September 8, 2025 • 30 mins
As God’s kids, living together as his family here on Earth, we’ve been called to serve others—not as a duty, but as a natural overflow of our identity in Christ. And the truth is, some of the smallest, simplest acts of service can make the biggest impact in people’s lives and in our cities.
This week on the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we’ll show you how serving your city in little, everyday ways can provide both a picture and an experience of the gospel. You’ll hear 12 powerful, yet simple ways to improve your neighborhood and bless the people around you. And these aren’t hard or expensive—they’re things anyone can do, starting today!
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
Get started here... From this episode: “Sometimes it only takes a few lights to completely transform a city block. A bunch of us did this in our neighborhood in Tacoma… what a difference! Casting light on a forgotten building or dark alley can bring a renewed sense of appreciation and safety within the community.”Each week the Big 3 will give you immediate action steps to get you started.
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- Why serving others puts God’s character on display in the world.
- How small acts of service often spark reconciliation and restoration.
- 12 simple things you can do right now to bring life to your city.
- How your family or group can jump in and start serving this week.
Get started here... From this episode: “Sometimes it only takes a few lights to completely transform a city block. A bunch of us did this in our neighborhood in Tacoma… what a difference! Casting light on a forgotten building or dark alley can bring a renewed sense of appreciation and safety within the community.”
Each week the Big 3 will give you immediate action steps to get you started.
Download today’s BIG 3 right now. Read and think over them again later. You might even want to share them with others…
Thanks for Listening!
Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Join us on Facebook and take part in the discussion! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of this page or right below. Also, please leave an honest review for The Everyday Disciple Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them. Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Coaching and Mentorship in Missional Living by Caesar and his wife Tina Resources for missional living and group training - Missio Publishing Get Caesar’s latest book: Bigger Gospel for FREE… Click here.Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Caesar Kalinowski (00:01):
Whenever we lay down our life, our preferences, we give our time, our talent, our treasure, our stuff away, like wow, that, that's a picture of the gospel, right?
God gave his very best and he gave his son, and every day he blesses us and every day our heartbeats, it's another day of grace.
I just remember thinking so much of it goes right back to Genesis and sort of this mandate of like, Hey, you are humans.
(00:22):
You're image bearers my image and I. I created you to be like me.
Mm-hmm.
And I put you in charge of everything and you get to name the stuff.
So take care of everything.
And we've talked about the human job description is bear God's image.
Yep.
Right.
You just, we do, we've created that, uh, hang out with God, we get to and take care of his stuff.
And that includes people.
(00:42):
Sure.
And every one of these things in this list of 101 small ways.
And they really are, they're all ways to either hang out with people and take care of people or take care of the planet or provide opportunity for relationships to be either restored, renewed, or found.
I was like, man, I wish this was put out by the church, and I wish the church around the world were doing a whole lot more of.
Heath Hollensbe (01:16):
Welcome to the Everyday Disciple Podcast, where you'll learn how to live with greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.
In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle.
This is the stuff your parents, pastors and seminary professors probably forgot to tell you.
And now here's your host, Caesar Kalinowski.
You know, one of the nerd things that I'm super into, and I know it's lame, is I love once a day or so going on the National Park system and looking at the live webcams of like Mount Rainier and Mount Baker and it's just awful, bro.
(01:48):
We got the snow, huh?
It's awesome.
Man.
Of the Rainier, were you ever like a skiing, snowboarding kind of guy?
Caesar Kalinowski (01:53):
I've been, , downhill skiing one exact time in my life.
Okay.
I was in middle school and I went on a youth group trip.
Oh man.
Classic youth group trip, but bunches of fun all day.
Heavy turner burn at night message.
Yeah.
You know?
Sure.
And, and I, I remember that it up on the mountain, it, I never skied, so I don't know how to ski, but I, I, I remember hearing like, Hey, powder soft snow, easier to ski in if it melts and freezes.
(02:20):
Really hard Yeah.
To navigate.
It got real sunny that day and got up to about 60 and the mountain melted and then froze.
Heath Hollensbe (02:27):
Oh no.
Caesar Kalinowski (02:27):
And so it was like glare ice all the way down.
No, no.
Not enough snow plowing, you know?
Yeah.
In the world with my skis to slow me down.
I remember the first couple runs, even though it was like the bunny hill or whatever, just like lightning fast, straight down, straight line.
No, I don't know how to turn.
And, and I remember like, like I was in middle school, some like sophomore, junior year, beautiful.
(02:48):
It's the youth group girl, older girl who's, I dunno, gorgeous in my memory.
Sure.
She took pity upon me and taught me how to ski.
Aw.
It was the best day of my life.
That's awesome.
It's the only time I've ever skied.
Okay.
Wasn't that good that I wanted to ski after that.
I've done a little cross country now and then for exercise, but I don't, and now I'm like, I have made it my whole life without breaking things.
Sure.
And they all work good.
(03:09):
Yeah.
Except for when I crashed the Harley, you know, I broke my ankle, but it's all
Heath Hollensbe (03:12):
fixed.
I don't, you know, see, I can't do skiing 'cause I, I don't like things that shoot my legs out from each other that fast.
You know?
It's like, so I've snowboarded twice.
The first time was terrible.
I was raised, we weren't raised with a ton of money.
We went on a youth group thing up to Big Bear, California.
Uh, I didn't know anything about it other than all we could afford was jeans.
And by the end of the day I decided bunny rams are not for me.
(03:32):
So I wanna take a little bit of a risk.
I was drenched and frozen and like crawling down the mountains.
Caesar Kalinowski (03:37):
I do remember this in high school that all the kids who had the money to go skiing all the time.
Yeah.
That they had cool ski jackets.
Yep.
And their zipper.
Pole had a million ski lift tags on it.
Oh yeah.
Like do you remember that?
War wounds?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like it was like a backstage pass.
Yeah.
Like look at all the ski tags this guy's got.
And I remember somehow, I don't know who I think, I think it was like my aunt or my uncle.
(04:00):
You're going skiing.
You have ski jacket.
No.
They bought me a really cool ski jacket, so I went looking like I kind of had it.
And I remember just like borrow, like anybody's like ski tag.
You don't, that you don't with that text.
So when I, I came back from my one ski trip with my cool ski jacket.
Yeah, tons of tags.
Yeah.
Look at you man.
You're one of the coolest kids.
Faker.
Poser.
Yeah.
Heath Hollensbe (04:17):
Hey dude.
So a couple weeks back I posted an article that I read and I absolutely loved it, but I, I ended up posting it.
A link of it on Facebook and a topic was about 101 small ways that you can improve your city.
I remember, yeah.
Awesome article.
So
Caesar Kalinowski (04:31):
good.
It
Heath Hollensbe (04:31):
was just really great.
How long did it
Caesar Kalinowski (04:33):
take 'em to come up with that stuff?
Yeah.
101 ways, like all so good.
Yeah.
On how
Heath Hollensbe (04:38):
to bless your city.
Anyone could do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was some really super simple things.
There were some great ideas and, and it, what I loved about it was that it was ways that.
Individually or as a family, or even as a community, like a Missional Community, you could bring Shalom and this glimpse of Eden into the neighborhood.
Uh, and one of the things that you did was you, uh, immediately referenced how this could provide a bit of the gospel of reconciliation and restoration.
(05:01):
Hmm.
Uh, and good news for our cities and neighborhoods.
How did you connect those dots?
Caesar Kalinowski (05:05):
Yeah.
Well, for one, again, this, that article is not written.
It's not like a Christian ministry wrote it or whatever.
It's people that do urban planning and just help cities be great.
Yeah.
But as I was reading through all the things, I couldn't help but thinking like, oh man, but damn man, that helps people that don't have that, or like thatgives a really non-threatening way for these types of people to hang out together and have a common cause, or wow, that's like just leftover time or stuff.
(05:31):
But now we get to bless the whole neighborhood or city.
I mean, and so I looked at like going like, hmm, whenever we lay down our life, our preferences, we give our time, our talent, our treasure, our stuff away.
Like wow, that's like.
That's a picture of the gospel.
Right.
God gave his very best and he gave his son, and every day he blesses us and every day our heartbeats, it's another day of grace.
(05:51):
Yeah.
And, and I look at like all the needs in my life that get met and, and, and I think about how I need community and I think about how I want the planet taken care of.
And a lot of 'em have to do with, you know, green space or Sure.
Creating parks or restoring parks or clever things.
And I, I just remember thinking so much of it.
Goes right back to Genesis and sort of this mandate of like, Hey, you are humans.
(06:12):
You're image bearers my image, and I I created you to be like me.
Mm-hmm.
And I put you in charge of everything and you get to name the stuff.
So, so take care of everything.
And we've talked about the human job description is bear God's image.
Yep.
Right.
You just, we do.
And we've created that, uh, hang out with God.
We get to and take care of his stuff.
And that includes people.
(06:32):
Sure.
And every one of these things in this list of 101 small ways.
