ACE How to be a Neighbor Week 1

Well, good morning, everyone. Thanks for being here on a Daylight Savings Time morning. It's good to be starting off a new Ace series, so welcome to How to Be a Neighbor, which in my head when I say that title, yes, How to Be a Neighbor. I was going to make jump eaters sing it because he already knew what I was thinking, but I didn't I didn't make him do that. You're welcome, John. Well, my name is Jenny Lynn. I am on staff here restoration and I'm excited to jump into this series that I am co-teaching with Mason, John and Michael also broke. So you'll see those two up front along with me over the next seven weeks of this class. Let me open us with a word of prayer. God, I thank you for this new morning and your love and your mercy that are new for us today. I pray that as we set aside this time to think about what it means to be neighbors. Lord, that you would help us. Lord, humble us, encourage us. Lord, for those who may feel discouraged, I pray that there would be encouragement for those who just need a nudge. I pray that we would be nudge and pray that you would help us move towards our neighbors and love them well. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit would come and teach us in this time and let us encourage one another in it. And Jesus said, I pray, Amen. So for the past several weeks, we have been looking at the covenant story of redemption. And we've been talking about the covenants through the biblical storyline. And as we've looked at each of those covenants, one of the ways that we can think about kind of the theme or structure of the covenants is that in each one, we see that it is about God's people in God's place for God's purposes. And if people place and purpose are all important aspects of each of those covenants, and if you were to kind of think back through, we could kind of identify that for each one of the covenants. But this is really just our hinge as we think about moving into how to be neighbors. And we continue to think about God's people in God's place for God's purpose as we think about what it means for us to reflect God's covenant keeping heart to our neighbors. So just to get us started, I want you to think about your place. And if you want to share your tables, would you share your name if you need to, and just what neighborhood or part of town you live in? So just do that briefly around your tables. All right, well, just looking around the room and seeing who's here, we have a large swath of the St. Louis area represented in this room. Which is pretty cool. And that's something that has really been true of us at restoration for a number of years that we have seen people coming from all over the metro area to our church. So as we think about neighboring, we really want you to think local, like to think very particularly to how you are being a neighbor in the actual place where you live. So we're going to continue to talk about that over the next several weeks. But as we think about what it means to be a neighbor, we want to think a little bit about our current cultural moment and the cultural story that has been told about neighboring. And for this class, we're drawing pretty heavily from this book called Placed for a Purpose. If any of you were with us several years ago, we did a class on neighboring back in the winter of 2019, January and February 2019. And we used a great book called The Art of Neighboring, which we'll reference and a lot of that has really shaped my thinking about neighboring. But this book is a little bit newer and I think has some great helps us engage a little bit with the cultural moment that we're in as things have just become increasingly polarized as neighboring has probably become increasingly challenging over the past decade or so. Since the Art of Neighboring originally came out, but Chris and Elizabeth McKinney wrote this book, they actually live in Columbia, Missouri, they are in staff. They've been on staff with crew in their city ministry. Chris is on staff now at the crossing in Columbia. But they write this and I will read this for you because I know it's a little bit hard to read. They say in the past being neighborly was defined primarily by knowing your neighbors personally and introducing yourselves to new neighbors when they moved in. Neighborliness was characterized by the understanding that one could rely on a neighbor in times of need. We don't know when the story changed, but we intuitively know it did. Now a good neighbor is based less on connection and more on etiquette. The good neighbor now is the one who takes the trash out properly, keeps the music down at night and maintains peace. It's not difficult to imagine what would happen if we lived out of this kind of story brand for long. Conceivably garage doors would remain perpetually closed. Neighbors would be driven toward increased self-sufficiency and we would feel more isolated in our homes. We would likely hide behind our screens and even lose our ability to engage with those who might look, speak or vote differently than us, resulting in heightened polarization and taller fences for protection. Perhaps without even realizing it, we'd feel lonelyer than ever before. The message has become just leave them alone and that is what we do. There's been that shift from the idea of being a good neighbor being someone who is involved with their neighbors, to being a good neighbor being someone who just leaves their neighbors alone and keeps to themselves. We've seen that shift and I imagine that some of you resonate with aspects of this. Some of you might not and if this is not, if that kind of original experience of neighboring is more what you're experiencing, that is great. Please tell us about it and tell us how it's working. But if the latter part of this is more of what you're experiencing, that's really what we want to help push against over the course of this class because we know that if this is the cultural story, the biblical story of neighboring is