Neighboring

Do you think of yourself as a good neighbor?

Chris and Elizabeth McKinney say over time, the definition of what that means has changed. So the Harvard School of Medicine did a really interesting study about 10 years ago where they found a survey that they had done in the 50s or 60s about what it meant to be a good neighbor. To be a good neighbor means you know your next door neighbor, you can introduce new neighbors to the current neighbors, you can rely on your next door neighbors for help. You can rely when the new neighbors move in.

So then 10 years ago, they sent out the same survey. The responses they got back were basically to be a good neighbor in our culture today is to basically leave people alone. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com.

No fooling about any of that. Chris and Elizabeth McKinney join us today to talk about the purpose for being where you are, for being a good neighbor in our culture today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. I'm just curious, would you, if I gave you a sheet of paper and ask you to write down the names of 10 of the people who live on your street. Can we include kids?

No, no. I've got the names of the moms and the dads. Would you know 10? We're in a cul-de-sac. There's only two other houses. Well, there's four. What?

Clearly. A cul-de-sac has more than two houses. There's Dina, Nancy, there's Dave and Ann, and there's Scott and Tina. That's it.

That's the cul-de-sac. What about the Pallyons? And I already got six names right there, counting us.

So how am I doing, Bob? I'm just wondering. Oh, the Pallyons. Yeah, there's another one.

Nick and Pam, so they're... Okay, okay. Can you? And not. Wow. No, in fact...

I couldn't do 10. I know. I mean, I know the people on this side. I know the people on the other side. There's not a whole lot of interaction. We did go to the neighborhood block party that we had out in the street about, I don't know, six, seven months ago, and visited with all the neighbors. And we had nice cordial conversation. We wave as we go by, you know, and I see their kids and slow down for their kids.

But we live in this hermetically sealed off culture. Okay, here's a question. Do you know the neighbors growing up on the street? Oh, absolutely. So do I. I could name 20. And my parents, we did stuff together.

I mean, they would... So does that mean that you were nice as kids and you're mean as adults? What's that mean? It means that there's been a cultural shift. That's what I think. We live in a new culture. And I think we've got to figure out how we are counter-cultural in all of this. Yeah. We need to talk to somebody about that, Bob. You got anybody? I don't know.

I think they're sitting in our studio right now. Chris and Elizabeth McKinney, right? Yes. Wrote a book about being a great neighbor.

The title of your book is Placed for a Purpose, which is really all about being a good neighbor. Welcome to Family Life Today. Thank you.

It's so good to be here. Yeah. And you're on crew staff.

Yes, we are. Yes. Crew, what's called? Crew City.

Yeah. Crew City. What does that mean? I've known Crew for 20 years. What's Crew City mean? So City is a city focus. So we did campus ministry within Crew for 17 years, and that was clearly a college student focus. But then we transitioned to Crew City, where we get to have more of a broad city focus.

And there's different ways that City tries to reach out to the cities. You guys live in Missouri, in the Columbia, Missouri area, Mizzou, where the University of Missouri is. And you were telling us, Chris, that Crew was kind of all you've ever known since you were a kid. That's right.

Yeah. I'm a staff kid, proud staff kid. So I grew up on staff. My parents were at Kansas State University.

They're the campus staff over there. And then in 1990, when I was 10 years old, we have a daughter actually, who's 10. So I looked at her the other day. I was like, Ginger, how would you feel if I told you right now we're moving to Budapest, Hungary? Because that's how old I was when my parents moved us overseas to Budapest, Hungary to be missionaries to college students over there. So yeah. So it's cool that they did a great job of keeping us involved in the ministry and keeping us a part of it. So college students were just in our home constantly. And I just had this great experience with college students who love Jesus and wanted to follow Jesus. And so that drew me to want to continue to be on staff like my parents as well.

It's actually good to hear somebody say, I was raised in a missionary family and it was a really, really good experience. You often hear a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. So would your daughter want to go to Budapest at 10? You know, she, she, yeah, she was like, no, that's okay.

I'll pass on that. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. Your book is about, and I love one of the lines in your book that really was such a unique way to say this. And I think it sets up what the book's about and what we're going to talk about today is your address is not an accident and neither is your neighbors.

