The Challenges for Neighborliness amongst Suburban Sprawl
One of my passions as a church planter is to think more deeply about how the church can better inhabit our communities. I want our church to arise out of and serve our community here in Carol Stream. Community describes our life together within the church. That is internal community. Community is also where our church lives together with our neighbors . That is external community. And both matter. We must be intentional about both. Or else our mission will lose something vital--the real, embodied presence of Jesus Christ in our neighborhood. I am convinced that many suburban churches struggle or fail at evangelism because they are not that living presence of Jesus in their various suburban neighborhoods. Outreach then feels and looks artificial. It becomes programmatic, assigned to a few church leaders or passionate lay people. It is not the living reality of who a church is. And unbelievers instinctively feel it. But the context of suburban life is itself a huge obstacle to bei