Below is guest blog from my friend, James Wiebe, Pastor of Fringe Church, Lakewood, CO. Here he tackles the all important topic of community. Check him out on Twitter and follow James and Fringe Church to learn more about being a great neighbor.

If you were born before 1985, I guarantee you know that familiar song! But Mr. Roger’s neighborhood now exists only in pockets of this once close-knit country.

In a culture where it is uncommon for strangers to invite strangers into their homes simply for the purpose of getting to know them, my wife and family and I decided to be rule breakers. Over the last 3 years and 9 months, living in two distinct parts of Denver, we’ve defied the conventional wisdom for what it means to be a neighbor. And I love what that simple risk has done for my family. We are far richer and more engaged with Jesus and the gospel than ever.

Let me give you a little backstory on why we decided to break the rules and be a good neighbor.

I’m a pastor at Fringe Church which is a tiny, brand new church in Lakewood, CO. I am also a marriage and family therapist, a follower of Christ, a husband of 15 years (as of 8/5), and a father of three (two girls, 1 boy). In 15 years of marriage, Amy and I have lived in Dallas twice, Denver (also twice), Seattle, and Dublin, Ireland. In 15 years, we’ve moved 12 times, and we have been in a number of different churches and church cultures. Yet the thing we struggled with most is finding true community in the church. We’re pro’s at doing the church thing. Amy and I both attended church regularly (2-3 times a week) since our mothers were pregnant with us. We are outgoing people who desire to connect with others. Yet no matter the church size, location, or denomination, we still found it very difficult to make deep, meaningful connections. Even as a pastor, I’ve had conversations with other pastors and churchgoers in other areas of the country who’ve reported very similar experiences. All this adds up to a big problem. We have lost the art of neighboring.

Half a century ago, the local church functioned as the hub of community life. It was a place people gathered and were sent out back into the community. People were formed by the Triune Community of God to form community with their neighbors. Yet today the church is no longer the hub of community life. People are starving for true community. The average church attendance for people who say they are committed Christians is about 2 times per month in Denver. It’s hard to build authentic community in a church when the most committed people aren’t present enough to know each other’s names.

So if the people in church aren’t finding meaningful community with Christ, how will we ever expect those on the outside to find authentic community with Christ in the church?

I think what we need is a radical redefinition of community. We can’t wait for others to be our neighbor. We need to be a good neighbor to others. We need to return to something that is all but lost in many places around the country: neighboring.

Gone are the days of knocking on the neighbor’s door to borrow a chainsaw or a cup of sugar. When we need help putting up the new ceiling fan or fixing a broken light switch, we don’t ask the guy across the street for a hand. Instead we go buy our own chainsaw or bag of sugar. Instead of seeing our need as a God designed way into people’s lives, we live in isolation by providing for ourselves. Or we just do without rather than reach out. The consequence of our insulation is a profound loneliness that condemns us with the words: “No one really cares about you.”

Recognizing our tendency to isolate ourselves, we decided to intentionally take a risk and move against the trend when we moved to Denver in 2013. For most of our life together as a couple, we relied on the strategy of being outgoing and friendly to our neighbors. However, we were unsuccessful at building authentic relationships with our neighbors. So we took a risk and decided to throw block parties for our neighbors to get to know them. Our last name is Wiebe, and in a play-on-words we dubbed our gatherings “WeBeGrillin.” We made up some very rudimentary little paper invitations and sent our 3 adorable and non-threatening children up and down the street (of about 20 or so houses) knocking on doors and inviting people to come.

Our invitation and plan was fairly simple: “Next whateverday, come to the Wiebe’s house at address at time. Bring some meat to grill and a side or dessert to share. We will provide drinks and all the rest.” So, we set up some tables and chairs. We bought some soda, beer, and some decent wine. We cleaned up the house some, put on some music, and we opened the doors, and let a street full of strangers come in. And the results were astonishing and almost instantaneous. We knew our neighbors better in three months in this brand new neighborhood than we had in the 7 years we’d lived in Texas. And they knew us. And they started to know each other. This true community led to great conversations about Jesus. Not as an evangelistic tool, but because our neighbors really wanted to know who we were and why we went to church.

About a year, I came across a book entitled, “The Art of Neighboring,” written by two pastors just a few miles northeast of where we now live, and they suggested doing almost exactly what we’d already been doing. Though their method was slightly more researched and thought out than ours, and their sample size several orders of magnitude beyond ours, the concepts were very similar. Invite strangers to meet strangers. Start being a good neighbor. Let others be good neighbors to you. But I want to share with you the reason I read the book in the first place. The thesis question of their book (which I will be forced to paraphrase because I lent said book to one of my neighbors): What if, when Jesus commands his followers to “love your neighbors as you love yourselves,” what if he meant your literal, actual neighbors? The few houses right across the street and to either side? What if he meant them? And what if those neighbors did the same? What might happen if we did that? Instead of trying to create our own idyllic form of community, what if we just became neighbors to those whom God has placed right beside us?

I was also struck by a verse in John 13 where Jesus said to his friends just after he and his disciples shared their last meal together: “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” In other words, how we love each other matters. How we love our Christian friends matters. But I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s possible that how we love our non-Christian friends matters even more. “Your love for one another will prove to the WORLD that you are my disciples.” This is relationship. This is personal. This is risky. This is sometimes uncomfortable. But this is also beautiful. It is personal. It is invigorating and fun. And it is what Jesus did.

I think if Jesus lived in the burbs of Colorado, Houston, Chicago, St. Louis, or Newark, (and weren’t an itinerant minister traveling from town to town) he would be figuring out ways to love and to know his neighbors. He illustrated this tendency repeatedly in how he chose to spend his brief time before the end of his life. He loved people. Personally. Sacrificially. Closely. Bravely. And in your neighborhood, the likelihood of you being killed for doing this is extremely low.

There is obviously a significant gap between throwing a block party and filling your church with new believers and Christ-followers, but there is already a growing gap between “the church” and “the world,” and it’s only getting bigger. The way to fill these gaps in our neighborhoods and in the church is by finding intentional, reproducible, and consistent ways to be good neighbors to the people already in our lives.

And it starts with you.

If you have questions, I recommend the above book and website for encouragement to take the risk of being a good neighbor. I’m also happy to sit down and talk about it over a cup of coffee or a burrito. Seriously! One last thing…you don’t have to do this in isolation. Enlist some friends or a neighbor you already know. But don’t wait for someone else to do it either. Be the neighbor who gets it started. The least that will happen is that you’ll throw a sweet party!

James Wiebe,

Pastor of Fringe Church

James@fringechurch.com