Identify the people of peace in your neighbourhood & eat with them. (HL)

As I look at the earliest communities of faith, what stands out is just how local in nature they were. In fact, it’s fair to say they were local in character and mission before they were anything more grand or universal. The church is primarily the two or three gathered in his name: the church in my neighborhood.

Interestingly, in his discussion of the Pauline use of the word ekklesia, the New Testament scholar Robert Banks argues that each local gathering of believers understood itself as fully and completely the church in a particular location. Perhaps it was this that enabled them to take their neighborhoods so seriously.

As an embedded and local community, the church fits the neighborhood. It’s the localness of the Incarnation that makes this profound act of God so confronting, and ultimately so comprehensively saving, so too with the church. (Simon Carey Holt)

Luke 10:5-7
“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.

If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you.

Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

Can you make the connection between this sending by Jesus of the disciples and your own?

Do you have friends in your neighbourhood? How long would a walk to their home take?

Do you know those who might be called the “people of peace” (Luke 10) in your neighbourhood?

Do you enjoy having neighbours into your home for meals? Do you get invited out within your neighbourhood?

Do you enjoy spontaneity and frequency of connection with any of your neighbours?

Rate your relationship with other “people of peace” in your neighbourhood on a continuum: 1 – 10; “don’t know them” – “love as family”.

Don't know them 1. ------------------------------------------- 10. Love as family

Is the religious background of others in you neighbourhood an asset or stumbling block in your relationship with them?

Can you imagine a more robust community of faith in your neighbourhood? What might it look like?

I passionately believe that the home dining table is our last remaining family gathering place. It’s a place for friends and family to nourish the relationships that are at the heart of homes, neighbourhoods and communities. Graham Kerr