The Art of Neighboring

There are a lot of lost arts. Origami, whittling, sporting suspenders and a bowtie... Okay, I kinda just made those up, but I wouldn't mind a little more of those in my life. And I definitely wouldn't mind a little more time on a front porch swing with a glass of lemonade and a neighbor. One of the biggest tragedies of our convenience era of garages and privacy fences is the loss of neighboring.

What if we took Jesus literally when He said to "love your neighbors as yourself"? In the book The Art of Neighboring the authors explore the idea that if we loved our literal neighbors it would have the potential to change not only our neighborhoods, but our communities, cities, and eventually impact the world. 

For the past year, we've been testing this theory out through Southeast Christian Church's Love Where You Are groups, and I think the hypothesis is proving correct! Since last January, we've been hanging out with our neighbors and finding out just how much we have in common with the people within walking distance.

Of course there's the traditional borrowing of a cup of sugar, or a chainsaw, when the need may arise, but it's gone so much deeper than that. It's been beautiful to share in each other's celebrations and trials. We squealed with joy together as we cut into the gender reveal cake for one neighbor's fifth baby, and learned their only girl was finally getting a sister. We cried together when a brother lost his job...again. We cried together over the publishing of one neighbor's first book, and later her cancer free diagnosis. We've prayed together for our health, our kids, our families, our work, and our neighbors. We've even prayed in Spanish.

We pulled out all our craft supplies (yes, even glitter), and made Christmas cards together for a local nursing home, then we delivered them with caroliong.

Another time we got out a different kind of glitter and decorated Christmas cookies for our neighbors.

When our next door neighbor, who we'd yet to really connect with passed away tragically, it hit me pretty hard. It was so heavy on my heart that here we were intentionally neighboring and we hadn't been able to love the ones closest to us. It renewed my resolve to love those near us well, and we look forward to welcoming our new neighbors with an open home.

One of the best parts of doing life with these folks, is studying God's Word with them and looking for ways to live it out together. I hope you have the opportunity to build a rich community with those right outside your front door, it's such a blessing to go for a walk and find two neighbors sharing coffee on their front porch and stop for a visit.

You'll have to excuse me now, I've got a Saturday morning running date, with a neighbor!

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[There is no commandment greater than these.” - Matthew 12:30-31