Engaging our neighborhood: Part 2

So, I've been thinking a lot about how to engage our neighborhood. Most days, I admit, I don't know where to begin on this conversation. My co-pastor Ben is a much deeper thinker than I am on this topic.

Nonetheless, it is a burden for me that we learn to think well about the specific places we live, work, and play and how God is moving in our lives, and in the lives of our neighbors. If we don't do this, we will end up abstracting our faith into oblivion. Our faith-in-practice can become nothing more than moral platitudes that I try to live out in abstract ways. (Think about how we say its okay to 'not-like' someone, so long as we still 'love' them. What is that?!)

As I said last time, an important question is; if people had the language how would they be crying out to God? We can't really engage our neighborhood, and our neighbors, unless we are grappling with the core desires, pains, and passions of their lives.

But I also said this leaves us open to (at least) one obstacle to engaging our neighborhood faithfully.

It is this; the notion that we are the people 'in the know' and the poor neighbor next door just needs what I've got.

Now, in a way, this statement is true. In Jesus, we have encountered the one in whom we do find ultimate meaning, peace, joy etc. So, for those who have not encountered the risen Jesus in their life... sure... I guess I 'know' something they don't and that they should know. But I still think there are dangers to cultivating this attitude.

Here are a few I thought about...

1. This statement is more indicative of pity than love or compassion. I would suggest that these are not synonymous.
2. This statement tends to make divisions between us and them. Cultivating this sense of pity divides us from our neighbors, we can become paternalistic in our interactions with others, it becomes very difficult to see other people on an even level as us. 
3. What do we have to learn/gain from our neighbors? Not much if we see ourselves, in any way, as superior. This same problem crops up when the only word we ever use to talk about engaging our neighborhood is 'serve.' Certainly we should serve our community, but if that's the only way we speak of it, we become the people who serve, our neighbors get served. We are not on the same level as our friends and neighbors, but we condescend to them. I guess I have to ask, is this the reality of what is happening (us condescending to our neighbors)?
4. Lastly, this attitude is sort of de-humanizing. Take 1-3 together, and our neighbors aren't so much real people, with real lives (the same as us by the way), but objects for our pity, targets for our message, and recipients of our service.

Shared life in a common place is an important value that is difficult to live out if we let these things go unchecked. It is hard to love and value our local communities and the people in them in authentic and meaningful ways if they are nothing more than our project. As I said last time, for sure, we have to ask the question of what people are longing for and what they need, it simply can't be the only question we ask.