A few years ago I was in a small group working on how to lead the body of Christ in our neighborhoods when the facilitator asked one of the group members what she loved about her neighborhood.

This woman, who had been relatively quiet during meetings thus far, became very impassioned as she described with great detail the beautiful and painful things she saw when she walked out her front door each day. Her emotional and tear-filled description of the place she loved has many times inspired me to slow down a bit to more deeply look at my own neighborhood and this awesome place called Newberg.

This past week a Love INC staff person sent me a link to a blog post where a pastor working in Atlanta listed the ten things he was thankful for in his community. This was very convicting for me, because it seems over the past few months I have found myself more focused on what is wrong in my community than what is right about it.