Turn Your Focus Outward...

If you are new in your town or city or you’ve lived there a while and still feel disconnected, don’t wait for an invitation.  Initiate!  Reach out to those around you and try not to get discouraged if you feel like it’s one-sided for a while.  Here’s what Susan Miller has to say about reaching out and touching the lives of others. (Excerpted from After the Boxes Are Unpacked; Moving On After Moving In)

Extend hospitality.  “Be hospitable to one another” (1 Peter 4:9).
Genuine hospitality involves opening your heart and your home, selflessly sharing what you have.  Hospitality is reaching out to others in caring love and warmth.  Whether it’s inviting kids over after school, having the soccer team over for hot dogs, hosting a Bible study in your living room, or sharing with a neighbor over coffee – put that welcome mat out!

Help those in need. “Serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind” (1 Chronicles 23:9).
Look around you.  What can you do to help someone in your new community or church?  What do you enjoy doing for others?  Whatever touches your heart, find a need and fill it.

Give encouragement. “Therefore encourage one another and build up one another” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).
An act of kindness, a note of reassurance, a word of cheer, or a gesture of support are all forms of encouragement from one person to another.

Be of service to others. “But the greatest among you shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:11).
Be the first one to pitch in and do what’s necessary in a time of need.  Be someone who is dependable, organized, and who follows through on what needs to be done.

How do you get started?

Be available. Your life is probably the least cluttered it will ever be after you move. Let people know you have free time and are available. They won’t know if you don’t tell them.
Be aware. Put up your antennae! Look around. Be sensitive to what is going on in people’s lives.
Be approachable. Be warm and friendly even though it may be hard because you’re new. People need to feel comfortable to approach you and start a conversation.
Be accepting. Don’t judge a person from the outside until you know them on the inside. There’s always more there than meets the eye.

God will do incredible things in you and through you as you begin to move in the right direction and serve others. Just watch and see.