And they really are.
They're not like these, oh, I'd have to quit my job to do.
It's like, no, they're all real doable.
They're all ways to either hang out with people, you know, and take care of people or take care of the planet or provide opportunity for relationships to be either restored, renewed, or found.
(06:53):
And I so all, so much of this, I was like, man, I, I wish this was put out.
By the church and I wish that churches across the country were doing a whole lot more of it.
So as we talked about that, going like, which ones do we wanna do?
And which ones like, should we like, suggest, you know, to c communities to do, we were like, we gotta do an episode on it and just ring the bell and, and give some of our favorites and, you know.
Heath Hollensbe (07:15):
Yeah.
You know, one of the things I loved most about the article is that it was.
It was accessible to everybody.
Young, old, rich, poor, um, creative artists, uh, you know, handyman.
There was group activities, stuff he could do alone, stuff he could do as a family.
Yeah.
Uh, and back in what episode 180 5, we were talking about the concept of, of justice and reconciliation and, and this doing justice rather than just demanding justice, but Right.
(07:39):
I think doing justice really is an all hands on deck approach.
Would you agree?
I totally
Caesar Kalinowski (07:44):
do.
And what was the episode again?
We talked about that episode 180 5.
Yeah, we talked about loving mercy and doing justice and in that, if you heard the episode, you might remember that we talked about the word justice in Hebrew is the same word.
As righteousness.
Yeah.
And they both mean to restore.
Yeah.
Or to return.
And so all these things that so much of it have to do with repurposing and restoring and restoration.
(08:09):
They really are doing justice.
Yeah, they really are.
And, and go and check out the whole list.
We'll give you a way to get that, but I'm gonna highlight some of them.
But you'll see how each of these really is good news for a neighborhood or a city and.
For us, who gets to be the bringers of the good news.
Right.
I love it, man.
Okay, so let's go through
Heath Hollensbe (08:28):
some of
Caesar Kalinowski (08:28):
these,
Heath Hollensbe (08:29):
like not all 101, so it's not gonna be
Caesar Kalinowski (08:31):
a long episode.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that article, uh, they organized the 101 Ways to Improve Your City.
They organized 'em under six categories.
Okay.
Here's what they were, they were on your street.
Yeah.
Love that.
In your neighborhood, at your parks, along your route.
So like, kind of along the way every day.
Sure.
Um, with your neighbors and in your community.
(08:53):
So cool, right?
Yeah.
So what I've done is I've picked 12 for us to look at, like two from each category.
And I'm gonna be moving pretty quickly here.
Okay.
Just gonna say that they're all gold, but like, again, I'll give you a link to be able to get to them.
So let's do it.
Um, I'll just tell you the number that they gave it in the list, uh, of the cool idea and why I liked it.
Okay?
Okay.
So here's the first one.
Number four, create a little free library.
(09:13):
Love that man.
Right.
Libraries, you know, they change and they evolve over time.
But the pleasure and joy of reading books, it's the same as forever.
Um, where my son lives, uh, up in Seattle, all throughout their neighborhood there's these little, like, they look like little mini garages, like little cabins.
Heath Hollensbe (09:29):
We've got 'em too on our
Caesar Kalinowski (09:30):
like, all do, they're a little book lending library.
Love it.
Yeah.
Why is it good news?
Because when you invest in other people's lives and you give away something that was meaningful to you.
Yeah.
And then you can see the neighbor got that book and now you can talk to 'em about that.
That's a blessing, man.
Heath Hollensbe (09:42):
Yeah, right.
Caesar Kalinowski (09:43):
Yeah.
You know, the,
Heath Hollensbe (09:44):
uh.
Don't just stuff 'em too with Bibles.
Like, don't go to Goodwill.
'cause that's what's happening in the ones in our city.
It's like you got some really good books and then you know, the Christians have been by, 'cause there's like 15 used Bibles that somebody collected at Goodwill.
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (09:56):
I mean I think it'd be great to leave a Bible, but Yeah, I don't think you need to turn it, don't overstuff 'em into, turn into the the bottom drawer at every hotel, you know?
Yeah.
Okay.
Number seven, plant a tree.
Huh?
Yeah.
How about it?
Right?
Shade, serenity, sustainability.
The garden, like tending to things, right?
Trees add so much to a neighborhood, to a city, to the parkway.
(10:17):
Think about parkway.
That's that grass between your sidewalk in the street.
Yeah.
What if you, you know, saved up and bought like three or four trees and put 'em along your parkway or even talk to your neighbors into pitching in.
Yeah.
But you get 'em, get 'em in the right season and don't get the biggest tree in the world.
They grow.
Hint.
Yeah.
And uh, they're cheap.
So plant a tree.
Yeah.
There again, good group activity.
Like, why are your friends doing this?
We just thought it'd be beautiful.
(10:38):
Now, if you're planting in front of someone else's house, I just wanna say Get, get permission.
Yeah.
Or if you're gonna go to a park and you want to add trees, ask the, the park will never say, no city.
Just dig them up.
But ask them what kind of tree they want so the roots aren't causing problems and all that kind.
So dig into that.
Well,
Heath Hollensbe (10:52):
so our neighbor has a, has two cherry trees, and it was an older couple that lived there that planted them.
And I remember asking like, what, why are they there?
And he said.
As a kid, I just loved cherries and I wanted anybody who walked through the neighborhood just to feel like they could just walk down the sidewalk and pull cherries off my tree.
Caesar Kalinowski (11:05):
Yeah.
You know,
Heath Hollensbe (11:06):
like
Caesar Kalinowski (11:06):
blessing to the city.
This summer we got so many apples and pears from the neighborhood.
That's amazing.
And neighbors were all exactly that.
Yeah.
And you know what, help yourself.
I'd walk, I'd Tina and I would walk and get in.
I'd take my grandson Pat and we'd walk and little basket and get 'em and it was just a blast.
Yep.
Alright.
Uh, here's another one.
And then on their list, it's number 16, it says get lit. So sometimes it only takes a few lights like in your neighborhood to completely transform your block and all that.
(11:30):
And I remember that being exactly the case when we were living in Tacoma, uh, in our neighborhood, older homes, not a lot of street lights.
A whole bunch of us just decided in our Michel community and in our community, and we talked a bunch of the neighbors into it.
Let's start leaving our front porch light on every night.
Yeah.
You know, here, I'll buy you the bulb if you want.
There's the new fluorescent ones.
They last like a billion years.
Sure.
(11:50):
They cost like 15 cents a year.
I think we can afford it.
Here's, here's a dollar.
I'll buy the next two decades, you know?
Yeah.
Of your power.
And we all of a sudden, the whole neighborhood was transformed instead of being weird and dark at night.
Yeah.
All lit up, very inviting.
That's cool.
Less crime, all of it.
Right.
So get lit. Yeah.
I love that.
That was number 16.
Right?
So shine a light.
Help people feel safe, help your neighborhood feel, you know, more inviting.
(12:13):
It's just, it's great.
Yeah.
Okay.
Number 26, create a fit path.
A fit path.
What's a fit path?
Um, a city fit path, um, is, uh, like a public space or even maybe a route to your city, uh, that you kind of turn into, um, a place that you can do physical movement, positive, you know, do like exercises.
(12:34):
Um, people will come and do it together.
Sometimes people will put up signs and it, other times there'll be one little box that has.
A sheet of paper that says here's the route and how to do it.
Sure.
Check out the article.
There's links and how to set one up.
It's amazing.
Yeah, that's great.
But think about in your own neighborhood, if you said, Hey, here's just a little thing.
When you get to this thing stretch here, do five sit ups here on this little bench.
You know, lean on this and do some like kind of knee pushups, whatever.
(12:55):
Yeah, whatever.
Um, people will do it and then you'll get to talk to them.
You get to hang out, you get to build community.
It's good news when you help people stay fit and healthy.
Help 'em do it and it's free.
Yeah.
Pretty cool.
Do it.
Uh, number 32 was fix up a local park.
Okay.
So think about it.
Everybody almost has a, a park that has something that's like barely functional.
(13:18):
You know, the equipment's a little rusty and weird.
Maybe it needs some painting.
Um, would make maybe a new basketball court court be something that like a mic initial committee could pitch in and get done, or go out and fundraise for, spend all summer raising it and do it.
Yep.
I don't know.
Uh,
Heath Hollensbe (13:33):
trimming back the, uh, the bushes, the raspberry bushes that are encroaching and all those crazy sticker
Caesar Kalinowski (13:38):
bushes.
Yeah.
Right.
All that stuff.
We've done all that stuff.
All those kind of things.
And they are a super blessing.
Now that one's a little bigger, right?
You see some of these are just boom, easy.
Others you might be doing as a community or get your whole neighborhood to rally around it.
Create a pocket park or like, like you said, you know, put in a, put in a new basketball court or something like that.
So there's links there too on how to.
(13:59):
You know, get help with all that.
