"Inviting someone over for dinner in the suburbs is regularly considered pathological in these suburbs. Suburban people are either too busy, too self-protected or too worried what your agenda might be to ever come over. Likewise, I as a pastor and others in our church are regularly so busy, it hardly seems possible.
Do I believe it is impossible? No. We must continue to pursue a relentless practice of being hospitable as a distinctive subversive Christian act in the suburbs. I must change my life to live more simply, have more time and practice neighborhood acts of cooperative living."
~David Fitch from "Intentional Hospitality Amidst the White-Washed Isolation of the Suburban Malaise: Rantings on Being the Church in the Suburbs"
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2 comments:
James, thanks for the heads up on this article. Timely, it shines light I think into the struggle that even the church is having maintaining and shaping community within its own context, and living in the suburbs and urban areas.There is a disconnection in society, that needs to be reconnected. There is alot of truth in " united we stand and divided we fall " in terms of soceity as a whole. Community unites us, and makes and shapes us into something much bigger.
it seems that sometimes even the word "community" can confuse things when we're dealing with what God is trying to do with "his people." words like "family," "tribe," or "network" are all worthy ideas of looking into.
likewise, practices such as "hospitality" and "communication" are often better "hooks" than are such debated semantic notions (word symbols) of the larger picture.
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