Living at Excel has changed my mind about what outreach is. I used to think to impact a community I had to constantly be sharing my faith or asking people to come to church with me. Now I realize that I actually need to just live my life, full of life. When I live full of life, “outreach” opportunities come to me and I don’t need to go on the hunt for them. In fact, I’m surrounded by them constantly. The people I work with and the people in the broader community that I interact with each day, doing normal things are all opportunities for a supernatural encounter. I can be doing the most natural things such as buying groceries, and be impacting the community at the same time. There are things that are of God that ring true in every human heart regardless of their faith. I’ve seen how simple things, such as encouragement and kindness, are contagious and bring life to people. 

Last year I was asked to coach soccer for a small league in our town and it was a blast! Before the first practice started we had decided that we wanted to be the most encouraging coaches we could be and to cultivate a culture that celebrated and encouraged one another. We implemented a simple thing that we do here at Excel during our meetings to help cultivate encouragement, high fives. A high five is simply a shout out to someone you saw doing something that was great. The amazing thing was that the kids caught onto this idea and ran with it. At five, six or seven years old they each had more encouragement than time often allotted us. It may seem small but encouragement is powerful and life changing and that short soccer season was so sweet and filled with joy. 

I have continually seen the most impact on our community come from people simply living full of life. Just like in our little soccer season, it is amazing to see college students with a wide variety of skills and talents giving away what they know by teaching in Arts & Activities. It’s amazing to walk into a local business and hear how so and so is an amazing employee. By simply living life from this place of fullness we are being noticed in our community as people that are dependable, kind, generous, hard working, fun and brimming with life. Whether it be a stranger, friend or acquaintance it is amazing to be known as a people that are only a phone call away when you need a helping hand. 

Excel has totally changed my mind on what it means to live an impactful life and I’m forever grateful. The best thing I can do for my community and town is work hard at my job, be kind while I do it and stay full on the goodness of God. I want to be known as a person that is always ready to encourage and offer life to a situation.