I've never thought of it that way, but explain what does that mean? Well, we've seen personally how God has sovereignly placed us, our, our exact house, our exact lot and sovereignly placed the neighbors beside us and just through our relationships with our neighbors and seeing our lives be enriched. I think we got into neighboring in the most stressful season of our lives. Chris was directing the ministry at Mizzou and he was also commuting to seminary over an eight year time.

Yeah. And um, and you had, and I had, I had four kids in five years, four little girls. And so I was drowning in diapers. I was a young mom and I, I needed my neighbors. I needed to have people right around me, not 10 or 15 minutes away, even where the college campus was. I needed people right now. Right.

You know, in real time. Well, that can be hard because we're living in a day and age where people pull into their garages, they close the garage door and sometimes, especially in the winter, if you're in a cold climate, you don't even see them till the spring. So how in the world, if you needed them, did you find them? Well, for us, it started with a fish fry. We, um, we like food.

We're kind of foodies in that way. And one of our neighbors, um, he had a bunch of fryers, bingo. He, uh, he used to play basketball. He's a big guy.

He's the only person my husband's ever around who makes him feel small. And, um, and bingo had all these fryers. He said, let's, let's fry up some fish. His name's bingo. His name's bingo. Bingo. Um, no, no, no, no.

Bingo. Um, he brought over a bunch of fryers and we made a bunch of sauces and, um, just really for the people right in our little cul-de-sac area, it was just a few families and it was, it was small. It was, um, it was a lot of fun. And like I said, we weren't looking for more to add to our plate. We weren't looking for more ministry to do. We just had this sense of, um, our lives would be enriched by getting to know our neighbors and that's exactly what happened. You had your own needs. Yes. We had a lot of needs.

We still have a lot of needs. I like that though, because you didn't have an agenda like, oh, I'm going to win my neighbors to Jesus. It was more of, I want to know my neighbors, love them and I need help too.

Right. So how did that develop? I mean the fish fry happens. Did you end up connecting with a couple and then inviting them over or vice versa or I mean, where does it, where does it go from there? So from there that spring we had a little Easter egg hunt and we had about six kids, which you know, we had four so that if that tells you anything, it was very humble beginnings. But at that Easter egg hunt, a couple came named Nathan and Kathy and they said to us afterwards, Hey, if you'd ever want to do a few things for the neighborhood, let us know we could help. And we, and we looked at them and said, like what? And they were, they said, I don't know, like a block party or something like that.

And, and so we did, we threw together a little block party, asked people, you bring the tablecloths, you bring the trash bags, you know, you bring the whatever. And, and it was very potluck style. And, and from there we found that our neighbors were just as hungry for community as we were. And, and really it started to explode. Wouldn't you say?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, people just started coming to these events. We really saw like the events were the excuse to get to know our neighbors. And so in a neighborhood that didn't have hardly any community at all, when we moved in, these events gave us an excuse to have people over to our, you know, we do the block party in our cul-de-sac or like at Halloween, our first Halloween in the neighborhood, we come out dressed up, you know, ready to do it. And there was nobody trick or treating in our neighborhood.

And it was like a ghost town, literally like pun intended, nobody was around. And so we left to go to a different neighborhood. But then, you know, two or three years after we started to get to know these neighbors through these events, we said, this isn't right.

Let's, let's tackle Halloween. And again, gave us an excuse to get to know people, to connect neighbors, to host a station where they get to know each other like a hot dog station or a hot chocolate station. And, and, and it just, it exploded. People were just having so much fun and we're just so excited to be getting to know their neighbors and the social fabric of our neighborhood was just, it just was so strengthened during, during those years. And so that was going, we were doing campus ministry and doing all these things and having spiritual conversations with neighbors as we interacted with them. But it wasn't, we didn't see it as this like ministry, you know, initially. One of the things you say in the book is neighboring is a part of God's big redemptive story. What do you, what do you mean by that?

Yeah. So we, this kind of touches back to what you guys were saying about how, you know, maybe growing up you, you knew the neighbors around you. So the Harvard School of Medicine did a really interesting study about 10 years ago where they found some surveys from a social survey that they had done in the fifties or sixties about what it meant to be a good neighbor.

So they looked at the data and basically the responses back where what you guys were talking about maybe and had experienced was you knew your next door. To be a good neighbor means you know your next door neighbor. You can introduce new neighbors to the current neighbors. You can rely on your next door neighbors for help. You maybe bring a pie when the new neighbors move in.

