It's just a thought...

Mike Breen's Character Matrix

Meet your neighbour. In a city it can make a big difference...

A little Merton

Do not depend on the hope of results. .. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.

What's your neighbourhood like?

For the people across the street

Neighbour (Clea Roddick)

I am your neighbour, I live just next door
I know you move the snow and park your car
I’ve never seen the inside of your walls
And I don’t think of you that much at all

‘Cause I’ve been taught not to speak to strangers
And you’ve been told to watch your back
How will we make it through the ages
When we don’t even know the neighbours?

I inhabit orange, you reside in green
I have a mountain, you have just one bean
I’ve never seen the inside of your walls
And I don’t think of you enough at all

‘Cause I’ve been taught not to speak to strangers
And you’ve been told to watch your back
How will we make it through the ages
When we don’t even know the neighbours?

Articulate, you’re full of it, have you ever been outside?

‘Cause you’ve been taught not to speak to strangers
You’ve been told to watch your back
How will we make it through the ages
When we don’t even know the neighbours?

We’ve been taught not to speak to strangers
And we’ve been told to watch our backs
How will we make it through the ages
When we don’t even know the neighbours?

Go ahead, walk across the hall or down the street & meet your neighbours...

There is only one way for us to get it together - together. The one & only way for us to get it together - is together.

The neighbourhood you want starts at your front door.

What is the ideal place to grow older?

Your neighbourhood.

Jesus said “YOU are the light of the world.”

If you and I are NOT the light where we are then where we are there will be no light.

God has a dream for the world.

And it's not just bigger & nicer church buildings that seat a lot of people.

Isaiah 65
“See, I will create
    new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
    nor will they come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
    in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
    and its people a joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem
    and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
    will be heard in it no more.
“Never again will there be in it
    an infant who lives but a few days,
    or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
    will be thought a mere child;
the one who fails to reach[a] a hundred
    will be considered accursed.
 They will build houses and dwell in them;
    they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
 No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
    or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,
    so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
    the work of their hands.
They will not labor in vain,
    nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord,
    they and their descendants with them.
 Before they call I will answer;
    while they are still speaking I will hear.
 The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
    and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
    on all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord.

What is God's dream for your parish?

What will you do to support it?

What distracts you from playing your part in God’s dream for the neighbourhood?

What is God's dream for your community?

What could you do to discern it?