And I'll tell you too, places like Home Depot Yep.
And other, you know, Lowe's and homes, you know, supply and fix it.
Stores and all.
Yeah.
Usually willing to help.
They're very much so.
Yeah.
They have, they've set aside, just so you know, they, they've set aside budgets for these kind of things and they generally wanna make that donation to a nonprofit of some sort.
(14:19):
Yeah.
So connected to.
A Salvation Army project or your church or something.
Right?
Even if
Heath Hollensbe (14:24):
you can't do the whole basketball court, most of those basketball nets just need an $8 net on Amazon.
Prime paints the
Caesar Kalinowski (14:29):
backboard.
Yeah, retrip the thing.
Yep.
Put a bench in easy.
Right?
Put a bench in so people you know.
Right.
That's, that's a few hundred bucks.
Right.
So number 36.
I love this plan.
A popup dog park.
That's cool.
Like, you know, a pop-up party or a pop-up restaurant.
Yeah.
It's not always there 24 7.
Right.
But if your neighborhood doesn't have a place for dogs to run free, um.
(14:52):
There nothing that a few yards of temporary fencing can't fix.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you can create a pop-up dog park that becomes like really popular.
And some people, like I, there was one in the article they talked about, um, I think it was in California, that, uh, a farmer's market.
Yeah, every city has 'em.
We've got a bunch of 'em here.
They're not all year.
Yeah, they're not every neighborhood.
But what they did was it, those are generally adjacent to a parking lot or a field.
(15:16):
They set up a little of that orange fencing, you know?
Yeah.
And they do a pop-up dog park.
So then people love it and they come and they bring their pets and all.
So beautiful.
Right?
Yeah.
Um, and sometimes the people in the neighborhood in the city will say, we really need a dog park, and it can become something more permanent.
So it's pretty cool.
Yeah.
Number 41 was, uh, map a 40 minute walking circle around your house.
(15:37):
That's cool.
Yeah.
Measure, uh, it says measure and draw a two mile radius, a circle around your house to determine like your, like your walking threshold, you know, and the places that you can easily walk.
Um, and what, what the point is, is that you, and maybe your neighbors will realize that there's a lot more local, you know, amenities in stores closer than you think.
(15:57):
Most people can walk a couple of miles and really you walk a mile at a quick pace.
It's 15 to 17 minutes.
If you're crawling, it's.
20 minutes a mile.
Sure.
So you can do two miles and 40 minutes and, uh, you'll be a lot more likely to hoof it, you know, and walk it and support local businesses if everybody already knows that.
So I, I love the idea.
Create a 40 minute walking circle.
Yeah, that's great.
(16:17):
Around your house just for yourself, but then maybe share it right.
So, um, number 54 was just ride a bike.
That's it.
Yeah.
It's like, just start riding a bike once in a while and said, yeah, riding a bike really can save the planet.
Heath Hollensbe (16:31):
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (16:32):
It's, it, it cited this, uh, study done by the u University of California that said, shifting more people in cities to bicycles, not like everybody and all the time, but just if more people started doing it and cutting their car, use accordingly can reduce, uh, urban.
Like CO2 emissions and all that, but like 50% worldwide in the next 30 years.
Heath Hollensbe (16:53):
It's massive.
That's massive.
Caesar Kalinowski (16:54):
You know?
Now that's not gonna work for everybody we know.
I know We got listeners that live in cities and they totally could bike.
Sure.
And other people like, dude, it'd be like, it'd be, you know, an hour and a half to work, you know, or, but if you can, or on the weekends.
What if you started to make a decision?
Just let's start riding a bike.
That's cool.
Number 50 57.
This might be my favorite on the list.
Uh, I said organize a bar, crawl some of our listeners tuning out.
(17:18):
Like what?
You know they drink?
Yeah, they drink.
Um, so, you know, vote your conscience on this.
Yeah.
We're not here to talk anybody into anything they don't want to do or shouldn't do, but.
Um, we've done it.
Um, you can, you can organize a bar crawl and, uh, there's even like places in the article give you links on how to set that up and all.
But, um, some people do it as like a, an after work mixer.
(17:38):
Yeah.
You know, at a certain night of the week they'll do it some, I know, uh, where we live, people do it, believe it or not, as fitness events.
They'll go for like a, like a 10 mile bike ride or like a five mile jog or whatever.
And then they'll, they'll hit like two or three bars.
The first one will have a smoothie and then the second one they'll have this, and then they'll have a beer at the last one or something like that.
'cause they're, it's fitness, you know, or whatever.
Um, and, uh, it's, it's.
(18:00):
It's awesome.
And, and you can get to know, like the patrons, the, of course the pubs, the bars will love it.
Uh, we actually, uh, I was in Missional Community.
We modified that pub crawl and we turned it into a prayer pub crawl.
Huh.
And since our mission was kind of the people and the staff and everybody in, in our neighborhood, you know, and all the, the pubs and restaurants Sure.
And all that, we just would do a per pub crawl where we'd hit two or three of them.
(18:22):
We'd go in there, talk to the staff, see how they're doing, talk to the locals, get, get updated on what's happening.
And then we'd go outside and we'd pray for them.
Huh.
You know, not making a big deal out of it.
Sure.
Not a big spectacle.
Uh, and we'd pray for them and then we'd walk to the next place, you know?
Yeah.
Have a beer there.
Talk to everybody.
Pray for them.
You know, so cool.
So, yeah, I mean, so organize a bar, crawl, uh, there's some elaborate stuff.
(18:43):
Sure.
Biking ones, running clubs, there's a lot of them.
And, uh, yeah, so that's a cool one.
Love that.
62. Um, I almost did this once in life, but I didn't launch an oral history project.
Okay.
Okay.
There's a thing called Story Corps out there, it looks like corpse, but StoryCorp, there's studs, turkel.
Um, they, there's a rich tradition of storytelling out there and people doing time capsules of like life and neighborhoods, especially real ethnic neighborhoods and all that, documenting your neighbor's stories.
(19:14):
Sort of helps preserve the fabric and history of that neighborhood and, and it tells people that they matter.
Yeah.
And it tells 'em that their story's important.
It honors people, it validates their story and worth, and it builds like a commonality, like amongst people and trust.
And you can do it really simply.
You can just do it on an iPhone these days.
You can.
Download online lists of questions that you'd ask people to help document their things.
(19:38):
You got, if you, you know, have the skill, uh, and ability, you can create just a little local website.
You could start a Facebook group where you just upload 'em there sure as audio or video file, um, all that stuff.
But launching an oral history project gives you, man, think about you get to talk to everybody.
You get to know their story, you get to bear with them.
I mean, oh gosh.
Heath Hollensbe (19:57):
You know, 1, 2, 2 resources there.
Uh, a lot of times your city hall, like the website, so like our, we live in Fair Crest.
The city of Fair Crest has a history of the city and they've also got a historian.
Oh wow.
It's a good place to get involved, ask some questions, and then there's also this, uh, images of America series.
Go to Amazon and type in your city, images of America, and there's.
Detailed and almost every city detailed pictures and history of your
Caesar Kalinowski (20:21):
city.
So, so take up the banner for like your neighborhood.
Yeah.
Or a chunk of your city learn and just get, learn it to know everybody.
Yeah.
We came so close to doing this.
We, we actually had gotten the URL and all that and we were gonna do the aroma it was called The aroma.
Aroma because Tacoma Aroma.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome man.
Alright, next one.
Uh, number 78.
Um.
This is great.
(20:42):
It says, here's how you can, here's how you can improve your city and bless your city.
Smile particularly at strangers, and then it goes on and said, if you're feeling really southern enough, actually speak to people.
Okay.
I was
Heath Hollensbe (20:54):
gonna
Caesar Kalinowski (20:54):
say most southerners are like.
People don't
Heath Hollensbe (20:56):
smile everywhere.
Caesar Kalinowski (20:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, I, I can remember not too many years back, um, where I would walk from my home to, uh, a building that we owned in community.
And we, we were, Soma was using it and we were Yeah.
Doing all kinds of different things.
And it was almost like a community center.
Sure.
But it was only literally about a
60-90 second walk from my front door to the door, you know?
Oh wow.
And I would walk past the, there was a Salvation Army there and people in line for food and then there was some housing there, transitional.
(21:23):
And I would walk past a ton of people every single day.
And I was usually just on my way.
And I remember like the Holy Spirit saying, those are image bears.
Like greet them.
Every one of them is, has got a bit of me there, you know, it's like, and so I started just greeting everybody and talking to 'em and, and when we lived in Manhattan after that, that was different there.
Yeah.
A lot of people.
But I had the same habit and people were just like, what are you doing right?
(21:44):
But smile.
And say hi to people.
Yeah.
Like just that.
Make it your jam.
Make it your thing.
Yep.
Like we're gonna greet everybody.
Absolutely, man.
Love that.
And a personal tip is don't ask a question.
