The Art of Neighboring

  I have a GIANT stack of books on the floor in my bedroom.  Last year, I made a New Year's Resolution (for the first time in a long, long time) that I was going to read that stack.
  It's now bigger than it was.  I didn't bother with the same promise this year.

  I have been making a decent dent in it lately, and one of the books that was a part of it was The Art of Neighboring, by Jay Pathak & Dave Runyon.  It's a well-assembled book, but it only took me an hour or so to read.  The reason is not that I'm a very fast reader, but rather that it's a book centered around a very, very simple idea:  be a good neighbor.

  They start out with the premise that Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Jesus teaches us that everyone, no matter how separated (distance, ethnically, socially, financially) is our neighbor, highlighting this through the parable of the Good Samaritan.  We have taken such a global view to this teaching that we have also missed the point that Jesus wants us to love our actual neighbors, too, meaning the people who physically live next to us.  Pathak & Runyon spend most of the book detailing the importance of reaching out to those who live near us.

  The majority of the book details how we live together with our neighbors.  They give details on how to be a part of their lives, about how to deal with conflict and how to build close relationships with some, recognizing that not every neighbor is going to be your best friend.  It's a remarkably practical book.

  It makes great sense, but something inside me pushes it aside because it seems so easy.  Church work should be hard, right?  Throwing a block party for your neighbors and recognizing that God can use that to build the Kingdom seems simple, doesn't it?  Too simple, even, and yet I agree with the authors because they have seen the evidence of how lives and communities can be transformed by being good neighbors.  Be neighborly, they teach, and the relationships you form can change your life, your neighbors' lives, and the life of the entire neighborhood.

  God works through relationships, so why not reach out to those relationships nearest to you.  Who knows what might come of it?

  Learn more at artofneighboring.com