Creating Community in the Neighborhood- Part 1

Creating Community in the Neighborhood

What is Community?

-your neighborhood?

-your church?

-your circle of friends?

-your workplace or social organization?

YES!  All of these can be your community.  Community is not defined by geography, but by commonality and intentionality.

When we speak of community, we are talking about the people that you are in regular, close contact with and share something in common.

True community is something that takes time to create, it is work and it requires effort.  It is a place where the voices of the members are listened to and heard, where the members tend to each other’s needs, and where the strength of the whole is more important than the individual.

When we talk about Christian community, we simply mean that we share a common life in Christ.  We commit ourselves to life together as the people of God.  We move out of the self-interested isolation of our private lives and beyond superficial social contacts.  It is deep and it is real.

Why should we care about community?

Take a look at some of these sobering statistics:

• Since the 1980s, the percentage of American adults who say they’re lonely has doubled from 20 percent to 40 percent.
• About one-third of Americans older than 65 now live alone, and half of those over 85 do. 
• Individuals with less social connection have disrupted sleep patterns, altered immune systems, more inflammation and higher levels of stress hormones. One recent study found that isolation increases the risk of heart disease by 29 percent and stroke by 32 percent.
• Loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline and can contribute to premature health complications in older adults. 
• All told, loneliness is as important a risk factor for early death as obesity and smoking.

In the book, Bowling Alone, author Robert Putnam said the greatest social epidemic in American life is loneliness.  This statement may resonate with many who feel alienated, lonely, and depressed – those who go home every night to watch T.V. and eat by themselves on the couch.

Is this the life we should be living?  What does God want for our lives?  Consider the following:

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.  Hebrews 10:24-25

For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 1 Corinthians 12:13

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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.” Mark 12:28-31

It is clear from these passages that God wants us to interact and be interconnected with our brothers and sisters, and even commands that we love each other.  So how do we begin to do that?

Watch for Part 2- Later this week!

Thanks to Deaconess Deb Lennox

 for sharing this encouragement 
for Neighborhood Ministry.