Contextualized Living
How the Neighborhood Shapes Christian Witness
Since the fall of creation, God has been on a mission to heal and restore what was lost and broken. Therefore, the church is right to confess God, in Jesus, through the power of the Spirit is at work in this world to bring about God’s New Creation. Those of us, individually and communally, who are centering our lives in Jesus are called to participate in God’s mission of New Creation. In the language of the gospels and Acts, we are called to embody and proclaim God’s in-breaking kingdom; God’s New Creation.
Historical Witness of God’s In-Breaking Kingdom
Remember this?
The church purchases a bus. A group of individuals from the community of faith are asked to become “part-time” bus drivers who will drive around the neighborhood each Sunday morning and pick up the neighborhood kids. A pre-determined bus route has been established and families, who believe in the values and teachings of the church, but not necessarily participants, were all too willing to send their children on the bus. The bus would arrive at the church where additional volunteers were patiently waiting to offer the gift of welcome, provide biblical teaching, mentorship, and maybe even some food until the kids got back on the bus and were driven home.
Or this?
School has ended and parents are scrambling to find activities for their children to participate in during the summer. The local church is hosting a week of Vacation Bible School (VBS). Parents who live within the neighborhood or city limits sign up their children. On the eve of VBS starting, both the congregation, parents, and children are excited about VBS.
And this?
Door knocking campaigns? Pamphlets and if financial funds are not an issue, maybe even Bibles are provided to each resident of the neighborhood. The church knocks on the doors, introduces herself, asks if they could pray for anything specific, and extends the invitation to join them in the weekly practice of worship.
Can you remember bus ministries, VBS, and door-knocking campaigns? My hunch is that if your tenure within a Christian community of faith spans decades, you remember these forms of witness. Whether you were part of a Christian community in Antioch, California or Bangor, Maryland or even in Newmarket, Ontario, the forms of witness were the same. And for good reason: it worked! Christian communities of faith were planted, sprouted, grew, matured, and an abundant harvest followed.
Troubled Waters
The success of these forms of witness, unfortunately, has waned and no longer works today. And for good reason: we are living in a post-Christendom context.1 We have moved from a cultural context where it was impossible to not believe in God to a cultural context where cultural factors make it difficult to have a belief in God. And if one does have a belief in God, one’s belief is questioned by others. We’re living within a cultural context where we can imagine living as if there is no transcendence. Within the Western world, most of our neighbors can live their lives as if there is no living God who enters history and speaks.2 In this current context, we may hold onto the idea of God, but we no longer believe that we can encounter God. If in our cultural context one asked the following: can we encounter God, the dominant response would be negative: no! We live in a cultural context where the dominant frame of reference is such that we do not encounter a living God.
When our churches provided VBS, bus ministries, and door-knocking campaigns, we did so within a cultural framework in which transcendence (God) could be encountered. Church buildings acted as sacred places where people could (and did) encounter God. The sacraments of baptism and Table were practiced in such ways that we could (and did) encounter a living God. We did not have to convince our neighbors of encountering God; we had to convince our neighbors that we had the right theology and methods of encountering God. But all that has changed! We no longer live within this cultural framework. We live within a context in which many people can live their lives and never see a need or desire to experience God.
I was standing in the hockey arena watching my youngest son play hockey. Since I coached my oldest son’s hockey team for several years, I am well-known around the arena. With a coffee in hand, a friend walks up to me. The following (abbreviated) conversation took place.
“Have a minute? I need to ask a question.”
“Sure.”
“You’re a priest, right?”
“Sure. If that’s what you want to call me. In my faith tradition, I am called a minister. Some call me a pastor.”
“Here’s my question. Why do you have faith? Why do you still believe in God? Why do you need faith? I have everything you have: family, job, various possessions. I don’t need God in my life and so when I hear you have a faith in God, I’m confused. Why do you still believe in God?”
When we live in a context where the growing and dominant mindset is that we cannot and do not need transcendence, it does not matter how efficient and energetic our VBS is because the dominant cultural mindset is people don’t need or want what we are offering. We can offer to pick up children in the neighborhood on a bus, but parents will not send their kids on the bus because an encounter with God is no longer what people are looking for. As Andrew Root helpfully says, it’s Silicon Valley that keeps time for us. Our lives are no longer revolving around “sacred time;” our lives are revolving around Silicone Valley’s next invention.3
The Neighborhood Shapes Christian Witness
All is not in vain. The church will still witness to God’s in-breaking kingdom; the gathered Christian communities of faith scattered across the Western landscape of towns and cities, though numerically smaller, are still called to “go and make disciples.” There is a way to bear witness to God’s in-breaking kingdom.
The Newmarket Church of Christ sits up on a small knoll. On the East and West sides of the church property are a series of high-rise residential buildings. Directly North of the church is a neighborhood that can be described as impoverished. Not everyone who lives in this neighborhood struggles with poverty, but many do.
The history of this particular congregation is such that it follows the lifecycle of many other churches. Planted in the 1960s the congregation faced exponential growth, followed by a numerical plateau and then a numeric decline in the 1980s and 90s. Several strategies and even a change of leadership failed to create the conditions for stability and growth. It wasn’t that the church didn’t try or that the church wasn’t faithful; the church simply didn’t understand the new cultural context we were living in; the church didn’t grasp that we were living deeper and deeper into a context where people no longer needed or desired an encounter with God.