Like, Hey, how are you doing today?
'cause that's like that.
Now you're imposing and then they have to give an answer.
But you can just go, Hey, good to see you.
Yeah.
Have a great day.
You know, just like make a statement, you know?
(22:04):
But you'll be surprised.
You see the same person long enough, then you can turn it into a question.
Sure.
So it's good news when you honor someone.
Yeah.
And I mean, I think about this like this.
It seems so simple, but like we walk our neighborhood a lot and we take Patton, our grandson.
Yeah.
And you know, he's just like this little light bulb right now.
Bubbly.
Yeah.
He's just a bubbly kid.
He will stop and wave down every single car.
(22:25):
His favorite garbage man, the recycling guy, truck driver.
They all know him.
He makes their freaking day.
Every week just, and he loves it.
He loves seeing the garbage truck dump the cans.
And it's, it's fun.
He loves it.
They love it.
I'm like, how easy to make someone's day.
Yeah.
It's not that different when adults do it, by the way.
Yeah.
Uh, 70, uh, the last one I'm gonna give you is 79 and number 79.
(22:49):
It's screen.
A movie outdoors.
Yeah.
Some of you have done this already.
Uh, we have a neighbor in the neighborhood.
Oh, I just moved though.
And they, they did it all the time and it was great.
Someone's gotta pick up that van.
We just did it a few weeks back
Heath Hollensbe (23:00):
with the, uh, world Series.
Boom.
Put it on the side of somebody's, uh, their garage door.
Yeah.
It's a white door.
People are driving down the street, hit the brakes like whatcha are guys doing?
Yeah.
Come grab, sit with us for a second.
There's a guy in my
Caesar Kalinowski (23:10):
neighborhood.
You open up his garage and he's got that whole, uh, digital golf thing.
Yeah.
Looks awesome.
A golf thing.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Where you can golf like nine holes right in his garage.
It's like, you know, you hit the screen and all anyway, so, uh, you know.
Having like an impromptu movie night's not that hard to organize.
Yeah, it really isn't.
And you can have just your neighbors, uh, or you can go a little bigger.
You can have a reason, you can do it around a day off, like, uh, you know, if it's still nice enough out where you live or whatever time of year on a holiday night or the night before a holiday.
(23:36):
Sure.
So the kids don't have to come up.
And in the article you, there's a link to get a guide on how to set up your own screening and it gives you all kinds of tips and how to do it on the cheap and all that.
So that's a cool idea too.
Anybody can do that alone, but you can also do that as a family or a group of families or your small group or, or Michel community could host that.
Yeah.
I, I like predictable patterns we've talked about on the show.
Sure.
I'd say like, do a six week run and do always do family movies and do a six week run of family movies throughout the summer or something like that.
Heath Hollensbe (24:02):
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (24:03):
It makes
Heath Hollensbe (24:04):
it, it's so fun too.
So fun.
People come out, they bring their lawns.
Yeah.
I guess on a practical level, how would you go about getting into these rhythms?
How would you, let's say it was your Missional Community.
Mm-hmm.
And you wanted to present some of this.
Would you present it to the group?
Would you find your natural giftings?
Would you find something that fills a need or something that that group is particularly interested in?
Do you delegate out to other leaders?
(24:25):
Is it, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
There's a lot of questions, but how, how would you say, okay, I'm feeling comfort, this, how do this, this?
I wanna invite others, maybe my mc into this
Caesar Kalinowski (24:34):
next steps.
Yeah.
So first off.
You know, small is big, right?
You know, slow is fast.
So think about like, go over the list yourself or you as a family.
And I think it's always great to do stuff as a family.
I just do.
Right?
I agree.
Um, yeah, always bring the kids.
If you can go through that list, either the ones we just gave you or go through the 101, we'll give you the link, uh, here coming up.
(24:57):
Okay.
And, and find something where your heart just leaps a little bit that you're excited about.
That's a great place to start.
And then I would do it.
Just go for it and invite your closest friends, but don't try to make it a group project just yet.
I'd say go for it.
Find when you're fun and then let, let the fun of that.
'cause you're gonna be as blessed as you've blessed anybody else.
Sure.
Let the fun of that and the excitement and the blessing that was, let that be contagious and then say, Hey, where'd you get that idea?
(25:23):
I got it from this list.
There's a ton of stuff.
Let's look through this.
Any of these sound good to anybody else together?
Yeah.
Now even with a hundred things, you find like, well, no one could agree on anything.
I hear that all the time.
Sure.
Well then find something that two or three people agree on and say, well, we're gonna do it.
And if anybody wants to join us, you get to, yeah.
Don't worry about trying to get everybody on board for everything and don't worry about picking the biggest possible thing on the list.
(25:47):
Yeah.
Because if some of the things are like a little bit more elaborate, they're all really doable.
Sure.
But some of 'em are a little bit more organized.
Might, you might have to.
Like scrape a couple of bucks together to do it or get the city's permission or whatever others are.
You just literally do 'em this weekend, you know?
Sure.
But pick one, get started.
Do it your yourself, and then talk about your experience.
It's undeniable.
Let your, you know, your enthusiasm, win the day and then get whoever will pick the next ones with you and do it.
(26:11):
But, but I'd suggest make serving and blessing like this.
Make it a rhythm.
Yeah.
Like don't make it like we did it once.
That's right.
Aren't we Missional?
But like say, you know, like after you've done one and let people hear about it and then the group picks one.
Say, Hey, what if we tried to do, and maybe, and some of them you could do in rhythm.
Sure.
You could pick one thing, like a movie night.
You could do the movie like, we're gonna do it often.
(26:33):
Six, let's do this, let's do it all summer or whatever.
Start small.
Move.
Like let, let enthusiasm get there and don't worry about if everybody doesn't get involved.
Yeah.
Just let them hear about the good news, you know?
Okay.
Heath Hollensbe (26:44):
It'll be all right.
Helpful.
Let's get to the big three for this week.
Uh, you can get that by going to everyday Disciple dot com slash big three.
And the big three are just three takeaways.
We'd love for you to get, if nothing else right away, you can download this.
Yeah.
Let
Caesar Kalinowski (26:56):
me summarize this and give you a big three.
And by the way, the link to that full 101 ways.
Yeah.
We'll be a part of the big three download this week, so cool.
Here's my big three though.
Opportunities to live as a blessing in your city and your neighborhood are endless.
And this list reminded me of that.
Yep.
Time is not the issue.
Well, I don't know if I have time.
For time's not the issue.
It's a hard issue.
(27:16):
Availability and intention are the key.
Hmm.
Having the intention to do it, that's the key.
Everybody has the time and sometimes the smallest things we do for others can have the biggest impact.
That's right.
And it can be too easy to see a need or a possible cool opportunity and assume, well, someone else will do something about that.
Look in the mirror, pal.
It's your turn.
(27:36):
Yeah.
The advocate is you.
Heath Hollensbe (27:38):
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (27:38):
It really is.
We get to, we get to, there's so many opportunities.
Sure.
Number two, giving our time and our talents and our resources to improve the lives of others.
Really does display the heart of Jesus in our community.
Whether, you know, we're setting up fun opportunities for relationship building, think about it.
God's all about relationship.
Sure.
And rest, restore, restoring that or restoring something that's broken in our city or creating new possibilities for people to thrive.
(28:05):
There's a ton of those on the list.
Yep.
The good news of the kingdom of God, in other words, how God wants the world to work is put front and center.
Through these things, regardless of which thing you pick.
Remember, not every gospel presentation has a little green booklet attached.
Yeah, you're absolutely right man.
Alright, number three.
Number three, pick a simple project that interests you like, oh, I like that.
(28:27):
And just get started this weekend.
I mean, really like throw caution to the win.
Get the list.
Pick one.
Don't put it off.
Don't wait until you can organize the perfect set of people and get the perfect plan.
Oh, it might rain, whatever.
You know, like a lot of things in life, when we bless others and we give ourselves away, it is often us that receives the biggest blessing.
(28:48):
So just get started.
Pick one, pick a simple one, get after it.
We feel God's love and provision flowing through us to others when we do these kind of things.
How cool is that?
That's so cool.
So just get started.
Heath Hollensbe (28:59):
And it's, and I love the concept of, of like.
Bringing kids into this too at the beginning, you know, if you've got some kids, like make this a family thing.
Yeah.
And you can put up a, a bookshelf in, in the front yard.
Absolutely.
Alright.
You can get those big three by going to everyday Disciple dot com slash big three.
And again, you'll get the link to the a hundred and plus small ways to improve Your City that's gonna be included.
(29:19):
Yep.
If you have not yet joined us on the Facebook group, just go to Facebook up in the toolbar Search Everyday Disciple Podcast.
We will approve you.
A lot of fun stuff going on there.
Yeah, absolutely.
Tell us too, if you surprise giveaways.
Goodies always good and let us know, like if you decide, hey, we're gonna do number 54.
