I was on an airplane recently and the lady sitting next to me asked me: “What do you do for a living?”

It is really hard to tell someone what I do. It is way too complicated. A consultant once told me that if you cannot tell someone what you do in the time it takes an elevator to drop you off at the fourth floor, you are probably wasting a lot of time, energy and resources doing your job.

It made me think: What is my elevator speech? What do I do? What does the team I work with do? Here’s a sample of my elevator speech:

Have you heard of the Lord’s prayer? There is one sentence in it that goes like this: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. The team I work with teaches and coaches churches and faith based organizations to focus some of their time, talent and resources on the “on earth” part. A question we ask a lot is:

If your church would disappear from neighborhood, what would the neighbors (neighborhood) miss? Anything? In what ways does life get better for the common good (especially the poor, the disabled, the widow, the orphan, the stranger) because the church is there? Is the community getting stronger, better, a bit more like heaven because the church is there working with the community? Is the community itself stronger better, more able to take corrective action on things it cares about?

Our journey has been progressing for over 3 years. We are very excited about our progress and growth. Life in many neighborhoods is getting better. Churches are gaining health and vitality as members work with their neighbors in community transformation activities and programs.

Praise God with us!