What might it mean that God has placed you into, and called you to your neighbourhood? The call of God is a call to neighborhood. To define the Christian call like this is not about limiting vision or straight-jacketing the reach of the gospel; the universal and inclusive nature of the Christian call to the whole world is not diminished.
Rather, to speak of the call to neighborhood is simply an acknowledgment that this wide and diverse world includes an extraordinary collection of local cultures, local communities and local neighborhoods, each one loved and inhabited by God. It is an acknowledgment that as those commissioned to bear the good news, we are a placed people. This ‘placed-ness’ both limits our reach and deepens it.
We are most effective when we embrace those limitations with intention and purpose. What’s more, we acknowledge that as a community of faith, the church is most true to its nature and mission when it lives with and for the world on its doorstep. (Simon Carey Holt)
He who has a mind to meddle must have a heart to help. Emerson
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