By Corey Fields
When two women who had spent years serving the community decided to start a new venture in Topeka’s poorest neighborhood, they knew they were going into a place plagued by crime, dysfunction and poverty.
There was one reality in this neighborhood, however, that was much more of a factor than they expected: isolation. By and large, neighbors didn’t know each other. “We found people trying to live life alone,” one of them said.
This neighborhood is the pilot site for a community development effort called NETReach, which seeks to “reduce homelessness and strengthen communities through education, empowerment, safety and mentorship.”
It started with parties and community dinners. In the minds of the organizers, this would help them get to know the residents and spread the word. The events were better attended than predicted. But something else was happening: the neighbors were meeting each other for the first time.
As the ministry has developed to include many different initiatives, the common thread has been the building of community. “People have been sitting at these tables and realizing, ‘Hey, you’re struggling with the same stuff I am,’” said director Sally Zellers.
People were desperate for social interaction and gatherings they could look forward to. “While many American families [seem to] have something every single night, for many of these families the community meal is the only thing they have,” said staff member Cathy Ramshaw.
The effect has been noticeable: People have taken more pride in their property and neighborhood. Crime has gone down and police are called less often. As one volunteer put it, “You’re less likely to shoot someone you just had dinner with.”
But before we look at such neighborhoods with a sense of superiority or patronizing thoughts of, “Keep up the good work,” let us not forget that this lack of community is not just a problem in poor neighborhoods. Isolation and fear-based individualism know no socioeconomic class. To an extent, we have all forgotten how to be neighbors. We have forgotten how to be citizens. We have forgotten how to be community.
The Declaration of Independence concludes with a great sentence: “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” It’s hard to find such a posture toward the other in today’s society. We seem to view things like “freedom” and “rights” on an individual level and use them to keep others at a distance. In the current climate, we’re sometimes not even willing to share space or tax dollars with people we don’t like, much less make sacrifices for each other. It’s easier than ever to pass each other by and never truly encounter each other.
Robert Putnam, in his 2000 book Bowling Alone, wrote of a decline in “social capital.” This refers to the connections we form with others that encourage civic engagement that is based on mutual understanding (rather than just being protest oriented). Putnam showed that high social capital is positively correlated with better public health, economic equality and even healthier habits like less TV watching.
Yet, “social capital” is only part of the story. The church has a tremendous role to play in response to the detached, combative individualism we see today.
Sometimes we wonder how to keep the church “relevant.” If there’s ever been a niche for us to fill — a role to which God seems to be calling us — it’s this: modeling how to live together.
Of course, we have our share of failures, and as long as the church is made up of humans, we will. But we are uniquely positioned — and uniquely called — to model community as God intended it. It’s how Jesus said we would be recognized (John 13:35).
The key concept is koinonia, a New Testament Greek word that has no good English equivalent. It’s often translated “fellowship,” which today often refers to religious gatherings in which we can eat, have surface level conversations, and then be on our way (i.e., avoid community). Koinonia refers to an open and vulnerable sharing of life.
The word first appears in Acts 2:42-47, the well-known description of the early church and the way that they “broke bread in their homes,” shared their possessions, and “had everything in common.” There’s a reason the apostle Paul described the church as a “body” instead of a collection of saved individuals. We bear the image of Christ together, not alone.
Some have called for the recovery of the ancient practice of Christian hospitality. Far from the industry of pampering or surface level service that the word often refers to today, Christian hospitality, Christine Pohl says, it has a “subversive, counter-cultural dimension” that welcomes the stranger and grants dignity to the marginalized.
Perhaps the reason this is so rare is because it’s so hard. The NETReach ministry has brought people together who would have never crossed paths otherwise, and it hasn’t exactly been warm and fuzzy. People from very different neighborhoods and backgrounds have formed friendships, and in so doing have had to navigate awkward differences in lifestyle, habits and beliefs. They’ve encountered a culture of distrust which takes years to get beyond. But they’ve also found a valuable treasure: koinonia. “The beloved community,” as Martin Luther King Jr. put it.
Our world desperately needs the church to model what this looks like. Why the church? Because it is only Christ who creates and maintains this space of grace and welcome. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in Life Together, it is only in Christ that our very different lives are bound together:
[Our] fellowship is founded solely upon Jesus Christ and this ‘alien righteousness’…. Without Christ we should not know God, we could not call upon him, nor come to him. But without Christ we also could not know our brother, nor could we come to him. The way is blocked by our own ego. Christ opened the way to God and our brother.
This is our calling and witness. We must model community. Only the church can show what it means to be a part of the body of Christ, where the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you’ (1 Cor 12:21), and where even those in the streets and alleys are compelled to come in (Luke 14:21-23).