Leadership Thought: The Art of Neighboring to the Neighbor Next Door.

Dear Friends,

A friend and I are teaching a course on evangelism in our church, and last Sunday we discussed the word “Frangelism.” I am not sure you will find “FRANgelism” in your dictionary for I am not sure it is a real word but only a descriptive expression to remind us of those to whom we are called to share our faith. We are called to share our faith with F (friends), R (relatives), (associates) and N (neighbors).

And it is the ‘N’ letter, “Neighbor” that I want you to remember in the parable of the Good Samaritan, we learn that our neighbor is any person, anywhere, who is in need.  But more than a metaphoric neighbor-let’s bring it closer to home and think of N as a specific neighbor, the one who lives next door or across the street. This neighbor is not some general unknown neighbor, but a real-life neighbor whom we see every day, walking their dog, or pulling into their driveway.

Do we know this neighbor? Rather than worrying about the unknown neighbor living far across the sea that we haven’t seen, let’s start at home by getting to know the neighbor we have seen.  Let’s try and get connected. Let’s begin to build a friendship with them and their family.

To help us do this, the authors of a wonderful little book, The Art of Neighboring, suggest we start by drawing a map of our immediate neighborhood. List the names of the two neighbors living to the right of you and the two neighbors to the left of you. Then list the four neighbors that live across the street from the two neighbors on either side of you. You now have your neighborhood map. Now list the names of these neighbors, first and last names, if possible, and any relevant information about them that might be important in helping you to connect with them-hobbies, common interests, employment, family etc.

This little exercise might be eye opening-at least it was to me. I didn’t know much about my neighbors whom I was supposed to love and to whom I was called to share my faith.

Maybe you are like me in this regard. I know the exercise has challenged me to be more intentional about building relational bridges with my neighbors. Hopefully building those relationships will lead to deeper and more personal conversations that one day will provide opportunities to share my faith with my “real life” neighbors.

Yours in faith,

Tom