Then one day my standard S10 Chevy pickup truck slipped out of gear, rolled through the fence of an adjacent condominium property, and disappeared in a drainage ditch. Days turned into weeks and the neighbors would call across the fence, “Don’t forget to put your parking brake on.” A laugh would be shared between myself and the church’s neighbors. One day I realized that I am the only one in the church who knows the names of those who live in the neighborhood. With this realization, I walked over to the condominium and twisted some arms, inviting the neighbors to the church to listen and discover who lived in the neighborhood. A time of learning was scheduled. As a result of this listening and learning event, the church discovered that the condominiums were filled with seniors who had downsized and who missed their gardens. The church, with help from the neighbors, created a community garden.
The experience went so well, that the church walked across the street and into a local elementary school and asked if someone could help them understand the neighborhood and those who live in the neighborhood. Andrea, who worked in the elementary school agreed and came to the church on a Sunday evening and told the church about those who lived in the neighborhood. As a result, the church partnered with the school and started providing lunches for children who didn’t have a lunch. Out of this experience, the church learned many kids in the neighborhood didn’t have opportunities to attend a Summer Camp, therefore the church created a summer camp for kids in the neighborhood.
The ethos of the neighborhood determined the ministries the church would participate in. These ministries (community garden, sandwiches, summer camp, etc.) came into existence, not because the church learned of these from some conference or by mirroring some fast-growing church; they came into being because of the needs of the neighborhood. It’s the ethos of the neighborhood that shaped Christian witness.
It’s important to understand the shift that took place. The Newmarket Church of Christ did not require significant resources and did not hire any additional staff to provide resources for the church or the neighborhood. Instead, this particular community of faith chose to move deeper into the neighborhood and to live in a relationship with her neighbors. Again, Andrew Root is helpful,
The church’s move into the world is not a march for market share, resource gain, or even cultural influence . . . rather, the church moves only to be with the world, waiting with the world for God’s coming action. The church can be in the world by going into the world to wait.4
The Newmarket Church of Christ moved deeper into the lives of those who lived in the neighborhood. As we moved deeper into people’s lives, we grew in relationships; we developed trust with our neighbors and this trust allowed us to become witnesses. One day a young man was murdered in the streets. Because of the church’s relationship with families in the neighborhood, we were invited to host the funeral. Hosting the funeral for a young man who was murdered, the church became a witness to a way of peace rather than a way of violence. Out of this witness, the local drug dealer named Gary started to wonder if he could have an encounter with a living God. This wondering eventually led Gary to walk through the waters of baptism. Gary now serves as an addiction counselor.
Susan sat on her front porch nearly every day from spring to fall. She watched me walk the streets of the neighborhood. Susan and her partner Gary decided that they should be married so they called me and asked if I could perform their wedding ceremony in the backyard. After the wedding, Susan would invite me to sit on her front porch. Eventually, Susan shared homemade bread with my family. It took several years, but eventually, Susan said to Gary, “We should go to church.” After several weeks of attending the worship services, Susan said to me, “I don’t know what it is, but I feel a sense of calmness and peace.” I asked, “Might it be you are experiencing the presence of God?” Susan thought about it for a minute and said, “Maybe.” Eventually, Susan walked through the waters of baptism.
The church became a witness to a living God because the church moved intentionally into relationships with the neighborhood. By listening to the neighborhood, the witness of the church was shaped by the ethos of the neighborhood. This witness led the church into relationships. These relationships eventually led people to wonder if they could and were having an encounter with God.
In a cultural context where fewer and fewer people believe in an encounter with God, how the church witnesses to God’s in-breaking kingdom will become a neighborhood witness. We must become good ethnographers—good students of our neighbors and neighborhoods to understand how to live into relationships with our neighbors. And by living into these relationships, we’ll be able to witness to the in-breaking kingdom of God; to the ways God is at work in our midst.
May the Spirit of God be at work in our churches to help us understand our neighbors and neighborhoods in ways that will lead us to become witnesses of God’s in-breaking kingdom.
Nathan Pickard has served alongside the Newmarket Church of Christ in New Market, Ontario for almost 20 years and holds a D.Min in missional theology from Abilene Christian University. Nathan is married to Katie, and has two boys who play hockey, which means Nathan has become a hockey coach. Nathan is also an avid outdoorsman.
Since Emperor Constantine in the mid 300 CE, Christianity was at the center of society; Christianity had power. We live now in a post-Christendom context—Christianity is on the margins of society; Christianity no longer holds a position of power within the cultural context. This is more prevalent in Europe and Canada and certain parts of the United States.
Andrew Root, Churches and the Crisis of Decline (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022), 8.
Andrew Root, The Congregation In A Secular Age (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), 51-55.
Root, Churches and Crisis of Decline, 144. What are we waiting for? Root says we are waiting for God to be at work in our midst; waiting for “God’s coming action.”
Why do you still believe in God?” // "Which god do you believe in" was the matrix in which the Messianic Hope movement was developed. Reversing the curses, not feeding the demon-idol-altar-portals, etc.