It’s pretty amazing to see what has happened since Alece launched #OneWord2011.
It started with Alece wanting to share about her desire to simplify and bring focus a year of her life around a singular idea. It caught on and as of this writing, 232 bloggers have blogged about their “One Word”, and countless non-bloggers have caught One Word Fever and shared via Twitter and facebook.
In addition to the One Word Community, the #OneWord2011 hashtag has invaded Twitter, a #OneWord2011 Daily Edition paper.li was started (linking together all the current One Word posts), a One Word facebook like page was started (connecting One Word-ing fb’ers) and I started a #OneWord2011 Twitter list (creating an environment for One Word-ers to stay connected).
It has been remarkably encouraging to see the number of people jumping on board and not only sharing their One Word, but also engaging with many others taking part, encouraging and learning from each other. I don’t know what exactly classifies something as a “movement”, but this may be the closest thing to one that I’ve been involved in!
If you read my last post, you know that my #OneWord2011 is “Engage”. I tend to think I am a pretty natural connector, so much of how I have “engaged” in the past has been by nature, and not always necessarily with as much focus and intentionality to it as I’d like to believe. With me picking “engage” as my One Word, I want to change that this year and really be more intentional about how I engage and therefore invest into my various environments, opportunities and relationships.
One such environment is the STRETCH Young Adult Community Group that I co-lead, along with Ben Turner, at Cross Point Church. For those who don’t know about Stretch, here’s the short version: The core heart and vision of the group is service and the group is regularly invested in a wide range of service projects from child care to homeless ministry and more. The group started in the Fall of ’09 with 2 people, grew to 15 people by early January ’10, exploded to 60 on January 17 2010 and has since grown to close to 200 people with as many people now on the leadership team who were in the entire group a year ago. It is nothing short of amazing to see what God is doing in that group of people.
Several Stretch bloggers have already jump onboard and last week I got the crazy idea to take #OneWord2011 offline and introduce it to Stretch in a community group setting. So when we met this past Sunday night for the first time since before Christmas, I did just that.
My goal is to actively engage that environment and create a year-long dialogue around everyone’s One Word in their small groups, fostering accountability, support and encouragement, and deepening their relationships as they all work toward seeing their One Word shape their beliefs, thoughts and actions throughout the year.
I FREAKING LOVE IT!
We had over 60 people turn in One Word cards Sunday night and this week we’ll have more. I love seeing how people are already embracing the concept and connecting with others in new ways through it. I can’t wait to see how it takes shape through the group throughout the year!
If you are involved in any kind of small or community group setting, I encourage you to consider taking the concept offline as well and let it be a catalyst for deepening your relationships and challenging those around you to experience growth in new ways.