You invite them to your, the activities that you have going on in your life. So then they, then about 10 years ago they sent out the same survey and they said, what does it mean to be a good neighbor? The responses they got back were basically to be a good neighbor in our culture today is to basically leave people alone. So do you take out your trash and you smile and wave, but that's about it. Keep the music down.

Keep the music down. Don't get too involved in your neighbor's life because that's what it means to be a good neighbor. And so if you're, you know, if you're living in our culture, that's whether you know it or not, that's what your definition of is, of being a good neighbor is even as a believer. And so we say to be a good neighbor, we need to break out of that kind of cultural narrative and story and live out of God's story of redemption, which is, you know, demonstrated by Jesus coming to us. It's this movement towards us, towards others to believe that your address isn't an accident, that you've been placed for a purpose and God is working in your neighborhood and he wants to use you in that neighborhood.

So you can see the different, how you're going to show up in your neighborhood is going to be a lot different if you're living out of God's story of redemption versus the cultural story of what it means to be a good neighbor. You guys are intentional. You're living life on mission. I mean, you're a part of crew staff, so this is what you do. This is what you've given your lives to. So it's hard to kind of bifurcate, this is life and this is ministry.

They all fit together. But you said you started this because you really wanted to get to know your neighbors at the same time in the back of your mind had to be, and it might lead to spiritual conversations. How do you keep the neighboring priority and the ministry objective in proper tension? Because some people are like, you were saying, Ann, it's like, this is our project and our goal is to win our neighbors to Christ. We don't really care about getting to know them. We just want to win them to Jesus.

How have you processed that? We talk about motives in neighboring and it's been helpful for us to have ultimate motives. So in our book, we contrast ultimate versus ulterior motives. So with ultimate motives, we have this ultimate motive that our neighbors would come to know God and through a relationship with Jesus, that is the goal. And so we don't live as undercover Christians in our neighborhood.

We live out our faith, we serve, we love, we invest in friendships with that ultimate goal. And what that does is it frees us up to enjoy every part of the process and every part of those relationships. When you have ulterior motives, there is a sneakiness to what you're trying to do. So any act of love service or neighboring is done with the express kind of intention of getting in a church invite or trying to talk about your faith.

And it doesn't really count unless that happens. And so if you've ever talked to anybody and they've said, I don't want to feel like a project. Well, it's probably because they've interacted with somebody who's had ulterior motives with them. And so having that ultimate motive has really freed us up to enjoy every aspect of, of neighboring and getting to know our neighbors. There's kind of that bait and switch element when you have ulterior motives and in a way you only care about the spiritual aspect of their lives versus I think when you have ultimate motives and of course you like, like Chris said, you want them to know Jesus, but you're also caring about the whole thing. You're caring about the good of the neighborhood. You're caring about their aging parents. You're caring about their experience of parenting or grad school or whatever it is. So people are, they're aware if there's kind of that bait and switch. I mean, maybe even we've experienced kind of that on the other end of being the project.

No one wants to feel like that. People want to be in mutual relationships. And I think, I think when you live out of ultimate motives, if you aren't having ulterior motives and your neighbors see that, that you do want them to know Jesus, they're okay with that.

Um, because they know you do care about the whole thing. Yeah. I just wondered if, uh, if your neighbor, if you've been getting a no for months or whatever doesn't end up falling on their knees in your front yard and getting baptized in your pool, if you feel like a failure, do you ever feel like, wow, all we did was become a good neighbor.

They didn't take another spiritual step. Are you still good with that? I think for a long time we wondered as things were kind of getting rolling and we were watching God work like, um, where's this all going? Is it, is it okay to, to just have someone over for dinner? And if the conversation doesn't go to church or to something that's more overtly spiritual, is that all right? Or like Chris shares about, um, slinging cotton candy for hours.

Like, is that valuable? And, um, I think for us a turning point was one Sunday, we, we walked into church and there was a family that if, if we made a list of a lot of neighbors, we know quite a few, um, these would have been probably the last people we would have expected to see at church. Um, we knew them from the block parties. We knew them from, um, from the different events and it was kind of like a, a head turned like err, you know, um, oh my goodness. And, and as, as we walked in, I couldn't focus on the worship music.

