“(T)he Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). We are made in the image and likeness of God and God exists in a community of persons. We are created for community and it is painful to be alone. Fred Rogers invited everyone to be his neighbor and his friend.
“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
“Neighbors are people who are close to us
And friends are people who are close to our hearts
I like to think of you as my neighbor and my friend.”
Sin separates us from God but our rebellion also divides us from each other. Guilt and shame so control us that we cower behind relational barriers for self-protection. For we fear understandable rejection if we are truly known. We build our walls and nurture our loneliness and feed our fear of being fully known and completely rejected. We often settle for mere acquaintances or virtual likes and painfully struggle to build true friendships. We can exist with mere casual kindness and therefore not risk being more fully known and rejected.
The grace based community that God builds draws us out from behind our lonely walls. In true Christian fellowship we are known, warts and all, and still loved and accepted by grace. Knowing this divine, unmerited favor we gradually invest in true, grace-driven friendships We are rescued, nurtured, discipled, and befriended by grace in the church community. But, that is where most of us stop. We enjoy friendship and acceptance within the church – our guilt, shame, and loneliness are healed, but we do not invite others to join us and to venture out from behind their walls of guilt and shame.
Church growth is really the expansion of the grace community. It is growing our fellowship by inviting neighbors and friends to enter in.
How can I invite friends and neighbor to my church community? First, have friends, and know your neighbors. Be friendly, help a neighbor, invite them to dinner. Get to know them. Allow them to get to know you. Start open-ended spiritual conversations. “I love my church; where do you worship?” “The grace and kindness of God has held me through so many trials.” “My pastor is the best. Isn’t it great to have pastor?” “Have you heard the good news?”
Invite them closer to you. Build trust. Offer a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. Make plans to have your lives increasingly overlap. Deepen the friendship. Then, invite them to a church event – a fellowship meal, a questions dinner, a Bible study, a small group, a worship service, a prayer meeting. Talk them through it beforehand, hold their hand through it, and debrief with them afterward. Calm their fears. Answer their questions. Bear their burdens. The closer they grow to you the more of Christ they should see in you. I call this the grace/friendship offensive of hospitality! It is simply the Great Commission in personal terms. Fred Rogers was right, it is a beautiful day for a neighbor.