Update on the 30 days

Back on the 2nd May we mentioned that Alan Roxburgh's Missional Network was running a 30 days of joinging God in your neighbourhood series.

I've just checked back and there are now 20 days listed (obviously a little behind, even given that they're a day and half behind us in time zones), with some fascinating and useful material.

There are several items by Simon Carey Holt, along with a variety of ideas of ways to engage with your neighbourhood, such as going out with the local police at night and hearing what they know about the area, or offering tutoring to immigrants close by, or becoming a regular in a particular coffee bar or other meeting place, and getting to know who else is there frequently.

Some of the ideas may not appeal, some may take up more time than you have available. Nevertheless this is a worthwhile series which is bound to have at least one thing in it that's of value to those looking for ways to become more neighbourhood-focused.

It may seem obvious, but...

Mission is so easy if only....

Len Hjalmarson has written in his latest post about being neighbours....there's more to the post here.

In January of 2009 a group of pastors gathered to think and dream about what it would look like for the churches in their area to come together to serve the community. They asked the mayor to join them and talk about his dream for the city. They also asked him to talk about hindrances to that dream coming true.
He came with a list of pervasive issues and problems: at-risk kids; elderly shut-ins; decaying housing; hunger and homelessness. Before he started speaking he shared this: “it occurred to me that what our city really needs are good neighbours. The majority of the issues we face would be eliminated or drastically reduced if we could just become a community of people who are great neighbours.”
The pastors left convicted. Here they were asking the major what areas of the city were most in need, and he was telling them that the city could be transformed if Christians would simply live out the second half of the Great Commandment.
The plan they forged is simple — a teaching series on the art of neighbouring. They found that people don’t build relationships with their neighbours because,

1) they don’t see the value in it,
2) lack of time, and
3) lack of trust.

So they came up with this teaching series for this group of churches:
Week 1. taking Jesus seriously – what if Jesus really meant we should love our neighbors?
Week 2. Time: creating space to build relationships with neighbors
Week 3. Trust – embracing the messiness of relationships
They are then equipping their people to actually enter their neighbourhoods and live in them and build relationships.

Len also mentions an essay written by Todd Hiestand, which has apparently been unavailable for a while (it was written in 2007). It's called The Missional Church in Suburbia, and appears on Todd's site. It looks at mission in the urban society, and takes some similar approaches to those of the Australian, Simon Carey Holt.

Neighbours (nah, not the soap)

Saturday 17 October 2009 is Auckland’s first Neighbours Day but similar days are already happening in other places around the world. In Australia it took a tragedy to get people turning their streets into neighbourhoods. In Europe, Neighbours Day started with the residents of one just area of Paris - ten years later and it has spread to 29 countries.

There are some great stories of what it was like to grow up in Auckland as a child on the NZ site from a bunch of well-known Aucklanders (they call them 'celebrities' but I don't think NZ really does 'celebrities;' we all know each other too well).

Just in case you don't know what a neighbour is (I mean, the bloke in the New Testament had to ask, didn't he?) here's what's on the Aussie site. Plainly they needed a dictionary definition to help....

Neighbour = neighbor n. 1. someone who lives near another.

2. a person or thing that is near another.

3. a fellow being subject to the obligations of humanity.

courtesy Macquarie Dictionary

Okay, you go into your house through the door on the right; your neighbour (see above) goes in and out that door that's obscured by the tree.

Intentional missional clusters

Len Hjalmarson on the NextReformation blog writes:

Friends in Edmonton are pioneering a new model for planting missional communities. They realized that in most communities in western Canada about one-third have some Christian experience, and between 5 and 10% are believers who are travelling some miles to participate in a church. Their idea: bring the church into the neighbourhood and leverage the existing relational networks. Invite the small number who are already in place to actually become the church in their neighbourhood, and invite those who have some history of neglected commitment to go on a journey in discipleship. They don’t ask those who are driving to “church” to stop driving away on Sunday, but rather to start living on mission where they are.

What is growing up are IMCs.. intentional missional clusters … and out of this are growing
neighbourhood churches: not the building and programs, but people loving God, loving their neighbours and transforming their world (Mark 12).The most surprising part.. the established churches that may lose members over this are not upset but energized, and some are asking for training to reconnect with their own neighbourhoods.

The post continues with some paragraphs from Australian Simon Carey Holt, who notes:
“the Incarnation is about much more than God revealed in human experience, but God revealed and encountered in place—and in the most domestic of places one can imagine.” He goes on to list three points about place and theology. [The three points appear to come out of Holt's book, God Next Door: Spirituality and mission in the neighbourhood]

Reaching your neighbour - a slightly different approach

You'll probably think this is just crass advertising (on the part of NESCAFÉ, in this case), but it's worth pointing it out anyway. (And I'm not being paid to do it.)

NESCAFÉ have come up with an idea called NESCAFÉ TogetherNES™ (yup, they've even trademarked it). As they say on their site, the idea was born in conversation 'over a cup of NESCAFÉ coffee. When you share a moment with the people who live around you, it’s clear that knowing your neighbours adds warmth and richness to life, every day. That’s why we’re looking for people with bright ideas on how they could help build their neighbourhood’s sense of community – then we can get involved too and help make it happen. Naturally, the first step is to share your idea with us.'

There's a great deal more about it on their site, but what seems of interest to us is that this idea is perfectly adaptable to the church community.

Want to find ways to reach out to your neighbours? Start with anyone of the ideas already on the site or come up with some of your own. Mission starts with reaching out.