Tis The Season: Intentionally Connecting with Your Neighbors

Fall is here.  This guarantees Christmas decorations are already in the department stores.  Before the Holidays overwhelm you with activity, why not plan now to be intentional in hosting families in your neighborhood for a dinner?  Here is a great idea from Seth who is using FACEBOOK to create a "Get to Know Your Neighbors" event for all of next year.  Here is the plan Seth laid out and the actual FB event (1st step: Create a Neighborhood FB page):

"Here is something I put together for our neighborhood.  It might be for those who have already been doing a ton of stuff in the neighborhood and want to continually deepen the relationships in the neighborhood.  I put this up on our neighborhood Facebook group that I created, which has 63 people on it.  I figured I’d share what we are doing to keep pushing deeper with those we see at BBQs and Breakfasts.  

This was posted today on the Facebook page (you can see the actual event by clicking here.)

Hey neighbors. 

I thought this would be a fun idea to run by everyone. We all have enjoyed getting together as a bigger group during BBQs, 4th of July, parties, breakfasts, etc. I also know that some of us have dinner together every once in a while. The problem is that we usually only invite those over that we know pretty well. Not only that, but BBQs and Breakfasts are at times not all people can attend at. A dinner invite can be made for any day and any time that works for everyone. 

How about this? 

Over the next year, we decide to invite people over for dinner in our neighborhood, not because we already know them well, but because we’d like to get to know them better? 

So, here is the deal. Put on this event that you are planning on “attending” and then everyone that signs up is open to be invited over for dinner. 

You can have one family over, multiple families over, it can be a nice dinner, it can be a laid back dinner where you order pizza, etc. 

The whole idea is for us to just to get to know each other better. 

I know one on one dinners can be fun, but also intimidating and odd, so inviting over a couple of families at a time would be a great way to start it off. 

The goal would be for everyone on this list to have dinner with each other at least once by the end of next year (Dec 2012). Anyone on the Community is invited to participate as I know we have some friends that come to the events etc. that might not live in our neighborhood. Then, we could have a big get together dinner with everyone that participated, and invite those that couldn’t do it. 

So, go ahead and click, “attending” and let the fun begin."