Make God’s Love Known: 2026 Annual Focus

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The Art of Neighboring

What if Jesus really meant it when He said, “Love your neighbor”? Not just in theory. Not just metaphorically. But our actual neighbors — the people across the street, next door, down the hall.

Let’s rediscover the Great Commandment as a call to live with open doors, open schedules, and open hearts. We’ll name the barriers that keep us from neighboring well, take simple first steps to connect, and learn to recognize the people of peace God places in our path.

Along the way, we’ll be reminded that neighboring isn’t about fixing people or converting them — it’s about living transformed lives of love. And as we practice being present with those right around us, we may just find that God uses these everyday relationships to change us most of all.

Our sermon series on the Art of Neighboring includes several resources to help you get to know your neighbors better.

An Exciting Year to Make God’s Love Known!

In 2026, we’re focused on real-world impact by challenging ourselves as a congregation to Make God’s Love Known by blessing 100,000 people in all the places we live, work, and play. Together, as a church family, we believe we can touch that many lives with God’s love.

Together, we’re learning to notice the needs around us, offer a little love where it’s needed, and participate in God’s ongoing work of transforming lives—one act of blessing at a time. Whether through a conversation, a shared meal, a small act of service, or telling our story, we’ll discover that being blessed by God is never the end of the journey; it’s the beginning of blessing others.

What Does It Mean to Bless?

To bless someone is to hand them a little bit of God’s love. When we bless others, we’re participating in shalom—God’s intended order where everything works together for the benefit of everything else. We’re extending provision, protection, safety, and love. 

Together, we’ll explore how God’s blessing flows through us—not just for our own good, but so we can give it away to others. Drawing from Scripture stories from Abraham to Philip, Moses to Jesus’ disciples, we’ll discover that blessing is woven into the very nature of God and, because we are made in God’s image, it’s woven into us, too. 

You are blessed to be a blessing. From the very first day of creation, this has been our calling.  This is the very thing God designed you to do. Every good gift you’ve received? It’s meant to flow through you to others. Each of us is a conduit—not the source—to share goodness in someone’s life. We’re made in the image of a God who blesses, and we’re invited to share in this beautiful, divine work! 

Answer God’s Call

Consider all of the places you already go—your neighborhood, your workplace, your favorite coffee shop. God has strategically placed you there with a divine purpose: to make God’s love known.

Stop and pray, “God, who are you calling me to bless?” Who comes to mind? Whose face do you see? That’s where you can begin!

Let’s make this a way of life, not just a one-time action. Together, we’re going to make 2026 a year of extraordinary blessing. We can’t wait to see how God works through each of you as we make God’s love known!

The Blessing Wall

In our lobby, we have created a Blessing Wall where our congregation can share the first names or an identifier such as “friend,”, “sister, ” “teacher”, etc. representing people they have blessed. Let us know if you have someone to add, we we’ll fill out a nametag for them to represent the blessing!

Resources

While we will have stickers and wallet cards for folks in town, we will keep adding digital resources to this page whenever possible.