We believe a camp fire is a great place to kindle relationships. In June 2016 our church gave away twenty fire pits to families in our church asking them to invite their neighbors over for marshmallows. Did you know it only takes a spark to get a fire and the conversations going! Here are some of our glowing stories...
FROM CHRISTINE
We were super excited when we heard about the bonfire idea because we have been wanting to do something that brings our neighbors together! So...tonight we are planning an outdoor movie in our backyard!! We will have a bonfire with s'more fixin's of course! We plan to have the bonfire around 7:30ish and then start the movie around 8:30ish when it's darkish!! Come on by if you'd like! We have some neighbors and friends from church coming!! The featured movie is Toy Story 2!!
FROM JAYSON
Light it and they will come! We got our fire pit a month or so ago, and we had great hopes for it. I'm from a black community (where I grew up) and setting fires had little to do with Jesus. However, I've noticed that in my Plymouth community my neighbors would have fires every so often. As you announced this proposal, my wife and I discussed it non-verbally through eye contact that we'd like to try it. On the first time using the pit, we had a fellow church family over, and we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. I made a point to discuss faith, discuss my crisis with my faith decades ago, and how I'm on the path to finding what I've lost. We had a great conversation, and he showed understanding to my situation. He told me a bit about his journey. It was good. The next time we used it, we had neighbors over after dinner. Immediately, they asked where we got it, which left a huge hole to discuss faith. I know they are 'believers' so the conversation was easy and interesting. We talked about our churches and what were some of the difficulties being a Christian today. I don't have any pictures, but I have the experiences. Since we've had the pit, we've used it every weekend and are going to use it the front yard to see what happens. I appreciate the pit and the time spent discussing faith and Christ. Thanks You,
FROM MOLLY
It's nearly midnight and I think it's going to be a while until I'm able to fall asleep because I'm so excited. The last of our 13 neighbors left our fire at 11 p.m. tonight. Craig and I would have been really excited if one or two people showed up but we kept having to add chairs as they continued to come! Around 6 p.m. this evening Poppy and I walked down our block and handed out packages of s'mores with a little poem attached inviting people to come to our house for a fire tonight. Some of them were left hanging on the door and others we were able to hand over and invite our neighbors personally. Some of the people we've only talked to a few times While others we knew a little better. But in the two and a half years we've lived here we've only personally invited one family over to our house and that has happened multiple times. We've always intended to invite our other neighbors over but getting the fire pit from church was the little kick and incentive we needed. Since Church paid for it, we feel an extra responsibility to be good stewards of that gift :-). Lesson learned tonight is that you really just need to invite people and they will come. We had such a wonderful time visiting around the fire learning a lot about our neighbors, laughing, and building relationships. We got to hear about how people met their spouse, the kind of families they came from etc. We learned our 11 year old neighbor wants to become a lawyer :-) He ended up coming by himself as the only one from his family and was one of the last ones to leave hanging out with a bunch of adults. We found out he was nervous about going to Middle School this year and so we were able to encourage him :-) We are definitely going to continue to do this. Now I will be laying awake in bed thinking of the next rhyme invite. I think we will roast hot dogs next time and leave a bun in bags for people and tell them to bring their bun(s) to our house for fun :-) Thank you PCC for giving us the little shove we needed to do what we wanted to do all along :-)
PS. One of our neighbors about 5 Doors Down kept telling me how she never would usually do something like this as she is such a homebody. She mentioned it several times like she was surprising herself that she came. She ended up bringing her husband and three kids so we got to know all of them. Their kids played with our cat and our tire swing as the adults got to talk. So I told my cat tonight she will have some rewards in heaven :-) okay goodnight. Forgive me if anything sounds weird or is misspelled because I spoke this into my phone.
FROM JON
Thank you for the firepit. We just put it together Sunday evening.
The timing was interesting as we were telling the kids that we couldn't use our old fire pit any longer as the metal basin had finally rusted out after 5 years. Then that next Sunday my 11 year old son, Ryan, looked at me when you were "giving" away fire pits and asked if he could run up and take the ticket so we could have bonfires again. It was a little embarrassing to take this "handout" from the church. But I figured this will encourage us to invite other neighbors over for years to come and to build purposeful relationships with the Kingdom in mind. Something we've spoken about and acted on a couple times but now MUST act upon more frequently and with more neighbors... or the guilt of a freebie from church will eat me up! I'm thinking this one will last for 10+ years as it is brick and the metal ring inside is very thick. So, no excuses now... and for many years to come. Watch out for smores in Southern Plymouth!!! Thank you,FROM STEVE
This afternoon I typed up an invitation to 35 of our neighbors to join a closed Facebook group for the neighborhood. Anna and I spent the afternoon delivering them door to door. It was a great afternoon connecting! The bonfires will start soon, along with several other gatherings our neighbors suggested this afternoon.
FROM LYNN
My first update is as follows... I set it up in my driveway so that people could see the fire. The first time I used it for dessert after hosting a couple for dinner. My neighbor and his son saw the fire and stopped by for S'mores. The following week I invited the neighbors and had 7 of them respond. One of the neighbors rarely comes out of the house, so the fire is definitely drawing people in. They didn't stay long, but they came. Next I was planning to use it for Overflow yesterday, but it was too windy!!! Hopefully next week. We have a new neighbor that moved in behind us, so I thought it would be a great way to welcome them by inviting the neighbors over for S'mores. It is definitely a great tool for reaching out. Thank you!
