Recently we moved house - staying in the same overall area, but moving from one block to another about ten minutes walk away. Naturally amongst the upheaval it has been hard to maintain normal rhythms and the prayer focus for neighbours that we have had over the past 22 months.
Our original near neighbours are not that far away, but now we have new near neighbours to meet, bless and pray for! Therefore part of emerging from the chaos of moving house has involved a kind of 're-set and re-run' of our intentional prayer & incarnational living dynamic. It has meant starting afresh:
- meeting & discovering people who live close by. This includes meeting people who will live close by - their house is not finished yet so they will be moving here in weeks to come
- walking around the area prayerfully, being open to notice and pay attention to whatever we might see
- starting to map out who is who, and put names of neighbours on paper slips so we can pray for them from time to time
- praying into and working out how to make diary space to be able to meet up and get to know neighbours better
We are just getting this re-set going, but it serves as a good reminder of the basic rhythms & practices of incarnational living - the desire to live among and minister to whoever is around us, seeking the Spirit's lead and unfolding.
A key difference to last time is that being in the same area, we already have a diary of community activities that we are plugged into and serving among, and we have a whole number of contacts and people we are working with (accumulated from the last 22 months of mission activity). In that sense we are not totally starting again from scratch, so we could easily devote our energy and focus to maintaining those good good efforts. But the personal calling we feel is to intentionally make space and time for our nearest neighbours: so the re-set and re-run of the basic practices listed above warrant our attention and priority.
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