Like in your city, tell us how it goes.
Oh, I love it.
(29:40):
It'd be encouraging for us, even tell us which
Caesar Kalinowski (29:41):
one you love the most and why.
Yeah.
And then we'll cheer you on.
Yeah, absolutely.
Or egg you on, I throw eggs at you.
No, I, I hope not.
Heath Hollensbe (29:49):
So, , join us on that Facebook group next week.
We're gonna talk about something we haven't talked about in the last couple episodes, which is parenting.
We, we, we love to get into the parenting topic here and there.
Sometimes there's good news in that too.
Absolutely.
So, so we're gonna talk about how to get through some of life's toughest issues as a parent by next week.
So join us for that.
Ouch.
Okay, you ready for that one?
I'm ready.
(30:09):
Thanks for joining us today.
For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit everyday Disciple dot com.
And remember, you really can live with a spiritual freedom and relational peace that Jesus promised every day.
Whenever we lay down our life, our preferences, we give our time, our talent, our treasure, our stuff away, like wow, that, that's a picture of the gospel, right?
God gave his very best and he gave his son, and every day he blesses us and every day our heartbeats, it's another day of grace.
I just remember thinking so much of it goes right back to Genesis and sort of this mandate of like, Hey, you are humans.
(00:22):
You're image bearers my image and I. I created you to be like me.
Mm-hmm.
And I put you in charge of everything and you get to name the stuff.
So take care of everything.
And we've talked about the human job description is bear God's image.
Yep.
Right.
You just, we do, we've created that, uh, hang out with God, we get to and take care of his stuff.
And that includes people.
(00:42):
Sure.
And every one of these things in this list of 101 small ways.
And they really are, they're all ways to either hang out with people and take care of people or take care of the planet or provide opportunity for relationships to be either restored, renewed, or found.
I was like, man, I wish this was put out by the church, and I wish the church around the world were doing a whole lot more of.
Heath Hollensbe (01:16):
Welcome to the Everyday Disciple Podcast, where you'll learn how to live with greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.
In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle.
This is the stuff your parents, pastors and seminary professors probably forgot to tell you.
And now here's your host, Caesar Kalinowski.
You know, one of the nerd things that I'm super into, and I know it's lame, is I love once a day or so going on the National Park system and looking at the live webcams of like Mount Rainier and Mount Baker and it's just awful, bro.
(01:48):
We got the snow, huh?
It's awesome.
Man.
Of the Rainier, were you ever like a skiing, snowboarding kind of guy?
Caesar Kalinowski (01:53):
I've been, , downhill skiing one exact time in my life.
Okay.
I was in middle school and I went on a youth group trip.
Oh man.
Classic youth group trip, but bunches of fun all day.
Heavy turner burn at night message.
Yeah.
You know?
Sure.
And, and I, I remember that it up on the mountain, it, I never skied, so I don't know how to ski, but I, I, I remember hearing like, Hey, powder soft snow, easier to ski in if it melts and freezes.
(02:20):
Really hard Yeah.
To navigate.
It got real sunny that day and got up to about 60 and the mountain melted and then froze.
Heath Hollensbe (02:27):
Oh no.
Caesar Kalinowski (02:27):
And so it was like glare ice all the way down.
No, no.
Not enough snow plowing, you know?
Yeah.
In the world with my skis to slow me down.
I remember the first couple runs, even though it was like the bunny hill or whatever, just like lightning fast, straight down, straight line.
No, I don't know how to turn.
And, and I remember like, like I was in middle school, some like sophomore, junior year, beautiful.
(02:48):
It's the youth group girl, older girl who's, I dunno, gorgeous in my memory.
Sure.
She took pity upon me and taught me how to ski.
Aw.
It was the best day of my life.
That's awesome.
It's the only time I've ever skied.
Okay.
Wasn't that good that I wanted to ski after that.
I've done a little cross country now and then for exercise, but I don't, and now I'm like, I have made it my whole life without breaking things.
Sure.
And they all work good.
(03:09):
Yeah.
Except for when I crashed the Harley, you know, I broke my ankle, but it's all
Heath Hollensbe (03:12):
fixed.
I don't, you know, see, I can't do skiing 'cause I, I don't like things that shoot my legs out from each other that fast.
You know?
It's like, so I've snowboarded twice.
The first time was terrible.
I was raised, we weren't raised with a ton of money.
We went on a youth group thing up to Big Bear, California.
Uh, I didn't know anything about it other than all we could afford was jeans.
And by the end of the day I decided bunny rams are not for me.
(03:32):
So I wanna take a little bit of a risk.
I was drenched and frozen and like crawling down the mountains.
Caesar Kalinowski (03:37):
I do remember this in high school that all the kids who had the money to go skiing all the time.
Yeah.
That they had cool ski jackets.
Yep.
And their zipper.
Pole had a million ski lift tags on it.
Oh yeah.
Like do you remember that?
War wounds?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like it was like a backstage pass.
Yeah.
Like look at all the ski tags this guy's got.
And I remember somehow, I don't know who I think, I think it was like my aunt or my uncle.
(04:00):
You're going skiing.
You have ski jacket.
No.
They bought me a really cool ski jacket, so I went looking like I kind of had it.
And I remember just like borrow, like anybody's like ski tag.
You don't, that you don't with that text.
So when I, I came back from my one ski trip with my cool ski jacket.
Yeah, tons of tags.
Yeah.
Look at you man.
You're one of the coolest kids.
Faker.
Poser.
Yeah.
Heath Hollensbe (04:17):
Hey dude.
So a couple weeks back I posted an article that I read and I absolutely loved it, but I, I ended up posting it.
A link of it on Facebook and a topic was about 101 small ways that you can improve your city.
I remember, yeah.
Awesome article.
So
Caesar Kalinowski (04:31):
good.
It
Heath Hollensbe (04:31):
was just really great.
How long did it
Caesar Kalinowski (04:33):
take 'em to come up with that stuff?
Yeah.
101 ways, like all so good.
Yeah.
On how
Heath Hollensbe (04:38):
to bless your city.
Anyone could do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was some really super simple things.
There were some great ideas and, and it, what I loved about it was that it was ways that.
Individually or as a family, or even as a community, like a Missional Community, you could bring Shalom and this glimpse of Eden into the neighborhood.
Uh, and one of the things that you did was you, uh, immediately referenced how this could provide a bit of the gospel of reconciliation and restoration.
(05:01):
Hmm.
Uh, and good news for our cities and neighborhoods.
How did you connect those dots?
Caesar Kalinowski (05:05):
Yeah.
Well, for one, again, this, that article is not written.
It's not like a Christian ministry wrote it or whatever.
It's people that do urban planning and just help cities be great.
Yeah.
But as I was reading through all the things, I couldn't help but thinking like, oh man, but damn man, that helps people that don't have that, or like thatgives a really non-threatening way for these types of people to hang out together and have a common cause, or wow, that's like just leftover time or stuff.
(05:31):
But now we get to bless the whole neighborhood or city.
I mean, and so I looked at like going like, hmm, whenever we lay down our life, our preferences, we give our time, our talent, our treasure, our stuff away.
Like wow, that's like.
That's a picture of the gospel.
Right.
God gave his very best and he gave his son, and every day he blesses us and every day our heartbeats, it's another day of grace.
(05:51):
Yeah.
And, and I look at like all the needs in my life that get met and, and, and I think about how I need community and I think about how I want the planet taken care of.
And a lot of 'em have to do with, you know, green space or Sure.
Creating parks or restoring parks or clever things.
And I, I just remember thinking so much of it.
Goes right back to Genesis and sort of this mandate of like, Hey, you are humans.
(06:12):
You're image bearers my image, and I I created you to be like me.
Mm-hmm.
And I put you in charge of everything and you get to name the stuff.
So, so take care of everything.
And we've talked about the human job description is bear God's image.
Yep.
Right.
You just, we do.
And we've created that, uh, hang out with God.
We get to and take care of his stuff.
And that includes people.
(06:32):
Sure.
And every one of these things in this list of 101 small ways.
And they really are.
They're not like these, oh, I'd have to quit my job to do.
It's like, no, they're all real doable.
They're all ways to either hang out with people, you know, and take care of people or take care of the planet or provide opportunity for relationships to be either restored, renewed, or found.
(06:53):
And I so all, so much of this, I was like, man, I, I wish this was put out.
By the church and I wish that churches across the country were doing a whole lot more of it.
So as we talked about that, going like, which ones do we wanna do?
And which ones like, should we like, suggest, you know, to c communities to do, we were like, we gotta do an episode on it and just ring the bell and, and give some of our favorites and, you know.
Heath Hollensbe (07:15):
Yeah.
You know, one of the things I loved most about the article is that it was.
It was accessible to everybody.
Young, old, rich, poor, um, creative artists, uh, you know, handyman.
There was group activities, stuff he could do alone, stuff he could do as a family.
Yeah.
