Having Nothing, Possessing Everything: Finding Abundant Communities in Unexpected Places

by Michael Mather

1. Our neighbors are God’s people. Act like it.

2. Everything begins with and builds on the gifts of our neighbors.

Parents and guardians are the first and best teachers. Respect this.

4. We invest first and foremost in the good the people of the neighborhood seek.

Money must flow to the neighborhood.

6. Practice neighbor love.

So our clergy, staff, and lay leaders began experimenting with what’s called “gamifying” our work. In the book Reality Is Broken, Jane McGonigal argues that games are often very helpful to both learning and making things work. She cites a report from the ancient historian Herodotus about a king who kept the people of his kingdom alive through a long famine by having them play games and fast on one day, and work and eat on the next day. The people of the kingdom followed this practice for eighteen years. If games could be used in this dire circumstance, they could also help us to see abundance where before we saw scarcity—and, ultimately, to change the way we treated people who had less money. Our denomination, like many, asks us to count how many people attend worship services on Sunday and also to count how much money is collected at those services. The same type of reporting is used in education and other areas of public life. But counting the attendance and the offering wasn’t giving us any information we could use. It wasn’t helping us see our neighbors more clearly. It wasn’t coming close to opening our eyes to the abundance around us. So our pastors and lay leaders of the congregation talked with one another about what actions we could count that would both reflect what we believe and help us pay attention to and celebrate those actions. We came up with twelve actions or practices that would reinforce the six principles. And we set up our own game that we played ever...

Count the number of times you ate with someone and reminded them during the meal of the communion that Jesus shared with his friends on Maundy Thursday and of Christ’s presence at their table. Count the number of times you went and offered forgiveness to someone who was laboring under guilt and shame. Count the number of times you threw a party to celebrate the presence and power of God’s love in the people and parish around you. Count the number of times you took your Bible and read a story to someone whose life you see in that particular story. Count the number of times you posted on Facebook celebrating in concrete and joyful ways the discipleship/vocation of the people in your parish.