Measure Your Neighboring Efforts with Plus-One Approach

It is important to set goals anytime you begin a new task or habit. Then eventually it is good to have a way to measure your efforts, to see if you are making progress or making a difference. 

That is the case with neighboring but how you measure your progress is challenging. It could be based on the new families you know or the long-term impact with families. But generally, we humans like something a little more immediate.

According to Brian Mavis, author of The Neighboring Church, you can actually measure neighboring. We also know that in church life, we get more of the things we measure (think attendance and offering here).

Measuring your efforts as a neighbor takes a little creativity. Or in this case, it requires an approach called Plus One.

The idea originates from the mission field where some friends were working in the Middle East. They told the author they had been frustrated by the slow process and not seeing any fruit. Then another missionary from the area taught them to count any positive step. 

For example, if they were walking through the market and someone looked at them for the first time, they would count it. If someone invited them to tea, they counted it. They called each of these small wins, Plus Ones. 

This was critical to helping the missionaries see their work as a process rather than an event.

Plus Ones look different in a neighborhood and you could use them to track your daily effort, or even to track progress with a particular family.

Any act of kindness, service, prayer, positive conversation, or even something as simple as a wave or nod could count as a Plus One. 

A Plus One could also be things that are done for you! If a neighbor gives you cookies or lets you borrow a ladder. those count as Plue Ones. 

These should be simple enough to jot done on a post-in note.

Plus Ones helps us to recalibrate our thinking, just like the missionaries in the Middle East. Plus Ones give us a measuring tool. 

Some people have asked why everything gets just one point. That is because each one is just one step that leads to loving and connecting with others, whether it seems big or small.

In his book, Mavis writes that there are three different Plus Ones: 

1) Things you do for others, 

2) Things you do for yourself, 

3) things that are done by remain unseen. 

Throughout the Bible we see the example of Plus Ones from Jesus: he asks for a drink of water, he attends a wedding, he tells stories, he goes fishing with friends, He prayed for his friends, etc. He was touchable, authentic and available. He was a best friend and a best neighbor.

As for myself, I have set a goal of making every day a Plus One day with my neighbors. 

The goal is to visit with or have an interaction with at least one neighbor every day either in person or by text. When schedules get busy this is a bigger challenge than you might think. But having this as a goal has made me much more intentional with making neighboring a daily action.

For more information on neighboring, visit David Burton’s blog at www.we-are-neighbors.blogspot.com.