Uh, and back in what episode 180 5, we were talking about the concept of, of justice and reconciliation and, and this doing justice rather than just demanding justice, but Right.
(07:39):
I think doing justice really is an all hands on deck approach.
Would you agree?
I totally
Caesar Kalinowski (07:44):
do.
And what was the episode again?
We talked about that episode 180 5.
Yeah, we talked about loving mercy and doing justice and in that, if you heard the episode, you might remember that we talked about the word justice in Hebrew is the same word.
As righteousness.
Yeah.
And they both mean to restore.
Yeah.
Or to return.
And so all these things that so much of it have to do with repurposing and restoring and restoration.
(08:09):
They really are doing justice.
Yeah, they really are.
And, and go and check out the whole list.
We'll give you a way to get that, but I'm gonna highlight some of them.
But you'll see how each of these really is good news for a neighborhood or a city and.
For us, who gets to be the bringers of the good news.
Right.
I love it, man.
Okay, so let's go through
Heath Hollensbe (08:28):
some of
Caesar Kalinowski (08:28):
these,
Heath Hollensbe (08:29):
like not all 101, so it's not gonna be
Caesar Kalinowski (08:31):
a long episode.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that article, uh, they organized the 101 Ways to Improve Your City.
They organized 'em under six categories.
Okay.
Here's what they were, they were on your street.
Yeah.
Love that.
In your neighborhood, at your parks, along your route.
So like, kind of along the way every day.
Sure.
Um, with your neighbors and in your community.
(08:53):
So cool, right?
Yeah.
So what I've done is I've picked 12 for us to look at, like two from each category.
And I'm gonna be moving pretty quickly here.
Okay.
Just gonna say that they're all gold, but like, again, I'll give you a link to be able to get to them.
So let's do it.
Um, I'll just tell you the number that they gave it in the list, uh, of the cool idea and why I liked it.
Okay?
Okay.
So here's the first one.
Number four, create a little free library.
(09:13):
Love that man.
Right.
Libraries, you know, they change and they evolve over time.
But the pleasure and joy of reading books, it's the same as forever.
Um, where my son lives, uh, up in Seattle, all throughout their neighborhood there's these little, like, they look like little mini garages, like little cabins.
Heath Hollensbe (09:29):
We've got 'em too on our
Caesar Kalinowski (09:30):
like, all do, they're a little book lending library.
Love it.
Yeah.
Why is it good news?
Because when you invest in other people's lives and you give away something that was meaningful to you.
Yeah.
And then you can see the neighbor got that book and now you can talk to 'em about that.
That's a blessing, man.
Heath Hollensbe (09:42):
Yeah, right.
Caesar Kalinowski (09:43):
Yeah.
You know, the,
Heath Hollensbe (09:44):
uh.
Don't just stuff 'em too with Bibles.
Like, don't go to Goodwill.
'cause that's what's happening in the ones in our city.
It's like you got some really good books and then you know, the Christians have been by, 'cause there's like 15 used Bibles that somebody collected at Goodwill.
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (09:56):
I mean I think it'd be great to leave a Bible, but Yeah, I don't think you need to turn it, don't overstuff 'em into, turn into the the bottom drawer at every hotel, you know?
Yeah.
Okay.
Number seven, plant a tree.
Huh?
Yeah.
How about it?
Right?
Shade, serenity, sustainability.
The garden, like tending to things, right?
Trees add so much to a neighborhood, to a city, to the parkway.
(10:17):
Think about parkway.
That's that grass between your sidewalk in the street.
Yeah.
What if you, you know, saved up and bought like three or four trees and put 'em along your parkway or even talk to your neighbors into pitching in.
Yeah.
But you get 'em, get 'em in the right season and don't get the biggest tree in the world.
They grow.
Hint.
Yeah.
And uh, they're cheap.
So plant a tree.
Yeah.
There again, good group activity.
Like, why are your friends doing this?
We just thought it'd be beautiful.
(10:38):
Now, if you're planting in front of someone else's house, I just wanna say Get, get permission.
Yeah.
Or if you're gonna go to a park and you want to add trees, ask the, the park will never say, no city.
Just dig them up.
But ask them what kind of tree they want so the roots aren't causing problems and all that kind.
So dig into that.
Well,
Heath Hollensbe (10:52):
so our neighbor has a, has two cherry trees, and it was an older couple that lived there that planted them.
And I remember asking like, what, why are they there?
And he said.
As a kid, I just loved cherries and I wanted anybody who walked through the neighborhood just to feel like they could just walk down the sidewalk and pull cherries off my tree.
Caesar Kalinowski (11:05):
Yeah.
You know,
Heath Hollensbe (11:06):
like
Caesar Kalinowski (11:06):
blessing to the city.
This summer we got so many apples and pears from the neighborhood.
That's amazing.
And neighbors were all exactly that.
Yeah.
And you know what, help yourself.
I'd walk, I'd Tina and I would walk and get in.
I'd take my grandson Pat and we'd walk and little basket and get 'em and it was just a blast.
Yep.
Alright.
Uh, here's another one.
And then on their list, it's number 16, it says get lit. So sometimes it only takes a few lights like in your neighborhood to completely transform your block and all that.
(11:30):
And I remember that being exactly the case when we were living in Tacoma, uh, in our neighborhood, older homes, not a lot of street lights.
A whole bunch of us just decided in our Michel community and in our community, and we talked a bunch of the neighbors into it.
Let's start leaving our front porch light on every night.
Yeah.
You know, here, I'll buy you the bulb if you want.
There's the new fluorescent ones.
They last like a billion years.
Sure.
(11:50):
They cost like 15 cents a year.
I think we can afford it.
Here's, here's a dollar.
I'll buy the next two decades, you know?
Yeah.
Of your power.
And we all of a sudden, the whole neighborhood was transformed instead of being weird and dark at night.
Yeah.
All lit up, very inviting.
That's cool.
Less crime, all of it.
Right.
So get lit. Yeah.
I love that.
That was number 16.
Right?
So shine a light.
Help people feel safe, help your neighborhood feel, you know, more inviting.
(12:13):
It's just, it's great.
Yeah.
Okay.
Number 26, create a fit path.
A fit path.
What's a fit path?
Um, a city fit path, um, is, uh, like a public space or even maybe a route to your city, uh, that you kind of turn into, um, a place that you can do physical movement, positive, you know, do like exercises.
(12:34):
Um, people will come and do it together.
Sometimes people will put up signs and it, other times there'll be one little box that has.
A sheet of paper that says here's the route and how to do it.
Sure.
Check out the article.
There's links and how to set one up.
It's amazing.
Yeah, that's great.
But think about in your own neighborhood, if you said, Hey, here's just a little thing.
When you get to this thing stretch here, do five sit ups here on this little bench.
You know, lean on this and do some like kind of knee pushups, whatever.
(12:55):
Yeah, whatever.
Um, people will do it and then you'll get to talk to them.
You get to hang out, you get to build community.
It's good news when you help people stay fit and healthy.
Help 'em do it and it's free.
Yeah.
Pretty cool.
Do it.
Uh, number 32 was fix up a local park.
Okay.
So think about it.
Everybody almost has a, a park that has something that's like barely functional.
(13:18):
You know, the equipment's a little rusty and weird.
Maybe it needs some painting.
Um, would make maybe a new basketball court court be something that like a mic initial committee could pitch in and get done, or go out and fundraise for, spend all summer raising it and do it.
Yep.
I don't know.
Uh,
Heath Hollensbe (13:33):
trimming back the, uh, the bushes, the raspberry bushes that are encroaching and all those crazy sticker
Caesar Kalinowski (13:38):
bushes.
Yeah.
Right.
All that stuff.
We've done all that stuff.
All those kind of things.
And they are a super blessing.
Now that one's a little bigger, right?
You see some of these are just boom, easy.
Others you might be doing as a community or get your whole neighborhood to rally around it.
Create a pocket park or like, like you said, you know, put in a, put in a new basketball court or something like that.
So there's links there too on how to.
(13:59):
You know, get help with all that.
And I'll tell you too, places like Home Depot Yep.
And other, you know, Lowe's and homes, you know, supply and fix it.
Stores and all.
Yeah.
Usually willing to help.
They're very much so.
Yeah.
They have, they've set aside, just so you know, they, they've set aside budgets for these kind of things and they generally wanna make that donation to a nonprofit of some sort.
(14:19):
Yeah.
So connected to.
A Salvation Army project or your church or something.
Right?
Even if
Heath Hollensbe (14:24):
you can't do the whole basketball court, most of those basketball nets just need an $8 net on Amazon.
Prime paints the
Caesar Kalinowski (14:29):
backboard.
Yeah, retrip the thing.
Yep.
Put a bench in easy.
Right?
Put a bench in so people you know.
Right.
That's, that's a few hundred bucks.
Right.
So number 36.
I love this plan.
A popup dog park.
That's cool.
Like, you know, a pop-up party or a pop-up restaurant.
