SOFT is different than random acts of kindness or activities done in larger groups.

SOFT is distinctly more personal; we are building-up people in need. We are taking the extra step, asking questions, finding about who the person is, accepting where they are at, walking with them without judging, recognizing them for their unique spirits.

Soft is different in that it provides an easy-to-use template for these small tribes to form and communicate. We are social people. We like to have FUN. TRIBES bring us together for fun, collaboration, and committed service.

Third, SOFT connects the tribe members and connects with the tribes, building the movement with ideas from its members, providing resources, enabling anonymous story-telling, and tabulating the good works to show we are making a difference.

And last, Serving Others Forward Together is different because it changes our lives – as we take small steps to build others up, to serve others, to connect with them, THE GIVING changes US. We live and believe “I am the hands, feet, and voice of Jesus”.

Serving Others Forward Together (SOFT) is a resource and process to help us Live Our Faith. We are disciples committed to sustained habit of serving others, and personally connecting with them. They matter! You matter!

Serving others provides heartfelt meaningfulness and genuine happiness to our lives, while demonstrating our love of neighbor.

Unlike Pay-It-Forward or charity, SOFT encourages personal involvement in serving others AND collaborating with friends for emotional support and accountability.

You will make a difference.
SOFT is a new, bold engagement process of committed serving and personal connection empowering you to make a difference in the world today…immediately!

You show them that they matter, and you realize you matter. Just giving them your time and effort is significant, but when you take the next step to personally connect with them, everything changes. You are honoring and respecting their unique spirit.
You affect their life.

It changes YOU forever. You experience authentic joy, not fleeting happiness.

The process of belonging to a peer group with similar passions, learning and challenging yourself and others, employing your gifts and talents to help others, and then, actually connecting with another person to share their humanity is truly Loving Your Neighbor, and loving God.

You will help us build the movement; a new culture.
And last, but not least, imagine the excitement and challenge of being part of developing a new movement – a new culture for the world.

Working and acting on new ideas, maybe your ideas? Discussing them, watching them evolve, and possibly seeing those ideas change the world – change the way we ALL treat each other.

You know there are all kinds of people, websites, and sermons that inspire us to “live” our faith, but there are very few action tools to get us started and keep us on track. Most of us want to do more for others and be a good example for our children, but life gets in the way.

We are crazy-busy – shuffling kids around, juggling work schedules, and keeping up with activities. And in ALL of that – we make choices in how we spend our time and efforts. Discipleship is a choice.

There are 2 primary steps for the SOFT strategy.

First, you commit to yourself and your tribe of peers to routinely and intentionally serving others – to be the hands, ears, and voice of Jesus – to be His disciple.

SOFT has all the right tools to help you start and maintain a serving habit. SOFT will give you the resources (on our website) needed to discern, get started, and feel comfortable in sharing your time and talent for the well-being of others.

As Jesus’ disciple, we strive to respect, affirm, and build up each person we care for. It’s this one-on-one experience—simply getting to know someone, sharing time with them, and caring for them—that is true discipleship. And in that realm, a reasonable goal is 4 to 8 hours per month.

Second, you reach out to friends and/or family who share similar aspirations AND together create a 6-10 person tribe to encourage and support each other in routinely living your faith. We are a social beings, and our peers are very important to us.

When you commit to them – and with them – to take an action within a given time frame, you will be much more likely to follow through.

By sharing your thoughts and ideas with people having similar beliefs, you feel closer and more connected to them. They are people who will push you in exchange for being pushed, who will raise the bar and tell you the truth. They are not in your business, but they’re in your shoes!

We want – we need – social connections to maintain our resolve, as proven by the success of groups like Weight-Watchers and Cross-Fit Fitness. Additionally, SOFT recommends gathering socially every couple of months, and involving your children as much as possible, in your discipleship lifestyle.