something really different than this. As we turn our attention to the biblical story, can anyone quote, "Liviticus 1918" for me? Travis? Don't look it up. I'm wondering if has this not been, you guys don't have this verse memorized? Even not even a part of it? Well, what if I asked you to finish this sentence, "You shall love your neighbor as. " Okay, see, you guys do know it. You do know "Liviticus 1918." Then you, you knew. So, "Love your neighbor, the command to love your neighbor as yourself." Doesn't, didn't originate with Jesus. It originates in the Old Testament, it originates in "Liviticus." That book that seems like sometimes it has nothing to do with our actual lives, right? This comes from "Liviticus." Jesus quotes it at least twice in Mark and Matthew. Paul echoes it in Galatians when he talks about how we are to use the freedom that we have in Christ, to be used to love our neighbors. So, there is this command we have in Scripture, beginning in the Old Testament to love our neighbors as ourselves. And how often we know this, we can quote it whether or not we realize it, how often are we really taking that command to heart, and how often are we taking that command to heart with our proximate neighbors, with the people that we see as we pull it in and out of the driveway, or as we take a walk, or as we take the trash out, how are we loving those neighbors? So, the McKinney's start us out with looking at neighboring through the biblical storyline. And so, we start with creation, the first act of the biblical story, and they refer to the Garden of Eden as the first neighborhood. So, this was a place of meaningful work, of fertile ground, of health, and of deep peace. And what is the only thing that was not good in that first neighborhood? Yeah, it was not good for man to be alone. So, God knew that we needed human relationship for health, for flourishing, for things to be right in the neighborhood. We need to be able to rely on our neighbors, and just to connect back as we think about this biblical storyline, I want to remind you all of something that we did back in the fall, if you were with us, as we kind of think about how we can depict the biblical story, and how right everything was at the beginning. So, we have God, we have humans, and we have creation. And everything was rightly related. God was in right relationship with his creation, and with man and woman. Man and woman were in right relationship with each other, and humans were in right relationship with creation. So this is how everything started. This is how life was in the first neighborhood. Everything was as it should be, and the neighbors got along great with one another. Right? Everything was wonderful. And as we think about things that were as they should be, I want you to talk, tell someone next to you about a time when someone has been a good neighbor to you, someone who was an actual, literal neighbor, someone has been a good neighbor to you. Talk about a time when someone's been a good neighbor to you. Talk once yourselves for a minute. All right, I would love to hear all of the stories that you told, and all the ones that you didn't get a chance to tell. But just to capture a little bit of what we've just been talking about, would you all shout out just one word that describes that story that came to your mind, whether it's an action word or a feeling word, just one word that encompasses the story that you've been talking about, the story that you just told or the impact that it had on you. Plow? Yeah. Move. You mean like a snow plow? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's great. What else? Present. Present? Present? Yeah. [ Inaudible Remark ] Welcome. Welcome. [ Inaudible Remark ] Goes along with yes, probably. What else? [ Inaudible Remark ] A few more. I'd say helpful. I thought about a time when I lived in an apartment and the washing machine stopped working mid-cycle. And I had company and I went to talk to my neighbor across the hall just to like vent, because that's what we did. And she was, she handed me a black trash bag and said, "Go put your stuff in the trash bag. I'm going to the laundromat. I'm going to wash your stuff." And it was just like the greatest that she like would haul my like soaking wet stuff to the laundromat and do that for me. So helpful. Any other words that you would add to this list from your experiences? Unfulisted. Unfulisted. Attentive. [ Inaudible Remark ] It's nice to have those neighbors who watch. Like you know nothing. You know no one's going to get into your house with them watching. Yeah, anything else? All right, that's a good list. If you think of any more, we can always add to it. But this is the way that it's meant to be. This is what we are meant to experience. From neighbors, this is who we are meant to be. As neighbors, this is one everything is as it should be. And we want to be working towards more of that. But we know that the reality is we live in the fall. And so we've experienced the fall. And so we've experienced neighborly discord. Right? So we think about all the brokenness that came with the fall. And we think about all the ways that we experience discord with our neighbors. We've experienced isolation from God and from others. There's that sense of retreat. Christmas is a bit right. I think this is on your handout. We've inherited these same genes of insecurity, disdain, suspicion, and self-reliance. The same genes that our first parents did after the fall. And these genes are felt in every call to sack. We feel insecurity, disdain, suspicion, and self-reliance. Think about all these different ways that things are broken. Think about the neighborhood fights that happen over your trees growing into my yard. Right? Or over, like someone's music is too loud, or someone's dog is barking too much, or all these different things. Or just, I don't want to talk to you because I saw that lawn sign in your yard. I saw who you're voting for. I don't want to talk to you. How do you, so as we think about this, there's also so many just barriers within ourselves that can keep us from being good neighbors. Those fears, those insecurities, maybe experiences from the past. So think for a minute, just on your own, about some of the things that keep you from being a good neighbor to the people around you. What are some of those things that keep you from being a good neighbor? Think about that for just a minute, and then I'm going to ask you to talk about it a little. [applause] All right, what are some things that are coming to your minds as you think about things that keep you from being a good neighbor? You can say one word or more than one word in this case. Safety? Safety, yeah. I don't want to take on the word answer problem. Yeah. Yeah, that feeling of I've already got enough to deal with. I can't take on more. Awkwardly. Yeah. How many people relate to that one? Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Me too. So, so, so much. [inaudible] [inaudible] Yes. Yes. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I think like that. That's a barrier of its own of like, which almost becomes like shame, right? And then we just kind of retreat and just keep feeling awkward. Yeah. And maybe that's just me. There's a couple that I can see through my back window that I have never met. And I know they had a baby last year and I have felt guilty. Like every day since then that I have not. But I'm like, who wants a stranger to like, bring them a meal when they have a fresh baby? Maybe they do. Maybe they do. But like I just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big one. What else? Yeah. Any particular uncertainty or just general? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Even things like differing cultural norms and expectations. Liability. Yeah, say a little more about that. Yes Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a risk of avoidance that goes along with that. Yeah, anything else? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's something to do to just like time and capacity. Foundry is yeah Distance in avoidance. Oh Yeah That's so sad. That's so sad. Yeah, well then and then we get into like actual conflict that arises in our neighborhoods, right? I think some of you have had some pretty legit conflicts with neighbors. Yeah, anything else? Mason? Oh Yeah, like so a lack of a lack of shared interest. We'll call that. I could just put gambling on the list, but we might forget. We might that might get taken out of context later. Yeah, anything else? Yeah, I guess they named it, but I'll just put it just insecurity that goes along with awkwardness and fear of rejection and lots of other things, but but yeah, we have there's a lot of a lot of fears, a lot of unknowns, a lot of practicalities that come into play when we think about the barriers that we face to being good neighbors, but we just want to name these things and share in them together and as we continue talking hopefully help each other begin to think about how to scripture speak into these barriers. How can we encourage one another to move forward wisely and lovingly towards our neighbors? So we think about the third act of the biblical storyline, redemption being placed for a purpose. Usually when we're talking about redemption, we're starting with Jesus. We kind of think about the fall as like the whole Old Testament leading up to the coming of Christ, but in this book they actually start a little bit earlier and I think it's fitting as we think about the covenants that we've just been through. They look back to Abraham moving to a new neighborhood and the way that that was part of the beginning of God's redemptive work for his people was Abraham moving to a new neighborhood and in giving as God continued in relationship with his people to give the law, the law was given to guide their worship and everyday interactions so that their new neighborhoods would be places of peace and protection governed by love. So the Old Testament law was meant was given so that God's people would live in a way that reflected his heart and that would make their neighborhoods better places, right? These instructions were given so that their neighbors would literally say, wow, their God seems amazing. So this redemptive work started in the Old Testament and then of course we see Jesus moving into the neighborhood and now we bear his image in ours. We think about the ways that he came to give life and to be that embodied. We had the law as a reflection of God's heart. Jesus came as that embodied reflection of God's heart for the neighborhood and as we think about how we follow him in that, a question we can ask ourselves is how can we bring life to our neighborhoods? The McKinney's talk about for many of our neighbors the life they experience is like a long, one long winter. But what does it look like for we as followers of Jesus to bring a hint of spring into that? And I think that's a great picture especially right now as we see flowers starting to bloom as we see things starting to emerge. What does it look like for us to be those hints of life, those specks of green popping up in a wintery landscape? And then of course we move and look forward to restoration. One neighborhood will be made right. Revelation 21 gives us a picture of all things being restored. And they say that when Jesus taught us to pray that kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He was intending to create an as a holy discontent that yearns for the kingdom of God to break into where we are in chapter three, the period of redemption. We want all things made right to break in to where we are right now. So thinking about that envisioning, just imagining that future restoration when everything is made right. All we can do is imagine it right now, right? We get little forties of it but we can only imagine it right now. But I want you to think for just a moment, what is one way that you imagine your neighborhood would look different if all were made right? Just