Book Review: The Art of Neighbouring

image from here.

This weekend, I'm looking forward immensely to heading down to St. Albans for the Vineyard Churches UK and Ireland "Cause to Live For" conference. It was whilst looking around Twitter for tweets about the conference that I came across a tweet saying I could get this book, Jay Pathak's "The Art of Neighboring", for free on Kindle. Knowing that Pathak was one of the speakers at CTLF last year, and having had him mightily recommended to me by some of my close church friends, I took that (£0.00!) plunge and had it sent to my kindle app. I've been reading it avidly since then, and its a belter! Important note - whilst the title is spelt 'neighboring', I've decided to spell it properly in the rest of my review, ie, 'neighbouring'. Thanks.

Pathak and Runyon take as their starting point one of the simplest, and yet most challenging things Jesus has to say; "Love your neighbour as yourself". Following the prerequisite evangelical book-insert about how busy our modern life is, the authors (chopping and changing constantly, which slightly did my head in) delve into what that actually means when we are doing life in our street, apartment block, or road. The authors go straight for the jugular - helping neighbours must necessarily mean our literal neighbours. Too often we justify ourselves by the taxes we pay, the tithes we offer, or the service that we do for others through church. Thats particularly easy in our fast-paced culture, where we schedule in our loving of neighbours, and streamline neighbours to 'anyone who isn't us'. Whilst remaining intelligently engaged with Jesus, the authors of this book challenge us to take "neighbours" literally.

This point is boldly made in one of my favourite quotes from the book;

"If we don't take Jesus's command literally, then we turn the Great Commandment into nothing more than a metaphor. We have a metaphoric love for our metaphoric neighbours, and our communities are changed - but only metaphorically, of course". (p.34)

I completely agree. What is great about these two authors is that the recognise the difficulties of this approach, and the hard reality of modern life and modern relationships. Helpfully, though, they are very good at providing simple ways to actually develop relationships, with the ultimate aim of furthering God's kingdom. One of these is the image that appears on the front of the book, the "Block Map". Centered on ones own home, this is a simple map of the houses and people in your area. The nearest eight houses, and the inhabitants therein, are the subject of this simple excercise. The Block Map is the first step in understanding whats going on in your neighbourhood, and building relationships.

I mentioned in the above paragraph about the aim of building relationships with neighbours. Pathak and Runyon helpfully distinguish between 'ulterior' and 'ultimate' motives. We should love people unconditionally, but with the ultimate motive of seeing them saved and living for Jesus in his kingdom. It is very easy to relate to people with an ulterior motive, to be friends with people solely for the purposes of evangelism. I've been guilty of that in the past - even if some people have only been in relationship with me because of my Playstation or former Whiskey collection - and it is unbecoming of a follower of Jesus. I'm grateful to Runyon and Pathak for this section, and observation, as it is a real challenge to how we do mission and evangelism amongst our neighbours.

Pathak and Runyon deeply 'get' the culture they are in. And whilst it is an American culture, there is a lot that we can learn from them in the UK. There is a great observation, based on culture-makers like films, that I found challenging;

"The movies we watch tell us a lot about what we value in our culture. We don't value consistency. On the whole, we are convinced that we need to make a big splash to make a difference, just being a good neighbour isn't that big a deal.

But Jesus says being a good neighbour is exactly the kind of life that can change the world. This simple truth can change everything: small things matter. They really do"

I think they are right. Being a good neighbour is a great step towards changing the world. We can expand that out to a global impact (though that might come under the label of being a 'disciple', as the late John Stott explored expertly in his final book "The Radical Disciple"), but it starts small, like a mustard seed.

I thoroughly enjoyed this readable, challenging and relevant little book. It re-invigorated me to think intentionally about being a disciple in my community, on our little cul-de-sac. It challenged me to take Jesus literally, at his word, when he is speaking directly into my life. You can get this book from Amazon, though unfortunately the Kindle version is no longer free - but it is just £4.50 as a digital book. Hard copies obviously also available. Highly recommended.