Community..

I have often found being as pastor quite an isolating experience from Non Christians. To try and address that we have done some interesting things over the years.
When we moved to Nelson - we deliberatly moved to a suburb that is very low on the socio economic scale. We knew that there would not be many Christians in our area compared with the bible belt of the suburbs. Only problem was our neighbours weren't as friendly as the bible belt suburban types...Why was that?
Well it's part of the changing world we live in where community is defined through leisure, work and friendship. I suspect this is soemthing that many suburban churches have not cottoned on to, but is a glaring reality in the more urban area's such as we live in. We are tryinng then to make friend sbut it is often hard to break into established nor central - leisure/work/friendship based communities.
Part of our intention was for the kids to go to the local school and we would get involved with people outside of the church that way.... Only problem was my son struggled in the school -and we felt the only option was to move schools. We did so and ended out putting him a local christian school - bang went that big idea.
In fact this seems to me to be a repeat of what happened in Christchurch. While there I offered to coach a local 8th grade football team, thinking I would meet a lot of non christian parents - I didn't... because nearly every one on my team was a church person... in fact most of them were from the same church...
This year I find myself again coaching football and am enjoying it, meeting other people involved in the club, and just to ensure I do extend my contact circle I signed on for a coaching class, which is held on SUNDAY mornings, not every week. I had to laugh because the only other person I knew who was supposed to be on the course was a guy who is also a christian and a pastor and he couldn't come.....because he had to work...