Rediscovering the Neighborhood Church, part 3
01/24/2006 16:46 Filed in: Faith & Reason
A few months back, I had a revelation. We've gone about this completely wrong. The way we choose a church, I mean. Or maybe it's how we decide where we are going to live. Either way, we've made a mistake.
In part 2 of "Rediscovering the Neighborhood Church," I brought up a schism that's been created by living in a neighborhood that's different from our church's neighborhood. This is a new phenomenon, the result of an increasingly mobile society that thinks nothing about driving across town to go to the movies, or to go shopping, or to go to school. So why not church, too?
In my previous discussion of this topic, I spoke of the disconnect that Kathy and I felt as we left our neighborhood, town, and even county, and drove elsewhere for spiritual community. It made no sense. We struggled with this for months, but we finally made the hard decision. In spite of the fact that we belonged to a great church, a church where we had been for a decade, a church where I had been on staff twice, we made the decision to move our membership to a body of believers in the town where we now live. In fact, we joined a church that is within walking distance of our house.
I'll never forget the first Sunday we visited, which incidentally, was a few weeks before we actually joined. Kathy and I were immediately welcomed by familiar faces. We saw people that were from our own neighborhood, who lived down the street. We were greeted by Kathy's co-workers. Children whom Kathy teaches ran up to her with smiles, yelling, "Mrs. Mansfield! Mrs. Mansfield!" I felt the immediate spiritual bond between geographic community and spiritual community. And for Kathy, there was added the third sphere of the workplace. I really don't think I had experienced that since my early twenties, since before we moved away from home. Before that day, I would have guessed that such a feeling of community was no longer possible in our modern world. But I was wrong.
Think about it for a minute. What missionary would try to reach one village, but live in a different village? That wouldn't happen very often unless he was the only missionary for miles around. So why do we do this with church? In every home in which I've ever lived during my adult life, I've felt like God placed me there for a purpose--to minister in that local neighborhood community. And yet, at the same time, every church sees as its mission to reach the people in its surrounding neighborhoods. For me, the two were never the same. Until this last year, I never realized the disconnect I was creating in my life and my church involvement. It's too much. It spreads a person too thin. Under such a self-imposed dichotomy, I don't have the help of a local body of believers to help me minister in my neighborhood. And just as bad, I don't have as much of a vested interest in my church's local neighborhood as I ought to. In fact, although I was very involved in my former church over the last decade, I had very little to do with the church's local neighborhood outside of the occasional "First Impressions" gift to new residents. I am ashamed to admit it, but I was never completely sold on my church's mission to reach the surrounding community. It wasn't something that I was conscious of though. I see it now because I've reflected on this, and I realize it was because I didn't live there.
A few months back I listened to a missionary home on furlough talk to a group of us who were her friends. She said that one thing she realized since being out of the country is that the church in the United States is too disconnected. We're traveling here and there, and we're not invested in our neighborhoods and each others' lives. She said one thing that Catholics had over Protestants was the old idea of the parish. Barger said the same thing in my quote from part 1. The parish. The Catholic Church has understood this for centuries. A region is broken up into parishes, and by and large members go to the church in their parish, in their local neighborhoods. They have community that transcends the church's walls because they see each other on their neighborhood blocks when the go for walks at night. They run into each other at the grocery store. The kids go to the same schools.
Protestants have never learned the lesson of the parish. In our desire to be independent, we build churches wherever we want--often in the backyard of an existing church. We put ourselves in consumer mode and "shop" for the church which we think will suit our needs best oblivious to the needs of the actual geographic community in which we live.
You know, I had a clue about this a few years ago. For a number of years, Kathy and I lived in a very urban neighborhood just about half a mile from downtown Louisville. It was a mixed neighborhood of blue-coller families who had lived on the same streets for two or three generations. Then, there were newcomers like us who were living in the remodeled shotgun houses. Tradition and trendiness were side by side. One thing I noticed soon after moving in was that the folks who had lived there all their lives, would go outside in the evenings and sit on their front steps, yelling conversations back and forth to one another across the street. So that we could do that, I pulled up the patch of ivy that was in front of our house (never liked ivy--a mosquito trap in my opinion) and laid down faux-brick patio stones and put a glider swing on top. Many nights we joined in the evening neighborhood cross-street conversations. But not often enough. There were many to minister to in this neighborhood, but we were involved in a church clear on the other side of the city in a neighborhood with a whole different mix of inhabitants.
Ironically, there was a church--a very small Baptist church--often pastored by seminary students, right on our block! They had a clothing closet that was open every Thursday, but they were a spiritual lighthouse in that neighborhood in a variety of ways all week long. I remember Kathy being invited to a baby shower for one of the young girls in our neighborhood held at that little church. This particular girl was pregnant without a father in the picture, again. Of course, regardless of the young woman's choices, her circumstances weren't the soon-to-be-born baby's fault. It wasn't the fault of her other toddler. Kathy was touched at how the church reached out to that young girl and her family. Despite her situation, the church saw to her physical needs and hoped and desired to tend to her spiritual needs as well.
Now, I don't relate any of that to diminish the church experience I had during those years. I wouldn't trade anything for the friendships I made, the ministry that I was involved in, and the help the church gave Kathy and me during some very difficult times. But now that I've been awakened to this issue, I never want to separate my neighborhood community from my church community again.
I have talked to so many people in the last year or two who tell me they feel disconnected from their church, often after being members in a particular church for a number of years. And I've talked to couples, often young couples, who can't find a church, but desperately desire a place where they can feel like they belong. I'm not saying that joining a neighborhood church will solve every difficult issue of fellowship facing the church today, but it's a start in the right direction--a very powerful start.
