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Five Suggestions
by Chick Yuill

 

Chick Yuill  -  Yuill approaches the challenge from moving into a new neighbourhood and offers some great advice.

Rather than tell you what I would do if I was ‘taking new territory’, I want to tell you five principles that Margaret and I have followed since we moved into our present house 8 years ago.  We have a strong sense that we are here not by chance, but very much by God’s will with a ministry in and to the neighbourhood.  We regard ourselves as a missional unit, modelling the gospel to our neighbours.

Presence

Previously in our married life, Margaret and I have lived in the Army quarters, and, of course, everyone had seen us coming and going in our uniforms. We always had good relationships with our neighbours and they were always very much aware of who were and what we believed and practised.  However, when we moved into this neighbourhood, we decided on a different approach  -  we’d go ‘under the radar’. We didn’t announce to anyone ‘We’re Christians and Salvationists.’  We decided that we’d simply live as followers of Jesus and see what happened.  We believe that our first task is to be salt and light, ‘to live in such a way that it makes no sense unless there is a God’, and then to watch what God is doing.  It’s proving to be very interesting…

Prayer

Margaret has a particular ministry of prayer.  We were among the first people to move into the estate, so as others followed, she took some flowers and a card to welcome them.  Then she came home and put their names in her prayer book;  she prays for them regularly.  She regularly prayer-walks the neighbourhood.  The birth of a new baby or a crisis in a family gives opportunity not only for a card offering congratulations or sympathy, but also for prayer.  We regularly tell our neighbours that we are praying for them and on several occasions we have prayed with them.  It’s fascinating to discover that even in post-Christendom, post-modern, secularised Britain people always seem to appreciate someone praying for them

Service

Margaret sums up her sense of calling to this neighbourhood in these words:  ‘I want to be the neighbour that everyone knows and trusts’.  That means looking after a neighbour’s house when they’re on vacation, mowing the lawn for the folk next door, visiting an elderly couple in our street, writing a letter for a young mum who wants to get her child into the right school  -  and a hundred and one other simple but significant actions.  We try to ‘live in such a way that it makes no sense unless there is a God’.

Worship and witness

I’m often saddened by the number of Christians  -  especially Church leaders  -  who are so busy with church business that they don’t even know the name of their next-door neighbours.  One of the most important things we do is to extend hospitality to our neighbours.  We have shared food, among others, with a Muslim family, with neighbours from mainland China who have little understanding of the Christian faith, with a gay couple who recently got married, with a neighbour who is a sworn atheist.  We don’t try to defend ‘Christianity’.  We simply tell them that we are imperfect but passionate followers of Jesus and that, as part of his church, we want to bring his love to the place where we live.

A couple of times a year, I make sure that I’m not preaching anywhere so that we can be at home on a Sunday morning, because that’s when most of our neighbours are at home. And we invite around 30 people to have breakfast with us in our yard.  Since we regard every meal as sacramental, every time we eat with our neighbours it is, by its very nature, an act of worship and witness.  And one of the highlights of the year for us comes every December when we hold Neighbourhood Carols.  Last Christmas over 100 people crammed into our drive to hear the Christmas story, sing of the nativity, and receive a Christmas blessing.

Waiting & watching

We feel we’re only at the beginning of this. So we’re waiting and watching for whatever it is that God might want to do in us, through us, and  -  when he needs to  -  in spite of us.

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

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