To facilitate this strategy, SOFT provides a simple phone app for each tribe and its members. Disciples post their “serving” intention in the app, share before and after thoughts with each other, and at times, encourage each other to stay on track.

The SOFT app also sends-out handy tips and friendly reminders. After completing a serving deed, a disciple simply updates his/her status in the app.

The SOFT app can be programmed to reset at either 2 or 4 week time-frames; at which time tribe members make a new commitment to themselves and their tribe for the next time-frame.

“Living Our Faith” is the Evangelization that Pope Francis talks about. It is for God’s Glory – bringing his light to the world—so that others will see, question, and then seek our Source.

Thus sharing our experiences with tribe members, and anonymously on the SOFT website, will inspire others to join and become intentional disciples.

Many people are disconnected from life; they text, tweet, and email, and are losing out on personal connections.

Some become focused on work, stressed out all day in a cubicle with a pile of paper or emails that never diminish. They go in early, and leave late – but feel empty and tired.

Some people go “in to” a ‘job’ every day, and “go out” with “friends” every night, but always feel like something is missing.

We search for happiness in all the wrong places: poor and shallow relationships; self-medicating nightly or on the weekends; hanging out with people WE have no interest in. or whom have no real interest in us.

We become so self-focused, for whatever reasons, that we lose sight of what’s really important in living life.

We don’t stop or slow up to make time to change our course, or begin discerning different lifestyles and resources that might help us move on. We don’t make “the choice” to make time for others!

Some just don’t know how to get started, where to go, who to talk to, how to serve.

“Almost everybody aspires to greater levels of generosity. The problem is life gets in the way. We know the things that make us happy, we just don’t do them.” by Matthew Kelly.

SOFT facilitates a fun and easy-to-do process for people to live their faith; to have a meaningful life.

Serving Others Forward is a Catholic initiative for building-up people in need – serving, connecting, valuing them as a fellow human being. This initiative is in response to Jesus’ call to serve; and our gratitude for the gifts we have received.

Serving others forward facilitates an EASY and FUN process to a more full-filling life, genuine happiness, and better relationships.

God designed US to Love one another; and to be dependent on each other.

With YOUR help in building this organization and participating in its mission, we will change the way we ALL treat each other in our daily lives – to CONNECT WITH OTHERS.

SOFT is a fun, and interactive strategy for each of us to PUT our faith into action. We are disciples committed to a sustained habit of serving others.

Simply put, we are using the social concept of organized small groups, called tribes, to support, collaborate, and encourage each other to individually serve and personally connect with another person.

The tribe will explore activities, find challenges, and help each other match OUR individual talents and interests with those we hope to serve.

Often times the serving process will start with a physical activity – cleaning, transporting, painting a room, whatever…. which in turn sets the stage to initiate a conversation.
A conversation that would build them up, show they matter, and they are worthwhile; that you want to walk with them as a person; that you care.

Giving changes the way we treat each other. It changes our lives. We believe and live: ”I am the hands, feet, and voice of Jesus“.

When we give, Our lives become meaningful.
This engagement process of committed serving and personal connection is inherently rewarding. It makes us better mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and coworkers.

Additionally, care receivers will be inspired to ‘serve others forward’ using their own particular gifts and talents for someone in need.

But whether giving or receiving, the real reward is WHAT flows between us – our connection.

Although initially structured with Catholic’s in mind, especially non-practicing Catholics, SOFT IS NOT exclusive, and in fact, tribe members are encouraged to invite any discerning person to be involved – to LIVE the words of Jesus!

This strategy is just not for the economically poor either; it is relevant to family members, neighbors, coworkers, and strangers – we all need someone, sometime.

There is no right or wrong way to connect with someone !

Only the CARING and LISTENING matter. God will take care of the rest.

Please start or join a tribe today; I am only an organizer, it takes a lot of people to drive a movement. But individuals must step up first !

There are many ways to support us, so please go to the I’m Interested box, Join Serving Others Forward, and review the ways you can be involved and support us.