Loving our Neighbor In Practice

Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon give us a test in their book The Art of Neighboring to help us discover whether or not we are living out the command to love our neighbor.  The goal is not to induce shame, but to see if we are moving from loving our neighbor in theory to loving our neighbor in practice.

Take a sheet of paper and draw nine boxes in three rows of three.  Your house is the one in the middle and the other boxes represent your closest neighbors.  Next fill in the following information for each of your neighbors.

a— Write the names of the people who live in the house represented by the box. If you can give first and last names, that’s great. If it’s only first names, that’s fine too.

b— Write down some relevant information about each person, some data or facts about him or her that you couldn’t see just by standing in your driveway, things you might know if you’ve spoken to the person once or twice. We don’t mean drives a red car or has yellow roses by the sidewalk, because you could see that from your driveway. We mean information you’ve gathered from actually speaking to a neighbor, such as grew up in Idaho, is a lawyer, plays golf, is from Ethiopia, had a father in World War   II.

c— Write down some in-depth information you would know after connecting with people. This might include their career plans or dreams of starting a family or anything to do with the purpose of their lives. What motivates them to do what they do? What would they say about God? What do they most fear? What are their spiritual beliefs and practices? Write down anything meaningful that you’ve learned through interacting with them.

Related Posts:
“Some Questions to Ask Ourselves”
“Evangelism Doesn’t Begin with Events”

For Further Reading:
Faithmapping by Daniel Montgomery and Mike Cosper