they closed on the sale of their home in the Lakewood neighborhood. That first block party began to build a foundation of community and connection with their neighbors. The next summer, the neighbors who had lived on the block since 1956, passed the baton to Karin Kallander and two other families to organize the party. For the last 16 years, at the end of every August, there is a beautiful block party on Flower Street.

On Thursday nights every summer, something remarkable happens in Dan and Stephanie Lagerborg’s backyard—people show up. They bring something to grill, a side dish to share, and an openness to relax and connect. There’s no formal invitation, no sign-up. Just a grill, beverages, a beautiful backyard, and a rhythm of weekly welcome.

My refrigerator has a feature for families like ours. It beeps when the door is left open over a set amount of time. This is particularly helpful in households with multiple people, especially during lunchtime when leftovers are being brought out and put back in batches. We don’t realize the fridge door is open, so it beeps to alert us. The problem is I often don’t hear the high-pitched chirp. I’m not sure if it’s the tone or the noise of the kitchen, regardless of the cause, I tune it out and keep making sandwiches.

For more than a decade Josh Haynes has been inviting men to the practice of sharing a drink and sharing a conversation about life and faith. Josh shared the origin, “We would pick a Thursday night once a month, everyone would show up on their bike, and we'd ride to a local brewery.”

Our family first joined a community garden when our kids were in elementary school. At the time, we didn’t know much about growing food, and we lived in a townhome with a small shady yard that had yielded two seasons of disappointment. We quickly discovered that gardening in the company of others gave us access to a wealth of knowledge and opportunity. Alongside neighbors—many of whom we might not have met otherwise—we dug, planted, watered, and weeded, and slowly learned the rhythm of life in the garden.

“The best thing you can find at a garage sale isn’t a bargain—it’s community.”

Each spring neighbors open their garages and cover their front lawns with tables full of treasures. Garage sales are commonplace events. But for The Knolls, Cherry Knolls, and Tiffany neighborhoods, located in Centennial, an annual Neighborhood Garage Sale has become a cornerstone of community life.

I co-lead a church that meets in our home. We decided a practical and joyful way we could serve our neighborhood was to sponsor the Easter Egg Hunt. Last year, we chose to hand-deliver an invitation to the egg hunt to every house in the neighborhood. We asked the families in our church to contribute eggs, create a cookie decorating station, and hide over 800 hundred eggs!

In the chill of the winter months, it is instinctive to retreat into the warmth of our homes. But winter also presents unique opportunities to love our neighbors in tangible and practical ways. Checking in on neighbors is a practice that can foster meaningful connection and offer important physical, emotional, and relational care.

A Rule of Life is ancient Christian language for practices to organize your life around what you love. We all have, consciously or unconsciously, created rhythms for our life to protect what we value. Regardless of our age, gender, or personality, we all have a Rule of Life. We all have practices that shape us and form us.

“Halloween is a boo-tiful day to get to know your neighbors.” says Kristin Schell, founder of The Turquoise Table. There is no other day of the year when more neighbors knock on each other’s door. Halloween is a unique opportunity to show hospitality to your neighbors and neighborhood.

The text message from my neighbor came the weekend after he and his family moved out. “Can I borrow your mower tomorrow? If not. That’s ok.” He needed to mow his yard before the new family moved in and had already moved all the tools from his garage. “Absolutely. I’ll have the battery charged.” I replied. It was a punctuation mark on two years of lending tools to each other while he lived on our street.

Ice cream is an almost guaranteed way to gather people. There’s a magical connection when people come together to enjoy the endless variations of frozen cream, milk, and sugar. An ice cream social is a sweet, and simple, way to spend time with your neighbors

Sitting in the backyard as a new mom while my first daughter played, I found to be a very isolating experience. But when I took the kiddie pool or the slide to the front yard, the chance of interacting with other adults rose exponentially.

Wandering is a counter script to the often overly scheduled lives centered around efficiency and productivity. Wandering is a practice that cultivates curiosity, looking to be interrupted by the world around you. When we are willing to wander, we have the possibility of being present to what is around us.