Small Parking Lots and Actually Loving Your Neighbor...

In August, I am moving to Nashville and I'm already looking for a church to join.

The following paragraph radically altered my search: 

"Ask yourself: What is my parish? Historically, churches have had vested interest in their surrounding communities. And members often lived within walking distance of the church (explaining small parking lots). Pastors lived in the parsonages attached to or near the churches, and the churches had vital roles in the life of their communities. As a society, when we became commuterized churchgoers, all that changed. Most churches have lost their community roots, with little connection to the geography surrounding their buildings." (1)

And, I would add that larger, commuterized churchogers have a great chance for lost connection to the people in the building as well as the surrounding buildings.

Hear me out.

I love my church where my pastor and many other attendees know my name, maybe even some of my story. I don't feel like just a face in the crowd. And I aim to be involved: attending on Sunday, doing service projects, belonging to a smaller community group that meets outside of church. 

BUT what if I didn't live 20-30 minutes away from my churchgoers but lived and went to church with my neighbors.

In my Nashville church search, I had fallen in love with this big church that will be about 30 minutes away from where I hope to live. I no longer plan to go there. I want to find one much closer because...

What if I saw my pastor and other churchgoers in my local grocery store, at the corner gas station, went for walks with them on weekday mornings? What if knowing a mom in my community group was sick, instead of sending a little prayer via text, I lived close enough to stop by and watch her kids while she took a nap? Or what if knowing I was stressed out of my mind during grad school midterms, a family in my church made me dinner and invited me down the street to save me from cooking and cleaning for an evening?

Maybe, like me, you are already settled into a church and have roots there. What then?

How about we live this out:

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” ³⁷ Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”    

                                                                              - Matthew 22:36-40 (NLT)

I'm ashamed to say that I do not even know my current neighbor's name. What if I did? What if we hung out, shared meals, spent time in each others homes? Went to church together?

Not only should we live out loving one another in our churches better as we see in 1 John:

¹¹ This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another...¹⁴ If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead...¹⁸ Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.

                                                                            - 1 John 3:11,14,18 (NLT)


We should also love those in the homes around our homes AND the homes around our churches who don't know Jesus. 

Ask yourself:  "What is my parish?"
Love. Your. Neighbor.
Believers and unbelievers.




(1) = p 170 of Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And how to reverse it) by Robert D. Lupton