In part 2 of "Rediscovering the Neighborhood Church," I brought up a schism that's been created by living in a neighborhood that's different from our church's neighborhood. This is a new phenomenon, the result of an increasingly mobile society that thinks nothing about driving across town to go to the movies, or to go shopping, or to go to school. So why not church, too?
In my previous discussion of this topic, I spoke of the disconnect that Kathy and I felt as we left our neighborhood, town, and even county, and drove elsewhere for spiritual community. It made no sense. We struggled with this for months, but we finally made the hard decision. In spite of the fact that we belonged to a great church, a church where we had been for a decade, a church where I had been on staff twice, we made the decision to move our membership to a body of believers in the town where we now live. In fact, we joined a church that is within walking distance of our house.
I'll never forget the first Sunday we visited, which incidentally, was a few weeks before we actually joined. Kathy and I were immediately welcomed by familiar faces. We saw people that were from our own neighborhood, who lived down the street. We were greeted by Kathy's co-workers. Children whom Kathy teaches ran up to her with smiles, yelling, "Mrs. Mansfield! Mrs. Mansfield!" I felt the immediate spiritual bond between geographic community and spiritual community. And for Kathy, there was added the third sphere of the workplace. I really don't think I had experienced that since my early twenties, since before we moved away from home. Before that day, I would have guessed that such a feeling of community was no longer possible in our modern world. But I was wrong.
Think about it for a minute. What missionary would try to reach one village, but live in a different village? That wouldn't happen very often unless he was the only missionary for miles around. So why do we do this with church? In every home in which I've ever lived during my adult life, I've felt like God placed me there for a purpose--to minister in that local neighborhood community. And yet, at the same time, every church sees as its mission to reach the people in its surrounding neighborhoods. For me, the two were never the same. Until this last year, I never realized the disconnect I was creating in my life and my church involvement. It's too much. It spreads a person too thin. Under such a self-imposed dichotomy, I don't have the help of a local body of believers to help me minister in my neighborhood. And just as bad, I don't have as much of a vested interest in my church's local neighborhood as I ought to. In fact, although I was very involved in my former church over the last decade, I had very little to do with the church's local neighborhood outside of the occasional "First Impressions" gift to new residents. I am ashamed to admit it, but I was never completely sold on my church's mission to reach the surrounding community. It wasn't something that I was conscious of though. I see it now because I've reflected on this, and I realize it was because I didn't live there.
A few months back I listened to a missionary home on furlough talk to a group of us who were her friends. She said that one thing she realized since being out of the country is that the church in the United States is too disconnected. We're traveling here and there, and we're not invested in our neighborhoods and each others' lives. She said one thing that Catholics had over Protestants was the old idea of the parish. Barger said the same thing in my quote from part 1. The parish. The Catholic Church has understood this for centuries. A region is broken up into parishes, and by and large members go to the church in their parish, in their local neighborhoods. They have community that transcends the church's walls because they see each other on their neighborhood blocks when the go for walks at night. They run into each other at the grocery store. The kids go to the same schools.
Protestants have never learned the lesson of the parish. In our desire to be independent, we build churches wherever we want--often in the backyard of an existing church. We put ourselves in consumer mode and "shop" for the church which we think will suit our needs best oblivious to the needs of the actual geographic community in which we live.
You know, I had a clue about this a few years ago. For a number of years, Kathy and I lived in a very urban neighborhood just about half a mile from downtown Louisville. It was a mixed neighborhood of blue-coller families who had lived on the same streets for two or three generations. Then, there were newcomers like us who were living in the remodeled shotgun houses. Tradition and trendiness were side by side. One thing I noticed soon after moving in was that the folks who had lived there all their lives, would go outside in the evenings and sit on their front steps, yelling conversations back and forth to one another across the street. So that we could do that, I pulled up the patch of ivy that was in front of our house (never liked ivy--a mosquito trap in my opinion) and laid down faux-brick patio stones and put a glider swing on top. Many nights we joined in the evening neighborhood cross-street conversations. But not often enough. There were many to minister to in this neighborhood, but we were involved in a church clear on the other side of the city in a neighborhood with a whole different mix of inhabitants.
Ironically, there was a church--a very small Baptist church--often pastored by seminary students, right on our block! They had a clothing closet that was open every Thursday, but they were a spiritual lighthouse in that neighborhood in a variety of ways all week long. I remember Kathy being invited to a baby shower for one of the young girls in our neighborhood held at that little church. This particular girl was pregnant without a father in the picture, again. Of course, regardless of the young woman's choices, her circumstances weren't the soon-to-be-born baby's fault. It wasn't the fault of her other toddler. Kathy was touched at how the church reached out to that young girl and her family. Despite her situation, the church saw to her physical needs and hoped and desired to tend to her spiritual needs as well.
Now, I don't relate any of that to diminish the church experience I had during those years. I wouldn't trade anything for the friendships I made, the ministry that I was involved in, and the help the church gave Kathy and me during some very difficult times. But now that I've been awakened to this issue, I never want to separate my neighborhood community from my church community again.
I have talked to so many people in the last year or two who tell me they feel disconnected from their church, often after being members in a particular church for a number of years. And I've talked to couples, often young couples, who can't find a church, but desperately desire a place where they can feel like they belong. I'm not saying that joining a neighborhood church will solve every difficult issue of fellowship facing the church today, but it's a start in the right direction--a very powerful start.