The church and the community are in conflict about the use of land. Parking lots or houses? Lupton talks about this in S. Atlanta. But it’s happening everywhere. Something is deeply wrong. He gives no solutions, but he gives guiding principles.
“A community devoid of the influence of the Church will surely suffer from a lack of spiritual vitality. And a church alienated form the people who live around it can hardly bear faithful witness to its creed.”
Then he ends with the question of who will make the first move. I’m a churchman, a pastor. From my perspective, the question is whether or not I believe we are called to minister in the time and space of our own community. Are we so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good? Practically, do we know and use the businesses in our community? Do we know names and issues and the drama of our neighbors—good and bad? Ironically, isolation is the hallmark of the digitally-connected age. Back porches are elaborate and front porches are gone. We don’t even have to face our neighbors because we don’t have to get out of cars to park in the garage. Isolation—is not just the absence of community…it precedes that absence with an attitude that we don’t need each other.
