Community

The big C word. It's been a buzz word in Churchianity for awhile. But what can we do about it? What is it? How can I help create and sustain it?

Jesus told us to not worry so much at first trying to take his message to some foreign country. He said to start right in our own neighborhood. Isn't that the way we are? When our imagination gets fired up we start dreaming all sorts of big, fancy, schmancy ideas about conquering the world. Sometimes God just wants us to love our neighbors. Well, honestly, he wants us to do that all the time.

But sometimes he just wants us to put down our evangelistic telescope and look at our actual neighbors. You know, the ones that live next door. Or above or below us or across the walkway from us. The ones whose dogs poop on our front yard and whose cats pee on our BBQ grill covers. The ones who gripe about the neighbor down the street who doesn't live by the CC&R's but whose sparkling new storage shed violates at least three CC&R's that you know about. Yeah, those neighbors.

God wants us to love them. Accept them. Don't try to Christianize them. Just be their friend. Be careful to pay attention to their needs and help them out whenever possible. Basic love stuff.

Once neat way to minister to your neighborhood is to try to foster a sense of community there by having a block party once or twice a year. I remember living in a house for 10 years and when I left hardly knew any of my neighbors the whole time. Sadly, one of them was happy to see me leave, I must confess.

But when I moved to the new neighborhood I asked God to help me be a better neighbor. So he told me to have a block party. It's really easy. Just get two or three other neighbors together that'll help out (you'd be surprised at how eager people are to help) , set a date, and plan easy food like hot dogs, burgers, potato salad, and sodas and then pass out a flyer to everybody in the neighborhood. Charge $10 a house to help pay for expenses and have a blast. It's really cool to see people hanging out, getting to know each other beyond the casual wave out through the windshield as they pull into the garage.

Helping build a sense of community in your community is a powerful way to bring a little taste of the kingdom of love into your neighborhood. What happens is that people get to know each other and start liking each other. It's more difficult to stab somebody in the back when you like them. It's harder to believe false stories about somebody when you know that person. People like to help people and when they know other people they tend to help them more, what's more "Christian" than that? People ministering to each other and participating in the acts of loving their neighbor is better than people who nod their head in church when the preacher says "Love your neighbor!".

Block parties are an awesome way to infect your world with the spirit of community.