What Tim describes in this video sounds great, I totally agree. Yet somehow I’m always able to justify my lack of community involvement. My current excuse is that my wife and I are living temperately in an apartment complex and it doesn’t seem to make much sense to invest in our neighborhood with us moving in a few months. But even before that I had excuses while living in neighborhoods with LOTS of potential for community involvement. I hope to someday be more involved in a local community, but wonder if I’ll ever be able to get past the justification. Or maybe the justification is justified. We’ll see…
Are you involved in your community? If not, why not? If so, what does that look like?
Tim leads a faith community in Seattle called Dust Church.
My favorite thing from this video is Tim’s encouragement to start by actually walking around the neighborhood. I hear from many well-meaning people who want to create change where they live and they start with a lofty vision, but it’s not grounded in the reality of what already is there. And it’s not inspired by prayer that is generated from a place of asking for God’s heart for their city. Without seeing a place through God’s eyes, we will inevitably always turn to ourselves… and that’s what leads to a bunch of fractured human-sized visions, rather than one, united, God-sized vision.
Yeah Kande, lofty visions do seem to often be more about ourselves! We tend to ask God to bless our vision rather than joining his vision. There’s another clip from Tim that will eventually get posted where he’s talking about “praying with your feet”…you’ll love that one!
five years ago, in dayton, ohio, i wanted to start a coffee shop that was a hub for all the different organizations and folks working to improve (or whatever) the neighborhood. so you’d walk in and order your coffee drink off one menu and then your volunteer role for that next hour/morning/day/night/week/etc. from another menu. the whole thought was to not reinvent the wheel but rather collaborate with stuff in the works and create a localized one stop shop.
i love what these guys are doing at Dust Church. it just makes sense.
A neighbor lives next door;
A good neighbor lives next door and exchanges conversations and helps (a cup of brown sugar, feeding the pet, mowing the lawn etc;
A great neighbor takes responsibility for the condition of the neighborhood and the sets the table for healthy neighbor interactions and cooperation on things neighbors care about;
Individuals can be great neighbors;
Churches can be great neighbors,
Associations can be great neighbors,
Institutions can be great neighbors!
What would life be like in your neighborhood if there were more great neighbors?