Yeah.
It's not always there 24 7.
Right.
But if your neighborhood doesn't have a place for dogs to run free, um.
(14:52):
There nothing that a few yards of temporary fencing can't fix.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you can create a pop-up dog park that becomes like really popular.
And some people, like I, there was one in the article they talked about, um, I think it was in California, that, uh, a farmer's market.
Yeah, every city has 'em.
We've got a bunch of 'em here.
They're not all year.
Yeah, they're not every neighborhood.
But what they did was it, those are generally adjacent to a parking lot or a field.
(15:16):
They set up a little of that orange fencing, you know?
Yeah.
And they do a pop-up dog park.
So then people love it and they come and they bring their pets and all.
So beautiful.
Right?
Yeah.
Um, and sometimes the people in the neighborhood in the city will say, we really need a dog park, and it can become something more permanent.
So it's pretty cool.
Yeah.
Number 41 was, uh, map a 40 minute walking circle around your house.
(15:37):
That's cool.
Yeah.
Measure, uh, it says measure and draw a two mile radius, a circle around your house to determine like your, like your walking threshold, you know, and the places that you can easily walk.
Um, and what, what the point is, is that you, and maybe your neighbors will realize that there's a lot more local, you know, amenities in stores closer than you think.
(15:57):
Most people can walk a couple of miles and really you walk a mile at a quick pace.
It's 15 to 17 minutes.
If you're crawling, it's.
20 minutes a mile.
Sure.
So you can do two miles and 40 minutes and, uh, you'll be a lot more likely to hoof it, you know, and walk it and support local businesses if everybody already knows that.
So I, I love the idea.
Create a 40 minute walking circle.
Yeah, that's great.
(16:17):
Around your house just for yourself, but then maybe share it right.
So, um, number 54 was just ride a bike.
That's it.
Yeah.
It's like, just start riding a bike once in a while and said, yeah, riding a bike really can save the planet.
Heath Hollensbe (16:31):
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (16:32):
It's, it, it cited this, uh, study done by the u University of California that said, shifting more people in cities to bicycles, not like everybody and all the time, but just if more people started doing it and cutting their car, use accordingly can reduce, uh, urban.
Like CO2 emissions and all that, but like 50% worldwide in the next 30 years.
Heath Hollensbe (16:53):
It's massive.
That's massive.
Caesar Kalinowski (16:54):
You know?
Now that's not gonna work for everybody we know.
I know We got listeners that live in cities and they totally could bike.
Sure.
And other people like, dude, it'd be like, it'd be, you know, an hour and a half to work, you know, or, but if you can, or on the weekends.
What if you started to make a decision?
Just let's start riding a bike.
That's cool.
Number 50 57.
This might be my favorite on the list.
Uh, I said organize a bar, crawl some of our listeners tuning out.
(17:18):
Like what?
You know they drink?
Yeah, they drink.
Um, so, you know, vote your conscience on this.
Yeah.
We're not here to talk anybody into anything they don't want to do or shouldn't do, but.
Um, we've done it.
Um, you can, you can organize a bar crawl and, uh, there's even like places in the article give you links on how to set that up and all.
But, um, some people do it as like a, an after work mixer.
(17:38):
Yeah.
You know, at a certain night of the week they'll do it some, I know, uh, where we live, people do it, believe it or not, as fitness events.
They'll go for like a, like a 10 mile bike ride or like a five mile jog or whatever.
And then they'll, they'll hit like two or three bars.
The first one will have a smoothie and then the second one they'll have this, and then they'll have a beer at the last one or something like that.
'cause they're, it's fitness, you know, or whatever.
Um, and, uh, it's, it's.
(18:00):
It's awesome.
And, and you can get to know, like the patrons, the, of course the pubs, the bars will love it.
Uh, we actually, uh, I was in Missional Community.
We modified that pub crawl and we turned it into a prayer pub crawl.
Huh.
And since our mission was kind of the people and the staff and everybody in, in our neighborhood, you know, and all the, the pubs and restaurants Sure.
And all that, we just would do a per pub crawl where we'd hit two or three of them.
(18:22):
We'd go in there, talk to the staff, see how they're doing, talk to the locals, get, get updated on what's happening.
And then we'd go outside and we'd pray for them.
Huh.
You know, not making a big deal out of it.
Sure.
Not a big spectacle.
Uh, and we'd pray for them and then we'd walk to the next place, you know?
Yeah.
Have a beer there.
Talk to everybody.
Pray for them.
You know, so cool.
So, yeah, I mean, so organize a bar, crawl, uh, there's some elaborate stuff.
(18:43):
Sure.
Biking ones, running clubs, there's a lot of them.
And, uh, yeah, so that's a cool one.
Love that.
62. Um, I almost did this once in life, but I didn't launch an oral history project.
Okay.
Okay.
There's a thing called Story Corps out there, it looks like corpse, but StoryCorp, there's studs, turkel.
Um, they, there's a rich tradition of storytelling out there and people doing time capsules of like life and neighborhoods, especially real ethnic neighborhoods and all that, documenting your neighbor's stories.
(19:14):
Sort of helps preserve the fabric and history of that neighborhood and, and it tells people that they matter.
Yeah.
And it tells 'em that their story's important.
It honors people, it validates their story and worth, and it builds like a commonality, like amongst people and trust.
And you can do it really simply.
You can just do it on an iPhone these days.
You can.
Download online lists of questions that you'd ask people to help document their things.
(19:38):
You got, if you, you know, have the skill, uh, and ability, you can create just a little local website.
You could start a Facebook group where you just upload 'em there sure as audio or video file, um, all that stuff.
But launching an oral history project gives you, man, think about you get to talk to everybody.
You get to know their story, you get to bear with them.
I mean, oh gosh.
Heath Hollensbe (19:57):
You know, 1, 2, 2 resources there.
Uh, a lot of times your city hall, like the website, so like our, we live in Fair Crest.
The city of Fair Crest has a history of the city and they've also got a historian.
Oh wow.
It's a good place to get involved, ask some questions, and then there's also this, uh, images of America series.
Go to Amazon and type in your city, images of America, and there's.
Detailed and almost every city detailed pictures and history of your
Caesar Kalinowski (20:21):
city.
So, so take up the banner for like your neighborhood.
Yeah.
Or a chunk of your city learn and just get, learn it to know everybody.
Yeah.
We came so close to doing this.
We, we actually had gotten the URL and all that and we were gonna do the aroma it was called The aroma.
Aroma because Tacoma Aroma.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome man.
Alright, next one.
Uh, number 78.
Um.
This is great.
(20:42):
It says, here's how you can, here's how you can improve your city and bless your city.
Smile particularly at strangers, and then it goes on and said, if you're feeling really southern enough, actually speak to people.
Okay.
I was
Heath Hollensbe (20:54):
gonna
Caesar Kalinowski (20:54):
say most southerners are like.
People don't
Heath Hollensbe (20:56):
smile everywhere.
Caesar Kalinowski (20:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, I, I can remember not too many years back, um, where I would walk from my home to, uh, a building that we owned in community.
And we, we were, Soma was using it and we were Yeah.
Doing all kinds of different things.
And it was almost like a community center.
Sure.
But it was only literally about a
60-90 second walk from my front door to the door, you know?
Oh wow.
And I would walk past the, there was a Salvation Army there and people in line for food and then there was some housing there, transitional.
(21:23):
And I would walk past a ton of people every single day.
And I was usually just on my way.
And I remember like the Holy Spirit saying, those are image bears.
Like greet them.
Every one of them is, has got a bit of me there, you know, it's like, and so I started just greeting everybody and talking to 'em and, and when we lived in Manhattan after that, that was different there.
Yeah.
A lot of people.
But I had the same habit and people were just like, what are you doing right?
(21:44):
But smile.
And say hi to people.
Yeah.
Like just that.
Make it your jam.
Make it your thing.
Yep.
Like we're gonna greet everybody.
Absolutely, man.
Love that.
And a personal tip is don't ask a question.
Like, Hey, how are you doing today?
'cause that's like that.
Now you're imposing and then they have to give an answer.
But you can just go, Hey, good to see you.
Yeah.
Have a great day.
You know, just like make a statement, you know?
(22:04):
But you'll be surprised.
You see the same person long enough, then you can turn it into a question.
Sure.
So it's good news when you honor someone.
Yeah.
And I mean, I think about this like this.
It seems so simple, but like we walk our neighborhood a lot and we take Patton, our grandson.
Yeah.
And you know, he's just like this little light bulb right now.
Bubbly.
Yeah.
He's just a bubbly kid.
He will stop and wave down every single car.
(22:25):
His favorite garbage man, the recycling guy, truck driver.
They all know him.
He makes their freaking day.
Every week just, and he loves it.
He loves seeing the garbage truck dump the cans.
And it's, it's fun.
He loves it.
They love it.
I'm like, how easy to make someone's day.
Yeah.
