Radiant new neighbor comes over to pick up something she wants to work on for kids in the summer. A kids' community garden. She lives in one of perhaps six unusual households newly settled in our part of town, households with a mission that goes beyond the more typical, perfectly honorable (but not particularly lofty) missions the rest of us pursue: a combination of work/family/house/play/yard/help out others a little.
Those who have been here in Lexington's heart for a time (20 years in my case) distrust and dislike missions. But I like this new neighbor and I like what she tells me.
People are committing to being in a place for a long time, to living their lives among the people whom they would like to serve. Instead of scoping us out, doing a needs assessment, going back to some computer lab or a tight new house on a well-kept street to figure out what they can do for us -- they are settling in among us, listening to the people who have been here awhile, picking up the tasks that we know need to be done but don't seem to make happen.
She said a Ph.D. student at Asbury College some years ago issued a challenge and inspired a group of people to begin a new kind of ministry. "I guess we had a chip on our shoulders about the church," she said, lightly. The idea is to live among people, to be with, to share conditions, to live redemptively, in community. Instead of a standard holy text, she mentioned Wendell Berry as a wise guide. Yes!!!
So far, none of the new neighbors has issued an altar call or taken up an offering. Instead, we are seeing the first hints that old musty items may start disappearing off the to-do list of the Martin Luther King Neighborhood Association. More neighborliness is setting in. That's a kind of mission, a kind of redemption, that may well bless us all.
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