Ask a group of Christians if they should be good neighbors to people on their street, and you'll get unanimous agreement. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and who's more of a neighbor than the people living near us?
Ask that same group of people if they are good neighbors, and the consensus loses steam. Are good neighbors defined by their well-kept yards or their relationships with others? Many Christians have neighbors they don't know, neighbors they never see. If the measure is relationships in our neighborhoods, most of us fall into one of two groups: those who have excellent relationships with neighbors or those who have good intentions for having excellent relationships with neighbors.
However, we don't have any excuses for not obeying Christ's mandate to be a witness in our Jerusalem. Authors Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon posed a question in The Art of Neighboring: "What good things might happen if you truly got to know the people in your neighborhood and they got to know you?"
We can't give up on relationships with neighbors. Instead, we need to think about revamping our approach with these five strategies.
1. Start with prayer.
We don't need names to pray for our neighbors, only desire. We can start a prayer list for our street or apartment building using the information we have. (For example: Apt. 12B: Ed and Nancy, Apt. 12C: Mom with two boys.) We can take a prayerwalk through sections of our neighborhood or try a computerized prayerwalk by viewing our street using the satellite feature of Google maps.
Recently, one Christian couple asked God for new opportunities with neighbors Greg and Karen*. Though they occasionally watched each other's homes during vacations, the relationship had stalled. The Christian couple found that they had some things in common while battling similar medical problems. Over time, text messages about medical tests and subsequent surgery moved to frequent in-home chats, slowly opening the door to sharing faith and prayer. R.A. Torrey explained, "The most important human factor in effective evangelism is prayer."
2. Look for tangible needs.
One day, a deacon noticed how his neighbors' trash bins filled with rain after garbage workers left them open on the curb. Now when he goes out to retrieve his trash bin, he also grabs his neighbors' bins and wheels them back to their houses. The deacon's trash day routine isn't your typical deacon ministry, but it makes a difference in his neighborhood. Observation can be a launching point for dozens of ministry opportunities. We can pick up trash from a neighbor's yard or mow their grass while they're out of town.
Elderly neighbors may need someone to change hard-to-reach light bulbs and air filters or busy professionals may need someone to let their pets out if work hours go long.
3. Share what you have.
After Jerry and Linda Woods learned their new house came with a storm shelter, they decided to share the blessing. Jerry, a retired minister, spread the word in his neighborhood: Come here in case of a tornado. When an EF5 tornado slammed into Moore, Okla., Jerry crammed some 20 people, some of them strangers, into his 12-person shelter. They all survived.
Become the 411 person on community resources and the school district. Tell your neighbors about your areas of expertise.
4. Stay visible.
Some of us don't have a dog to walk, or we have bad allergies that often keep us indoors. No one is fond of lingering outside in the summer when temperatures top 105 degrees. Sometimes visibility must become intentional; we have to do whatever it takes. If we have a front porch, we can sit on it. If we have a lawn, we need to care for it.
5. Accept the whole package.
Christian neighboring offers no happiness guarantees. Neighbors can be selfish, arrogant, and stubborn. One neighbor secretly replaced sprinkler heads in his yard along the property line with ones that would water his grass as well as his neighbor's. Christ calls us to love others the way He loves us: despite their sins.
Heather Holleman, in her article, "From Your Doorstep" (todayschristianwoman.com) wrote about how she started a neighborhood fitness group and how she struggled to love people who lived and acted differently from her. Holleman wrote, "I didn't know how to respond when I saw the New Age altar in one woman's house where she prays and chants to her gods. I didn't know how to love my neighbors who grew up in poverty and struggle to keep a home, or what to say when my Buddhist friend talked about his meditation retreats. But I do know how to pray and let Jesus work through me to love these neighbors, get involved in their lives, and let God's love radiate from me."
We need to see neighbors as people, not projects. Ministry to neighbors isn't a spiritual growth project we can finish in a month or two. Relationships are essential, and those relationships will cost us valuable time and energy. Every one of our neighbors will spend eternity with Jesus or without Him, and we can't assume they've all heard the gospel. Above all else, let's remember what Jesus said in Mark 12:31: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
* Names have been changed.