It's not that different when adults do it, by the way.
Yeah.
Uh, 70, uh, the last one I'm gonna give you is 79 and number 79.
(22:49):
It's screen.
A movie outdoors.
Yeah.
Some of you have done this already.
Uh, we have a neighbor in the neighborhood.
Oh, I just moved though.
And they, they did it all the time and it was great.
Someone's gotta pick up that van.
We just did it a few weeks back
Heath Hollensbe (23:00):
with the, uh, world Series.
Boom.
Put it on the side of somebody's, uh, their garage door.
Yeah.
It's a white door.
People are driving down the street, hit the brakes like whatcha are guys doing?
Yeah.
Come grab, sit with us for a second.
There's a guy in my
Caesar Kalinowski (23:10):
neighborhood.
You open up his garage and he's got that whole, uh, digital golf thing.
Yeah.
Looks awesome.
A golf thing.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Where you can golf like nine holes right in his garage.
It's like, you know, you hit the screen and all anyway, so, uh, you know.
Having like an impromptu movie night's not that hard to organize.
Yeah, it really isn't.
And you can have just your neighbors, uh, or you can go a little bigger.
You can have a reason, you can do it around a day off, like, uh, you know, if it's still nice enough out where you live or whatever time of year on a holiday night or the night before a holiday.
(23:36):
Sure.
So the kids don't have to come up.
And in the article you, there's a link to get a guide on how to set up your own screening and it gives you all kinds of tips and how to do it on the cheap and all that.
So that's a cool idea too.
Anybody can do that alone, but you can also do that as a family or a group of families or your small group or, or Michel community could host that.
Yeah.
I, I like predictable patterns we've talked about on the show.
Sure.
I'd say like, do a six week run and do always do family movies and do a six week run of family movies throughout the summer or something like that.
Heath Hollensbe (24:02):
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (24:03):
It makes
Heath Hollensbe (24:04):
it, it's so fun too.
So fun.
People come out, they bring their lawns.
Yeah.
I guess on a practical level, how would you go about getting into these rhythms?
How would you, let's say it was your Missional Community.
Mm-hmm.
And you wanted to present some of this.
Would you present it to the group?
Would you find your natural giftings?
Would you find something that fills a need or something that that group is particularly interested in?
Do you delegate out to other leaders?
(24:25):
Is it, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
There's a lot of questions, but how, how would you say, okay, I'm feeling comfort, this, how do this, this?
I wanna invite others, maybe my mc into this
Caesar Kalinowski (24:34):
next steps.
Yeah.
So first off.
You know, small is big, right?
You know, slow is fast.
So think about like, go over the list yourself or you as a family.
And I think it's always great to do stuff as a family.
I just do.
Right?
I agree.
Um, yeah, always bring the kids.
If you can go through that list, either the ones we just gave you or go through the 101, we'll give you the link, uh, here coming up.
(24:57):
Okay.
And, and find something where your heart just leaps a little bit that you're excited about.
That's a great place to start.
And then I would do it.
Just go for it and invite your closest friends, but don't try to make it a group project just yet.
I'd say go for it.
Find when you're fun and then let, let the fun of that.
'cause you're gonna be as blessed as you've blessed anybody else.
Sure.
Let the fun of that and the excitement and the blessing that was, let that be contagious and then say, Hey, where'd you get that idea?
(25:23):
I got it from this list.
There's a ton of stuff.
Let's look through this.
Any of these sound good to anybody else together?
Yeah.
Now even with a hundred things, you find like, well, no one could agree on anything.
I hear that all the time.
Sure.
Well then find something that two or three people agree on and say, well, we're gonna do it.
And if anybody wants to join us, you get to, yeah.
Don't worry about trying to get everybody on board for everything and don't worry about picking the biggest possible thing on the list.
(25:47):
Yeah.
Because if some of the things are like a little bit more elaborate, they're all really doable.
Sure.
But some of 'em are a little bit more organized.
Might, you might have to.
Like scrape a couple of bucks together to do it or get the city's permission or whatever others are.
You just literally do 'em this weekend, you know?
Sure.
But pick one, get started.
Do it your yourself, and then talk about your experience.
It's undeniable.
Let your, you know, your enthusiasm, win the day and then get whoever will pick the next ones with you and do it.
(26:11):
But, but I'd suggest make serving and blessing like this.
Make it a rhythm.
Yeah.
Like don't make it like we did it once.
That's right.
Aren't we Missional?
But like say, you know, like after you've done one and let people hear about it and then the group picks one.
Say, Hey, what if we tried to do, and maybe, and some of them you could do in rhythm.
Sure.
You could pick one thing, like a movie night.
You could do the movie like, we're gonna do it often.
(26:33):
Six, let's do this, let's do it all summer or whatever.
Start small.
Move.
Like let, let enthusiasm get there and don't worry about if everybody doesn't get involved.
Yeah.
Just let them hear about the good news, you know?
Okay.
Heath Hollensbe (26:44):
It'll be all right.
Helpful.
Let's get to the big three for this week.
Uh, you can get that by going to everyday Disciple dot com slash big three.
And the big three are just three takeaways.
We'd love for you to get, if nothing else right away, you can download this.
Yeah.
Let
Caesar Kalinowski (26:56):
me summarize this and give you a big three.
And by the way, the link to that full 101 ways.
Yeah.
We'll be a part of the big three download this week, so cool.
Here's my big three though.
Opportunities to live as a blessing in your city and your neighborhood are endless.
And this list reminded me of that.
Yep.
Time is not the issue.
Well, I don't know if I have time.
For time's not the issue.
It's a hard issue.
(27:16):
Availability and intention are the key.
Hmm.
Having the intention to do it, that's the key.
Everybody has the time and sometimes the smallest things we do for others can have the biggest impact.
That's right.
And it can be too easy to see a need or a possible cool opportunity and assume, well, someone else will do something about that.
Look in the mirror, pal.
It's your turn.
(27:36):
Yeah.
The advocate is you.
Heath Hollensbe (27:38):
Yeah.
Caesar Kalinowski (27:38):
It really is.
We get to, we get to, there's so many opportunities.
Sure.
Number two, giving our time and our talents and our resources to improve the lives of others.
Really does display the heart of Jesus in our community.
Whether, you know, we're setting up fun opportunities for relationship building, think about it.
God's all about relationship.
Sure.
And rest, restore, restoring that or restoring something that's broken in our city or creating new possibilities for people to thrive.
(28:05):
There's a ton of those on the list.
Yep.
The good news of the kingdom of God, in other words, how God wants the world to work is put front and center.
Through these things, regardless of which thing you pick.
Remember, not every gospel presentation has a little green booklet attached.
Yeah, you're absolutely right man.
Alright, number three.
Number three, pick a simple project that interests you like, oh, I like that.
(28:27):
And just get started this weekend.
I mean, really like throw caution to the win.
Get the list.
Pick one.
Don't put it off.
Don't wait until you can organize the perfect set of people and get the perfect plan.
Oh, it might rain, whatever.
You know, like a lot of things in life, when we bless others and we give ourselves away, it is often us that receives the biggest blessing.
(28:48):
So just get started.
Pick one, pick a simple one, get after it.
We feel God's love and provision flowing through us to others when we do these kind of things.
How cool is that?
That's so cool.
So just get started.
Heath Hollensbe (28:59):
And it's, and I love the concept of, of like.
Bringing kids into this too at the beginning, you know, if you've got some kids, like make this a family thing.
Yeah.
And you can put up a, a bookshelf in, in the front yard.
Absolutely.
Alright.
You can get those big three by going to everyday Disciple dot com slash big three.
And again, you'll get the link to the a hundred and plus small ways to improve Your City that's gonna be included.
(29:19):
Yep.
If you have not yet joined us on the Facebook group, just go to Facebook up in the toolbar Search Everyday Disciple Podcast.
We will approve you.
A lot of fun stuff going on there.
Yeah, absolutely.
Tell us too, if you surprise giveaways.
Goodies always good and let us know, like if you decide, hey, we're gonna do number 54.
Like in your city, tell us how it goes.
Oh, I love it.
(29:40):
It'd be encouraging for us, even tell us which
Caesar Kalinowski (29:41):
one you love the most and why.
Yeah.
And then we'll cheer you on.
Yeah, absolutely.
Or egg you on, I throw eggs at you.
No, I, I hope not.
Heath Hollensbe (29:49):
So, , join us on that Facebook group next week.
We're gonna talk about something we haven't talked about in the last couple episodes, which is parenting.
We, we, we love to get into the parenting topic here and there.
Sometimes there's good news in that too.
Absolutely.
So, so we're gonna talk about how to get through some of life's toughest issues as a parent by next week.
So join us for that.
Ouch.
Okay, you ready for that one?
I'm ready.
(30:09):
Thanks for joining us today.
For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit everyday Disciple dot com.
And remember, you really can live with a spiritual freedom and relational peace that Jesus promised every day.
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