FROM LISA
Our first night around the fire pit was only with one other family but it was filled with wonderful “God moments” that made me realize why the evening worked the way it did. We invited new neighbors of ours who recently moved to Minnesota from Singapore. They’re from the UK originally but have lived all over so it was fun to compare expat stories with them. They both lived in Hong Kong for awhile as well so it was great talking about familiar memories of a great place. They have 3 boys and their son was in Sam’s class this year. He came to Sam’s birthday party this year which I hosted at PCC. His mom was curious about our church and we had a conversation about the whole church search process. They ended up giving PCC a try one Sunday and now they are attending on a regular basis. Its so nice to have a neighbor and new friend who also attends our church. We also learned that the husband works for Medtronic in a division that manufactures artificial heart valves. A major God moment for us as Sam is a heart patient and may need valve replacement surgery sometime in his life. It was fascinating talking to him and the conversation gave us so much peace as we learned about the major advancements being made. Our dreaded “some day" surgery may become nothing more than a simple, barely invasive procedure by the time Sam is faced with it.
FROM AMY
I'm happy to report that the experience went REALLY well. Wanted to go back several years to give you an idea about how our neighborhood has evolved. When we moved in October 2007, the neighborhood was INCREDIBLY tight. All the families had just moved in or were just moving in. If you drove in any given night in the spring, summer or fall, you'd see people huddled in large groups chatting the night away. We had neighborhood BBQs and parties and all kinds of fun together. To be honest, it was idyllic. I couldn't have asked for a better community and neighborhood. But then there started to be factions, little cliques and groups. There seemed to be a division between the "upper" neighborhood and the "lower" neighborhood. The awesome meal chain we had running for new babies suddenly stopped. There were still occasional neighborhood gatherings, but division was more and more clear. Eventually, the neighborhood gatherings stopped. So did the gatherings of people we used to see all around the neighborhood. By the end of last fall (2015), there was an estimated 60% turnover of families in the neighborhood...MOST of the families who moved in at the same time as us had decided to move away. Our neighborhood as we once knew it was gone. Most original neighbors would agree. It's NOT what it once was. Honestly, with all the turnover and the neighborhood NOT being the place it was when we moved in, I was ready to move. I didn't know this neighborhood anymore. We thought we were going to retire in this home, but now, I don't think so.
Skip forward to present day..
I went to Walmart to buy marshmallow sticks, marshmallows, Hersheys bars and graham crackers. I also bought a juice boxes and pop.
Once we got the fire going, the kids showed up first. SEVERAL of them! MANY, in fact. Our adult neighbors across the street came out first. They brought over chairs and plopped themselves down next to us and the fire pit. Honestly, in almost 9 years of living in this house (and them in the house across the street), they've only BOTH been in our yard at the same time ONCE besides this fire pit night. They party and socialize with our neighbors next door quite a bit, but we're usually not a part of it other than kid to kid interactions. So this was pretty awesome that they felt comfortable to come over, make themselves comfortable and begin some
conversation. It was a bit awkward at first. Just the four of us adults and a bunch of neighborhood kids around the fire. A bit awkward in regards to conversation...as I said, our deeper conversation as two couples has been fairly limited. The kids helped break the ice. So did the marshmallows and smores stuff. They broke out some 80s and 90s music which was good conversation as well...
Praise God, I think it all worked out quite well! Once again, the conversation was a bit awkward at first, now with 6 of us adults. But it worked. And there was something about it that felt healing and renewing. We all survived. We conversed. We enjoyed ourselves. We had a good time. That sense of close community we once enjoyed in the neighborhood was coming back to life.
At one point, a BIG group of neighbor boys came walking down the street and were going to play street games. One of the neighbors said something like "this is like back in the 70s when I was growing up." It was ALL good...he's a retro kind of guy who longs for the good old days. This comment brought me great joy. Not only was this restoring some sense of community in our cul-de-sac and neighborhood, but it was restoring a sense of old-fashioned values and lifestyle.
That big group of neighbor boys played street games with our neighbor college kid and the male neighbor who commented about this being like the 70s growing up. It was pretty awesome. Basically, they took turns trying to throw balls into 5 gallon buckets across the cul-de-sac. They had an awesome time, and again, I haven't seen this kind of community "gaming" in our cul-de-sac for years.
While we didn't share the good news of Jesus Christ that night, we did talk about our church and how many of us have committed to gathering around fires for the summer with neighbors. They seemed curious and pleasantly surprised about the concept, then conversation moved on. Part of me felt like I was supposed to do "more" in regards to sharing my faith outright. On the other hand, this was a new beginning, a restoration, a reclaiming of sorts.
The fire gathering lasted about 3 hours, from 7-10 pm. Late at the end, our other next door neighbors came out. I'm typically not a huge socializer with our immediate neighbors... But that night in the dark around the fire, I felt completely at ease. I felt like myself, and I felt like THEY could be themselves as well. This was a very good thing.
I guess that's all for now. It was a huge success. All 5 of us agreed. Well worth every dollar. Well worth every effort. Well worth saying "YES" to this idea God laid on the hearts of PCC leadership. Thanks so much, and will look forward to reporting in July.
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