I couldn't focus on the message. So I got into Facebook and messaged her and the wife and said, kind of like, do you come here often? Like I haven't seen you here before.

And um, and she, she wrote me back immediately. Um, she was probably in her car and um, she said, you know, we, we started coming to church for our kids because they told us that they didn't believe in God. And in the process we've found him ourselves. And basically, are you in a small group?

And if so, can we join? And it was like, yes, yes, yes. And so the next Sunday they walked through their backyard through our backyard and they had instant community.

And that was, uh, that was about four years ago and they're still in our small group. And it was one of those times where we thought, okay, this is, this is significant. We can see how here's a couple who when they were ready to give their lives to Christ, they had instant community.

They knew exactly who the Christians were. And um, and so that was when we started thinking, okay, maybe these small ordinary acts of slinging cotton candy or the relationships over time. Like we call neighboring. Neighboring is a, is more like a crock pot and less like a microwave.

It's low and slow. And so we'd been building relationships with this family for two or three years through all these neighboring activities and God showed up and worked. So zoom back and give us the big vision, which is again, back to that line, your address is not an accident. So how is it that you can step back and say, God is providentially placing us? I mean, it's in the title of your book for a purpose.

What's that look like? Cause that's sort of where it starts. I've got to have an understanding that this isn't random. This isn't even when I met a realtor and I ended up in this apartment or this somehow you're believing that God didn't, this wasn't an accident.

So talk about that. So, so, you know, as we were thinking more about this if you go back to Deuteronomy four, I mean, this is even just a theme throughout scripture, I think as God placing people for a purpose. And so if you look at Deuteronomy four, you know, the nation of Israel is getting ready to move into the promised land and Moses is saying, Hey, you know, God has given you these laws and in a large part to govern how you're going to treat each other when you move into this land. And when, when I place you in the land, the way you treat each other is going to reflect, you know, God's love, mercy, justice, and grace to the nations. So as the nations come and come through your land, they're going to look at how you're treating each other and say, what kind of God would, would bless this people with this kind of law?

You know, this must be an amazing God. So even with the neighbors, these were the neighbors. Yeah. Israel's neighbors are going to see this.

And so even for the nation of Israel, they weren't, they weren't placed in the land just to sit back and be like, sweet, we're home. We can just pull up into the honey. Yeah.

We can just pull into the driveway and close the garage door. Cause we're here. This is good. This is the end of the story. It's like, no, that was the, just the beginning of the story. Um, if you go to the new Testament, this is a passage that's really informed our view on this as well as when in, in acts 17, when Paul talks, he's in Athens and he talks about how God has laid out the boundary markers for us of where we will live and the time that we will spend on this earth. And so we're like, okay, God places Israel for a purpose to reflect his character.

Paul is bringing that theme and he's saying everyone is placed where they are for this purpose. And so we're like, well, what if that's what's happened with us in our neighborhood? What if God has placed us in our neighborhood with not as the end of the story, but just the beginning as a way to reflect his character to those around us, his love, his kindness, his justice, his mercy and peace. And if we say, okay, that's the reason why we're living in this house. Well then it's not going to be an accident that our neighbors who he's put in our neighborhood, that's not an accident either. He's placed them for a reason cause he's working in their life. And so if you begin to live that way and think that way, it totally changes the way you view your neighborhood and your neighbors and yourself and the role that God wants you to have, um, in your neighborhood.

Yeah. I mean, that's a beautiful perspective and it's a larger vision and it's convicting. I'm just going to say it's convicting because here's what happens. We get busy or in ministry, we're discipling these other people. And here's what I can think.

I don't have time for my neighbors. It's terrible you guys. And I feel like so convicted now. Thanks for this message today. But I think it's something we really all need to think about. Well, and I can also say just to bring some comfort, neighboring is also the most selfish ministry there is. So it's, trust me, it is incredibly enriching. We get so much more out of this that our neighbors do. Trust me, we are, we are the beneficiaries of so much from, from our neighbors.

I mean, they help when you think about the phrase, it takes a village. Our neighbors help raise our kids. When I was talking about being a young mom and needing my neighbors, I could not have made it through that season without my neighbors. And now I'm older and my kids are gone because I relate to that. And so now it's, it has to be more intentional on one part. Yeah. And I think, you know, where we started is, you know, Bob was talking about the differences in the generations, how we were sort of in each other's backyards and today we're not.

