What is a Neighbourhood Church? (part one)

What is a Neighbourhood Church? 

(1) A neighbourhood church identifies the streets around their local area to be their greatest priority. This is not to say that there is any indifference to the problems and injustices within the wider human community or world, but rather that this concern begins and builds within the hearts and minds of those living locally. The neighbourhood church is a coalition of the assets, talents and needs of people residing within local streets. The neighbourhood church deeply invests itself in local affairs, where even the existence of ugly litter offends, let alone domestic violence or animal cruelty. 

(2) The neighbourhood church does not seek to draw people out of their neighbourhoods to a venue far away or even a few kilometres down the road - for this tends to actually devalue the worth of such a neighbourhood by reducing the time spent in one's most natural place of relational mission. Could any area be less suitable to worship in and serve God there? Of course not! To travel away from one's home locality to seek that 'greater worship experience' in the vertical sense, tends to disconnect one from the horizontal relational aspect of life and thus from the depth of the incarnation of Jesus.

(3) A neighbourhood church seeks to continually point to the loving and creative presence of God in a very local sense. The little creeks and beautiful parks, local monuments and busy community centres, can all be seen as evidence of God's presence and availability to people. How is it, with so much self-serving and other-denying type behaviour evident (which is so destructive to the human spirit), that society still proceeds into another day with a fair degree of hope? Whether it is realised or not, "the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases ... God's mercies are new every morning". We should actively celebrate this ... locally!