Every year we host a New Year’s Eve party to help us get to the neighbors. It is a fun and enjoyable way to get to know your neighbors so that you can show them the love of Jesus. Though I know it is a little early, if you begin planning now, you can get a head start on planning a New Year’s Eve party that will help you get to know your neighbors.
Since the evening party needed to be held indoors due to the time of year, we were unable to invite all of our neighbors (our table seats only twenty four), so we focused on our nearest neighbors. When we invited people, most said that they “usually don’t attend New Year’s Eve parties” because they try to stay off the road on New Year’s Eve, then laughed when they realized they all live no more than a block from our house.
Lemon Meringue Pie and Wasabi Peanuts
Last year’s New Years Eve party was literally a last-minute effort thrown together that day and the day before. One of our neighbors was dying. She was very discouraged. We knew she wouldn’t be here for another New Year’s Eve. When she agreed to drop by for a few minutes, we quickly invited other neighbors to join us. But what to cook? We settled on take-and-bake pizzas from Costco, complemented by other prepared foods. Our guests loved it!
This year’s menu was somewhat expanded, but take-and-bake pizza was still the centerpiece. Almost everyone, on their own, brought along pie, cookies, wine, breads, cheeses and so on. The big hit: lemon meringue pie. The big dud: my personal stash of Wasabi peanuts. Although clearly labeled, some people ignored the label (they thought they were getting green Jordan almonds maybe?) and took some anyway. Consequently, all but one person (a true Wasabi fan) happily put their Wasabi peanuts on my plate when they figured out what Wasabi peanuts are.
Eating and Talking
We have no agenda for our neighborhood parties. We set them up and let them happen. Once neighbors get together, they love to eat and talk. Unless the food is bad or there is not enough food, they don’t remember a few weeks later what they ate. However, they do remember who they talked to and what they talked about. We hear people comparing previous places they have lived and worked, what wars they fought in, what’s happening in the neighborhood and various other topics. For the most part, they’re just getting to know each other better.
Moving to Hawaii?
Here are some of the comments people give us in between parties:
”When you have another one of those neighborhood parties, we’d like to be invited.”
“We missed the block party, but plan to come next year.”
“We got to know some of our neighbors better. Even though we’ve lived on the same street for over thirty years, we really didn’t know each other very well.”
“Great party, just a great party!” “Don’t move away! Who’d organize our parties? We love them!”
Most people love getting to know their neighbors. We do! Though we had planned to move to a warmer climate when we retired, we recently decided to stay right where we are. Why? We have lots of really great neighbors!
We care about our neighbors and they care about us and each other. We’re choosing that instead of Hawaii or Florida. If you’re wondering about the spiritual significance of all of this, I will close out this series with a post on that very topic.
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John 14:2 is part of the Upper Room Discourse, and is usually understood to mean that Jesus is going to go back to heaven, where He will be at work to prepare mansions or dwelling places for the church, and when He is done, He will come back and take us to live with Him forever.
Well… that preaches…. but is it true? The person who sent in the question is right. Technically, if God is omnipotent, that is, if He is all-powerful, then He didn’t even need six days to form creation. He could have done so with a snap of his divine fingers. For reasons which I won’t get into here, God chose to form and fill creation through a much slower process than simply by snapping His fingers. I don’t care whether you think it was over six days or six-billion years, creation was not instantaneous.
I do admit, on the surface, it does seem rather strange, though I never made the connection with the colonialists. For me, the promised return of Jesus always reminded me of the prophesied return of King Arthur. You know… King Arthur and his knights of the round table. Did you know that there are predictions that King Arthur will come again? Most everybody scoffs at the idea, realizing that it is just part of the legend that surrounds the stories of King Arthur.
Again, I have often heard it taught that there is this big heavenly scoreboard in heaven which is counting down toward zero, and every time a person believes in Jesus for eternal life, that countdown gets closer to zero. When it finally does reach zero, Jesus will return. When I have heard this preached, the audience is always told to go out and evangelize and witness to their friends and neighbors, because you never know if all of heaven and earth is just waiting on you to tell your neighbor about Jesus because they are the final Gentile to be brought in.
But here is the thing… just because we don’t want to go off the deep end and idolize nature or damage and destroy human lives for the sake of nature, this does not mean that we can ignore the environmental needs of the world or just consume and destroy the natural resources of this plant in any way we want.
We fill a large bowl with candy bars. Sometimes there is a neighbor who will not get home from work until later in the evening, and she gives us a package of candy to hand out for her. In addition to the circle of chairs, we set up tables to hold the food and carved pumpkins, fiber-optic pumpkin heads, and cats.
And we do! Simply by spending time with, eating with them, and sharing life with them, we get to know them. Inevitably, we have conversations about life – including the meaning of life and its problems and where God is in all of that, hopes, needs and a variety of other issues. These all take place before, during, and after these events.
No, I haven’t forgotten about my various books projects.
I am sure you have either read or watched the movie of C. S. Lewis’ classic children’s novel, 
Following Aslan’s resurrection, C. S. Lewis has Aslan, Susan, and Lucy race off to the castle of the White Witch, where they “thaw” out all the creatures of Narnia who had been turned to stone, and then return with this army of creatures to help Peter, Edmund, and the Narnians defeat the Witch Jadis and her evil army.
To this, Lucy says, “Not to disagree, Aslan, but Queen Jadis is still very much alive. In fact, at this very moment, she is slaughtering the Narnians, and our brothers, Peter and Edmund, are in danger of being killed as well. Isn’t there anything you can do?”
So although it is difficult to know what to say to someone who is grieving or suffering, here are fifteen things NOT to say at a funeral (or to others in pain). These statements are little more than 