There seems to be a lot of pressure in Emerging Church Circles to reach out to your neighbours, those in your local community for one to incarnate themselves in their community and be a Jesus type figure where all find out about God through you. I wonder if this is a hang up from the Emerging Church’s evangelical roots where you had to reach out to your friends and bring them to a hear guest speaker / alpha course or similar. Well, as someone who is theologically trained, fairly good communicating my faith in a way that non Xns can relate to. I've got to say that for me in my new suburb this is bloody hard work. In a nut shell this is why…
1) I know that I’m not going to try and build a church building with a big PA or stand on a box at the edge of my drive way and preach. But I don’t know what I’m going to do and that is really hard to work it out.
2) The only common meeting place is the traffic lights where we all sit to get out of the suburbs we live in (parks re still yet to be built as are the shops other shops are 10 minute drive away so most people shop near where they work).
3) Most people drive into their driveway shut the door behind them. They live in this suburb because it’s just 20 minutes drive away from where they’d really like to live – so many see this as only temporary and sell up (one next door neighbour and the people across the road) when their house has gone up in value enough.
4) I work funny hours and often away over the weekend or working on a Friday or Saturday night which means I miss many spontaneous street events. A couple of street BBQ’s and game of Street Cricket to name but two.
5) When I do get to talk to my neighbours we have very little in common. They love their sport, cars and work in trades. I love music and art and work in humanities. So when they give me the name of their trade I have to ask what that actually means and when they say I look like (insert famous footy player) I have to ask who that is. Now I don’t mind the difference but I can just feel this cultural wall rise up between us. Especially as often people like myself (tertiary educated etc… have looked down on my hard working trades working neighbours in the past and there is no reason not to expect similar from me)
So where too? Well apart from not feeling bad about it. I’ll just plod along trying work out what means to live a Christ inspired life in the context I am in. What’ll happen? I’ll let you know.
5) When I do get to talk to my neighbours we have very little in common. They love their sport, cars and work in trades. I love music and art and work in humanities. So when they give me the name of their trade I have to ask what that actually means and when they say I look like (insert famous footy player) I have to ask who that is. Now I don’t mind the difference but I can just feel this cultural wall rise up between us. Especially as often people like myself (tertiary educated etc… have looked down on my hard working trades working neighbours in the past and there is no reason not to expect similar from me)
So where too? Well apart from not feeling bad about it. I’ll just plod along trying work out what means to live a Christ inspired life in the context I am in. What’ll happen? I’ll let you know.
5 comments:
yep - its bloody hard work engaging in what is often cross cultural mission.
we live in similar communities and have similar struggles.
i say to people that we came here to get to know ur neighbours but our neighbours didn't come here to get to know us! So its always an uphill ride.
trying to reconstruct the kind of communities we would prefer to live in is going to take some effort and pain - probably not likly to come from those whose primary values are wealth and aquisition of stuff
"to reach out to your neighbours, those in your local community for one to incarnate themselves in their community and be a Jesus type figure where all find out about God through you."
this sounds a tad cynical!! - I'd say it seems to be how Christ operated...
i'd like to hear what your alternative suggestion is here Chris? :)
Hey Hamo,
I think I was being a bit cynical - but in the sense that these words seem to be banded about like it's the first word and only word on a task that is natural and easy. My alternative suggestion??? "to just plod along trying work out what means to live a Christ inspired life in the context I am in." Which in one sense is the same as "to reach out to your neighbours, those in your local community for one to incarnate themselves in their community and be a Jesus type figure where all find out about God through you." But perhaps starts to acknowledge the struggle and fumblings that are essential part of trying to work out what it means to be Christ like in a suburban context.
Yes.
I should add that I am not sure how easy it is life a 'missionary life' while working full time.
I reckon its almost impossible unless we have some flexibity of time.
Otherwise... yep its a PLOD!
I have actually found that while I try to be active and engaged with people, Danelle makes most of the connections and I ride off them.
It works well!
Hi fellas, mind if I add my 2c worth?
I think I'm just starting to get over the guilt of not being an 'active evangelist' (which I was never any good at anyway). I'm actually really enjoying my Xn community (we meet in each others' homes). I hardly know my neighbours. They proabably don't even know I'm a Xn. And that doesn't even bother me. I think they think I'm an alright neighbour, though. And I've got a few nonXn firends, who gradually seem to be more innterested in my faith, without me trying anything. That's their business; I like them either way. I'm getting a real buzz out of ministering openly out of my faith to my Xn friends. I remember that Jesus had people coming to Him, not the other way round (except the heaven-earth trip, of course). I'm sounding more and more closed bretheren as the years go by. I hope I don't end up 'closed'. But I'm just too relaxed, and excited about the church, and in love with my nonXn friends to worry too much anymore. Thanks for letting me in on the yak :)
Hey Quirkie,
Thanks for that,
I miss not having a home church. I have been part of 2 that meant a heck of a lot to me. I guess this is one of the hard things about being on the edge of a suburban sprawl is meeting people keen to get together for a home church kind of thing that are within a sensible distance of each other.
You got me thinking about how think about my faith. I think that I’ve got in my mind a few legitimate ways of being part of a wider church they are…
1)The home church thing
2)The regular church thing – which I find very hard
3)The cutting edge church thing
4)The on the edge missionary thing – which is also very hard
On my list is not the hermit thing, although I wish it was. Could I be a suburban monk? And lock myself away from my surroundings? Is there another 5th option. Part of my problem is (and thanks for getting me to realise this) is that I have a need to measure myself in some way. How am I doing as Xn? Am I actually contributing to the church in some way? And, at the moment I don’t feel like I am. And more importantly is that actually important? I suspect that it isn’t as important as I am making it. Furthermore when I hear lots of voices saying how important this is harder to shake. Plus I’ve got some personal issues.
1)When I was 17 I had lots of Xns prophecy over me and say that I was going to some really amazing things for God (it was part of a more Charismatic type church where this is more likely to happen but in my 2 years of being there it never really happened to anyone else like what happened to me)
2)When I was 20 something I had a pastor say that their church (a more evangelical type church) would have failed if it didn’t end up convincing me to go to Bible College and become a pastor type person.
Any way back the monastery… :)
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