In Pursuit of Neighborhood Life

In my previous post, I wrote about Christian simplicity as a core value for us at the Springs. In this post I want to describe how we're pursuing it. We call our pursuit Neighborhood Life, and consider it an application of Jesus' command to love our neighbors as ourselves.

In our commuter society, we tend to ignore the impact of physical distance on our relationships and schedules. For example, we don't hesitate to live far from work or enlist our kids in activities that require long deliveries and pick-ups. If church life is part of the family picture, it tends to be one more factor in family fragmentation. As a church staff member, it was common for me to be leaving my family and waving to my neighbors as I left home for another meeting or church activity. Church, like most everything else in our society, markets separate products and activities to each family member based on age and personal interest. And it's likely that a commute is required for church involvement, too.

There are 2 ways I'm changing my relational world, and encouraging our launch team members to do the same. First, I'm pursuing "close" relationships. We are discovering that being "close" by location really helps us to be "close" in relationship. Our goal is to develop significant relationships with both Christians and non-Christians who live near us. Proximity becomes a factor in relationships that trumps almost all other factors: it dramatically increases the amount of contact with another person; it enables spontaneity, like sidewalk conversations, last-minute invitations to dinner, or a game of cards; and it enables important facets of good friendships like helping each other on a project or borrowing something from the tool box or the kitchen.

Second, I'm merging my relational worlds. It's not something we think about, but our travelling lifestyles produce relational circles that seldom overlap, which is an unhealthy and dangerous place to be. Our spouses don't know our co-workers, who don't know our friends from the kids' sports league, who don't know our church friends, who've never met our extended family, etc. This kind of relational world is difficult to maintain and has a built-in temptation for us to project whatever image we prefer to each group, as the various groups don't know each other--you can be one person at work, another person at home, another person at the golf course and still another person at church. But when your relational world is close to home, the various people you know best also tend to know each other. Your friends know each other, your spouse and your kids, and you know theirs. And it's much more likely that we really know each other, the good and the bad, and experience God's grace through others who know our faults and still care for us. Your kids may play together on a sports team, but they also play together spontaneously (which is a healthy lost art for kids).

The launch team for the Springs is still relatively few in number, so we are currently organized by intermediate school (currently a Creekside group, a Victory Lakes group, and a group in Dickinson in Bay Colony). But at the same time my family and I, and others on the launch team, are pursuing relationships in a smaller area, like our elementary school and our neighborhood. We have only lived in our home for a few months, but the kind of relationships we already enjoy on our block are refreshing and encouraging to us. Our kids play together daily and spontaneously, and eat out of each other's refrigerators; we talk in the front yard or on the sidewalk, and have enjoyed dinners in neighbors' homes, block parties and game nights. We have invited neighbors to help serve others in need alongside us, and some have responded. In my next post, I'll write more about how God is using these kinds of relationships in my life.