Since we’ve been given the biblical mandate that we all belong to each other {Romans 12:5, NLT}, this fall at (in)courage we wanted to spend some deliberate time together unpacking what that means.

To focus on what it means to love my neighbor as myself.

To open our hearts for dialogue about what it might look like to walk around in someone else’s shoes.

So we’re hosting a conversation here every Wednesday for the next few weeks about what it looks like to do life in a way that reflects the timely truth that we actually are better together. Won’t you join us as we invite writers from our community to share what doing life Better Together has looked like in real time for them?

And then consider what living life — like we are better together — might look like for you too.

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Three years ago, my husband, along with our three young kids (ages 4, 6, and 7 at the time) moved from our long-lane, dream farmhouse, to a small home in the thick of a low-income neighborhood one city over. We aren’t church-planters or even extroverts, and honestly we had no real context for city living or folks living under the tremendous pressure of poverty and its associated ills.

But Jesus spent His earthly life in kinship with broken, messed-up people like you and me. If we say we belong to Him, our actions should match His. Our job as Christ followers is to care for the poor and fight for justice, and it’s so much easier when we all live together in tight, rowdy community.

Out of God’s gracious love for me, he put some ladies in my path who understand my life. Lori Harris is one of them (the cute thang in the middle), and I’d like to invite you to sit in on a conversation we recently had about what being a neighbor looks like to us. (In order to get the full experience, you need to read Lori’s part with the happiest Southern drawl you can imagine.)

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” {John 1:14, MSG}

SHANNAN: Our families have traveled similar journeys into the heart of two maxed-out neighborhoods. What surprises you most about life in yours?

LORI: First off, I’m surprised at my own humanity. Choosing to live mashed up next to people who wear their humanity on their sleeve constantly puts me in front of a mirror. I’m amazed that the distance between me and them is but a sliver of Jesus, and yet, the distance feels cavernous at times.

I’m surprised to learn that when Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves, He meant for us to walk so closely in relationship with our people that we call them family.

SHANNAN: Yes! I’m nodding along with every word. That mirror thing can be so brutal. Until I felt the contact burns of living in close proximity to brokenness, I was blissfully unaware of how mired in selfishness and judgment I was.

I surrounded myself with middle-class Christian people who lived just like I did and never bothered wondering how far my sins of self kept me from the pulse of the Gospel I said I believed. I honestly thought my job was to keep my family safe and secure, go to church, and stay away from the “wrong” kinds of people. I  didn’t understand the fully-saturated poverty of my soul until I began to live among friends and neighbors who don’t doubt their need for a hot second. They’re teaching me the fine arts of selfless community, humility, and dependence, to name a few.

Not only are my husband and I being changed, our kids are, too. When God called my husband and I here, He called all of us. You and I both send our kids to neighborhood public schools. Such a game-changer in terms of being immersed in place and community!

Talk to me about the ways your kids are “better together” in the context of their public school.

LORI: When we enrolled the kids in our neighborhood schools, we found ourselves being tethered to our community in brand new ways. Our involvement opened doors for us to serve our larger community because we were all in it together, no agenda. Living and learning together is erasing lines of division between race and class. Our children are blossoming into sure-footed believers as they connect with their neighbors.

SHANNAN: That’s it! We’re just here, living life as normal humans, ready to stretch the soup when someone knocks. So often I make it harder than it has to be. Cory and I have lost sleep over the past few years trying to figure out the best way to meet and connect with our neighbors. We’ve watched many of our plans burn to ash. Often, we’ve been too scared to even try.

Last fall, on a whim, we decided to host a free family picture day in our neighborhood. It felt so risky!

Our thought behind the idea was pretty basic. My husband enjoys taking pretty pictures and many of our neighbors might not have the opportunity (for a number of reasons) to have a professional-quality family photo. It seemed like a very simple way to offer something to our community. Of course, it didn’t go at all like we would have planned, and God used it to reaffirm the things He’s teaching us every day — specifically, that we have to stop trying to measure “success” through our American, middle-class standards. When we begin to view life and what we have to offer through the lens of the kingdom, it’s amazing how much simpler it all looks. God favors relationships over the grand gesture. It’s about looking each other in the eye, learning names and back stories, and helping in small ways. We can all do that!

Your family has started hosting a neighborhood dinner in your yard. So simple, yet so major. What is it teaching you?

LORI: Yes, on Sunday nights, we eat with our neighbors in the front yard around a couple of picnic tables. This is where we are learning to bear with one another. Walls are coming down and bridges are being built while food is passed. Food becomes the great equalizer among us, reminding us we’re all needy.

The table is where we are beginning to look one another in the face and remind one another of the good we see. No one is greater than another and here, over plates of BBQ chicken and baked beans, we belong to a family bigger than the one that can fit in our ramshackle of a house. These meals are binding us to one another because these meals enact grace and that is what grace does.

SHANNAN: I love it so much! Be glad Indiana is so far from North Carolina, or my crew would crash, every week. Thanks so much for chatting with me, Lori. I’m thrilled to call you a neighbor.

Read more about Shannan’s journey into the heart of her neighborhood over here.

Find out more about what Lori’s doing in her community over Sunday night neighborhood meals over here.

Download the free printable: A Prayer for Our Neighbors over here.

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A Prayer:

Lord, show me how to reach beyond my own four walls and touch the lives of those in my neighborhood. {Tweet this!}

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