But I don't think the DNA of the human soul is any different. Even though our neighbors' garage doors may go down and they hibernate, and I'm not saying they, we do too, they still long for community. And so part of me is inspired to say, even to our listeners, to myself is we should become the event planners for our neighborhood. Like you guys, you guys are the event planners. You're creating opportunities to get neighbors together.

It's, it's, it's sort of like, that's what we should be. I'm going to hold you to that. Well, and some of the best neighbors in our neighborhood are empty nesters. I'll tell you what, on Halloween.

Oh, thanks for convicting me more. The empty nesters show up. They do. And I can't serve in some of the same ways that they can because they don't have little ones pulling them around. I mean, at some of the block parties, they'll show up and hold my babies or they're cleaning up afterwards or hosting stations. So they're running the neighborhood watch programs.

It's not just for young families is what I'm saying. And I'll add this because I'm guessing there's a listener or two right now saying Halloween? We don't do Halloween.

That's a pagan holiday. We stay away. And I would say this, if you want to reach your neighbors, put on a fun costume and walk up to a front door is you're going to meet your neighbors. Use Halloween as an opportunity to shine in it. Cause it's, it's an opportunity. People are going to come to your door, you're going to go to their door. It's a way to meet your neighbors.

So you can run from it or you can use it. We can respect the listener who holds that conviction for us. It really has been in some ways it's kind of our baby. It was a major turning point of when we saw our neighborhood come alive. The things we had done before that, everything changed when we went all in on Halloween, our relationships exponentially grew. It was like, Oh, the McKinney's really care about this place. There really was a sense of, um, something switched, something, something happened when they saw us as believers really get behind Halloween.

And for the listener who is thinking, okay, yeah, but you guys, this is what you do. You're, you're missionary staff with Cruz. So I got a full time job. I got other things that I'm doing.

That's good. You guys keep doing that, but I, I don't have space in my life. I think we've heard you say there are empty nesters.

There are other parents. This is not just something you do. You've helped catalyze it, but all the neighbors are in on this and any listener can get a copy of your book placed for a purpose and catch a vision for this.

Not just a vision, but you guys, you map out a strategy for how we can engage with our neighbors ultimately keeping a kingdom mindset in the midst of that. Chris and Elizabeth's book is called placed for a purpose, a simple and sustainable vision for loving your next door neighbors. You can order the book from us online and family life today.com or you can call one 800 FL today to get a copy of the McKinney's book.

Again, it's called placed for a purpose. Go to family life today.com to order or call one 800 three five eight six three two nine. That's one 800 F as in family L as in life. And then the word today, you know, this day is a significant day for all of us who are followers of Christ. This is the day when we pause to remember the last supper, the Passover meal that Jesus had with his disciples on the day before he was crucified. As we head into this weekend and think about the death and resurrection of Christ, I want all of you who are family life today listeners to know that what we celebrate this weekend is at the heart of everything we do here at family life. Our mission to effectively develop godly marriages and families underneath that mission is an understanding that the only way you can effectively develop godliness in your marriage and in your family is with a focus on the gospel and understanding that the death and resurrection of Christ is the central event in all of human history and the implications of the cross and the resurrection, our forgiveness, our new life in Christ, our living now for eternity. That reshapes everything about us.

It reshapes our marriages and our lives. Here at family life, the gospel commitment is really at the heart of everything that we do and so as you prepare to meditate on the death of Christ this weekend to celebrate his resurrection this weekend, I just wanted to remind you that this is at the heart of all that we do here at family life. Thank you for your support of this ministry year in and year out. We are so grateful that you join us, that you listen. Let me just say this, if you don't know Christ, if you don't have a relationship with God through Jesus, I want to point you to our website familylifetoday.com. There's a link there that talks about two ways to live. Don't head into this weekend, into the Easter weekend without pausing to consider your relationship with Jesus and all that he has done for us at the cross.

Again go to familylifetoday.com and click on the link that says two ways to live to find out more about what it means to have a relationship with God through Christ. And we hope you can join us again tomorrow as we continue talking about what it means to love your neighbor. Chris and Elizabeth McKinney will be back with us. Hope you can be here as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch. We got some extra help from Bruce Goff and of course our entire broadcast production teams involved. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Hope for today, hope for tomorrow.