Many are familiar with the ancient Biblical narrative of the Good Samaratin. The story intended to answer the question about who is one's neighbor. Who are we responsible to care for and take interest in?
Surfing some of my different blogs of interest, I happened upon this one on the Doable Evangelism site from Off the Map. I encourage you to click your way directly to the post link above and read the whole message for yourself. However, I can't help but quote from the message and recognize the similarities to the little parable by Jesus.
If you were to stop reading for a moment, look up, and look around you, you would find that your community is surrounding you. It’s the people at the coffee shop you go to everyday or the grocery store that you frequent. It isn’t just family and friends. Your community is everyone who steps into your path of vision, peripheral or otherwise. It takes a little extra effort, a lot of listening, and at times extreme patience, but it is never lonely.
Yes, community (neighbors) is often all around us. Sometimes it just takes eyes and time to engage them it as such. I think maybe the same can apply to the search for kindred spiritual spirits. I've heard of people basing their decisions to move to one town or another based upon whether their particular brand of Christianity (denomination) is in the desired location or not. For me, thinking about how the Body of Christ can be present anywhere God's Spirit has wooed a heart into following Him, it then opens up the possibilities immensely to where one might find spiritual community. In fact, I wonder if spiritual community surrounds me a lot more than I may at first realize because I'm too busy reading labels (different religions, denominations, race, social class, gender, etc.)?
God, what "church member" are you going to bring me into contact with next?
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