In my hometown, the students that attend local high schools have an annual tradition of throwing toilet paper in the trees of each other’s front yards for a full-week of all out war. The kids love it. The parents hate it.

For anybody who has been the victim of this front yard assault, you know how painstakingly annoying cleaning up this mess can be.

I had a friend who decided that there might be a quicker way to clean up all the toilet paper- by setting the end closest to the ground on fire and letting the flames do the cleaning up.

…He must’ve forgotten Smokey the Bear in this moment.

As the fire jumped from paper trail to paper trail, to leaves and branches, he learned a valuable lesson about how fires spread. And how fast the fire department can respond.

Vision works like fire. When a vision is communicated effectively, it catches fire and sets off a chain reaction. And it quickly becomes uncontainable and difficult to extinguish.

From my platform in Partnerships at Atlanta Mission, I get to see the vision catch fire everyday with how the community of metro Atlanta loves the men and women we serve.

One example this week was particularly inspiring. We have a church community who loves us very well. They come on a regular basis to play board games and cards with the men on Saturdays.

They decided they wanted to surprise us by providing a brand-new corn-hole set for the men to enjoy and for friendships to form
over.

When they communicated this vision- to see the men build relationships over games- to a woodworker, he was inspired to double their order free of charge.

When the woodworker explained this vision to the printer who makes labels for his corn-hole sets, the printer gave him the equipment to make them for free.

And so on and so forth…the vision catching fire.

This is how we end homelessness- by fostering a community under a common mission and method. The mission is transformation, the method is friendship.

Who can you share the vision with this week? Think about what could happen if you do!