imagine that for yourself for a moment. We'll keep thinking about that. Keep imagining and trying to envision what it would look like. What would your neighborhood look like in the new creation when everything is made right? You have in front of you a little yellow card that says who is my neighbor? And this is a little tool called a neighborhood map. And this maybe familiar if any of you were with us last time we did this back in 2019. But this is just a little tool for you to use to challenge yourself to get to know your neighbors better. And what what we'd encourage you to be able to fill in for these boxes that represent neighbors or apartments or houses or however you want to think about it would be names of your neighbors. Some data or facts about them. And maybe some more in depth information about them. And this isn't meant to like be weird or creepy. This is meant to be just a tangible way for you to think about okay who do I know like where am I at with knowing my neighbors? How could I get to know just a little more about them over the course of these next two months that we are talking through these things here at ACE? Your neighbors are not projects but they are people that we want to know and love. And so how could you think about maybe setting a goal for yourself each week to just fill in one new piece of information here? Whether that be getting the name of someone that you've seen and don't know. Saying hey I know this is really awkward that I've lived here for three years and haven't talked to you yet. But I'm Jenny Lynn and I live over here and just wanted to know your name. Like that's you know we see each other all the time. Falling on your sword and letting it be awkward. But knowing that like they're probably feeling as awkward as you. And if you don't want to be stuck in this forever it's worth making that move. But I think about like there are people in my neighborhood that I know facts about and I don't know their name. Like I know down the street there's a woman whose husband is in a wheelchair and we don't have ever like I don't pass through when I'm out for a walk. I don't but I I should know her name. Like I should know who she is so that as I there are times when I pray for her but I don't know her name. And I could get to know her name either by I could ask someone else or I could like happen to stop by her house and just say hello because I see her coming and going so often. But this is just meant to help you as you are thinking and praying and getting to know your neighbors and being in tension. about that. So keep this in your Bible or post it in your bedroom. Maybe don't post it on your fridge because if your neighbors happen to come over, maybe they will see this as a great tool and resource and maybe they will feel love but they might feel weird about it. So maybe don't put it in a public place in your home. If there is more than one person in your household, maybe you can make this a competition of who can learn the most about your neighbors over the next few weeks. I don't know, just an idea. But take that with you and begin to work through filling that out. A couple other resources for you. I mentioned the book placed for a purpose that will be drawing from this pretty heavily over the next seven weeks of this class. The McKinney's are actually going to come and speak with us later in April, which we're going to be excited to have them here. But they also have a great podcast where they have talked through a lot of the content. They have a couple different books and they've talked through a lot of that content. They've also interviewed a wide variety of great smart people about various things. They have podcasts about loving neighbors of different faith backgrounds. They have episodes about loving neighbors who are going through who've experienced trauma about how to be emotionally healthy in our neighboring. They have one episode that is about awkwardness. They say that awkwardness is a superpower. I highly recommend that one. They have one on introverts. For introverts, how do you neighbor well as an introvert? I'd encourage you to look through that list and through those as you have the time and opportunity. I think they're mostly in the 30-minute range. I'm a little bit longer. But it's on the back of the sheet too. And on this slide that I did not skip ahead too. But it's there for you. They also have a website with some blogs and other resources as well. But I will just go back to this slide that I forgot about. As we think about each of us getting to know our own little corner of the world, part of that is our hope as a church. As we think about being a church that pursues the restoration of people's communities and cultures throughout St. Louis. As we think about all of us doing this in our little neighborhood, as we think about all the places that we represent, what does it mean for us as a church family to be pursuing that restoration each of us and our little corner of St. Louis? And it's exciting to think about that. It's exciting to think about what that means as we think about church planting in St. Charles. I'm learning to love that place and invest in that place. But this is what we think about as we think about all of us doing this. None of us are doing it alone. We are all doing it together, even as we go back to our various neighborhoods. So to send us out, just leave you with this quote from the McKinney's, "Naboring after all is much more like a craft pot than a microwave. Although microwaves are wonderful inventions, neighboring thrives in a world of marinades and slow cooking. Over time, you will get to experience the rich development of sustainable relationships that bear a lasting impact. Just think low and slow." So we are not going to know all of our neighbors and be best friends with them eight weeks from now. But this is just part of that low and slow process of us learning how to love our neighbors well in the place that God has us. Mason, would you close this in prayer?