My Friend's House

When this blog was started 9 months ago, I never imagined the transformation on the street that would take place on my own street. I learned quickly that if I was going to ask people to take a risk and get out of their comfort zone, I would need to go first.

I would make observations of what I saw just or didn’t see on my own street and began a journey of what it meant to be a good neighbor, and a Christian neighbor. I started seeing opportunities to engage like never before. Please allow me to share some of those changes and opportunities.

The first thing I learned was that if someone just showed a little initiation, other neighbors were ready to jump in and they were very appreciative of the host of the engagement opportunity. When I used inclusive words and phrases like “We”, “Our neighborhood”, “Our street”, or “Let’s” people felt included and engaged.

Neighborhood BBQ

We hosted our first neighborhood BBQ on the 4th of July. We printed out fliers for the neighbor girl to pass them out to each neighbor. We also had a neighborhood group text that was primarily used for “neighborhood watch” type conversations and used it as a tool for reminding about the BBQ and for any questions that needed to be answered.

We owned some pop up covers to provide shade, picked up some simple decorations and toys for the neighborhood kids. The toys we purchased were engaging toys, like sidewalk chalk, bubbles, kites, glider airplanes and balls for playing catch. We provided the meat for the neighbors and sent out a list of foods that would be needed.

What we learned…

1. Neighbors brought what they wanted to bring for food to go with the meat. That’s when it became clear who were those that loved to bake and who had a special dish that they took great joy in preparing.
2. It was easy to offer a prayer over the meal before eating; especially when you open with thanking God for giving you such wonderful neighbors.
3. The age range was from a few months old to 88 years of age. Some neighbors naturally talked with other neighbors, easily conversing, but I did notice that our two oldest seniors did not have people engage with them very much, and they may have been the most isolated on our street. I learned that as the host, I needed to engage with them most and pull people into the conversation with our oldest seniors.
4. When we used the neighborhood group text, we delegated the responsibility to a neighbor to keep track of what was being brought for a side dish. Because it was our first time hosting, I would do differently the next BBQ. It was a little stressful being left in the dark about who was bringing what. We didn’t know our neighbors well enough yet to delegate when were out of our comfort zone already. Part of that discomfort was lack of faith, part of it was wanting more control.

Our first attempt was such a hit that we scheduled another BBQ for the following month. That day became an icebreaker for our street. Not because we didn’t know each other at all, but it gave us a reason to get to know each other better.

❤️ PRAY ❤️LOOK ❤️LISTEN ❤️ENGAGE