Community-Friendly Church?

I have been thinking a lot lately about the role of the church within the community it belongs. In many ways I am struggling because for many churches, I am not sure they are necessarily making a positive difference in the community they belong.

Today's post is about the church influencing its neighbors. This post below if from a book I have been shaped by - And You Call Yourself A Christian by Dr. Robert Lupton.

"Through the trees in my back yard I can see the steeple of the Lighthouse Tabernacle Holiness Church, Inc. It's a charming church with white columns and neatly manicured landscape. For as long as neighborhood residents can remember, it has maintained a quiet presence on the street. Its Sunday morning worshipers fit easily into the church parking lot, and the sounds of music and preaching are well contained within the air-conditioned sanctuary. It can genuinely be said of the Lighthouse Tabernacle Holiness Church that it does no harm to our community.

That is not to say that the church is community-friendly, however. it is just not community-unfriendly. Some neighbors even remember that a few years back, church members went door-to-door inviting community children to enroll in their summer vacation bible school. But they haven't done this for some time now. Like most of the churches in our neighborhood, Lighthouse Tabernacle Holiness Church is a commuter church and neither pastor nor parishioners live in the area. Because they drive in from other places, they have little vested interest in the neighborhood - except, or course, their building, which they maintain beautifully.

In 1934, the church was a vital part of the life of the neighborhood. It served as a moral compass, a spiritual strand in the fabric of the community. The pastor lived in a parsonage next door and his children attended the neighborhood schools. his voice carried authority when he attended PTA meetings because he spoke not only for his own children but also for those of his congregation.

Tithes and offerings stayed largely in the community, paying for salaries, youth programs, benevolence for those in need, and, of course, the building. When the church bought the adjacent lot to build an educational wing, the neighborhood was supportive. What was good fro the church, they knew was good for the community. That's when the church was of the community.

But over time members moved to the suburbs and eventually the church was sold to another group. The new pastor owned a home in another part of the city and had no need for the parsonage. The new congregation was friendly enough, but their busy lives were invested elsewhere. Their community "outreach" efforts were well-intentioned but lacked consistency. And hey gave the subtle impression that they viewed neighborhood folk as "the lost," which seemed not a very community-friendly theology.

Expressways and multiple-car families have changed everything over the past 50 years. Especially the church. From an institution rooted in the soil of community it has become a spiritual health club for commuters. Pastors now measure their success by the number of ZIP codes they draw their membership from. Accessibility and parking have become two of the church's greatest challenges....

When our culture traded front-porch neighborhood life for private backyard patios, when we succumbed to the seduction of individualism and lost touch with our next-door neighbors, a void was created in the spirit of our people that chat rooms cannot fill. The commuting church, with its scattered members buzzing in and out of the neighborhood, is one more troubling reminder of what we have lost. A community-starved society, by its protests, is calling the church back to its historic mandate: to be the exemplar within the community of both love of God and love of neighbor."

I would love to hear your thoughts.