Building Neighborhood Relationships: Lent in the Living Room PDF Print E-mail
Written by Michael R. Walker   
Sunday, 18 January 2009 13:41
Lent in the Living RoomOne of the greatest needs of the church in North America is to develop deeper relationships with our neighbors -- in the usual sense of "neighbors," as in those who live near to us. We often live private lives and don't even know that the other Christians in our neighborhood are Christians, since denominationalism has resulted in two Christian families next door to each other worshiping and fellowshiping with different congregations.  So, it's tough to build Christian fellowship that will impact one another -- and impact those who are not yet believers -- right where we live.

In an age when the "unchurched" are less and less likely to "go to church" looking for spiritual nourishment, it's important that we be pro-active and bring it to them where they live. To that end, one idea some churches are exploring is called "Lent in the Living Room." It's a special initiative, for a special time of the "church year," to encourage the members of our congregation to host small groups in their homes. Hopefully, this will catalyze the development of new and deeper relationships that will continue well beyond the season of Lent.

If you're interested, check out how my own congregation, Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, TX, is exploring this way of building "neighborhood relationships" this year. It may give you some ideas for what could work in your own congregation, too.
 

The Notebook

"Weight which listeners felt": Chadwick on Calvin's Preaching
"Calvin lay back on his bed thinking out what to say, but he could preach or lecture without notes and usually took with him only the Greek or Hebrew text of the Bible to expound. The words went flowing out of him. Every other week he preached every weekday and every Sunday he preached twice, that is 260 sermons in a year, with very numerous lectures in addition. Anyone who tries to speak knows that in a far lower frequency of utterance no one can talk sense all the time because no one, not even a person who takes so short a time for sleep as Calvin, has time to suck in enough to make good what goes out; not at least without an excess of repetition. But audiences were not bored. They were supposed to go to church but did not need to go to Calvin’s church and most preferred it. His sermons were not amusing nor anecdotal. They were not decked with the devices of eloquence; they did not come over with passion, though sometimes interesting through vehemence of denunciation; they had none of Luther’s fun and fewer flashes of original insight; but they thumped away, like a battery of hits that landed on target, with clarity of thought, style, and arrangement, reinforced by the manifest conviction of truth in the speaker. No witness said that he had a musical voice. It was weight which listeners felt." Owen Chadwick, The Early Reformation on the Continent. Oxford, 2001, pp. 195-6.