we have no community

i don't know my neighbors.

whose fault is that? well, mine and my neighbors i suppose. i've been reflecting on my lack of community recently. the first question that may come to the minds of most evangelicals when they hear i have no community is whether i have joined a church. my reply is no, i have not joined a church because well, i'm not willing to settle. i don't know how many times in the last three months i've heard "don't look for what a church can give you, but look for what you can give to the church." and you know what that's a good point, i appreciate the anti-consumer approach as well as the jfk rip-off. but, i'm asking a further question in my search; what is this church giving to others? call me idealistic, but i want to gather together with a body of believers yearning to share all that Jesus has with a hurting world. is there not a church in fort worth built around that principle? i'm patient. i can wait until i find a church that is outwardly focused. there has to be one some where around here, right?

back to community. i am surrounded by 600,000 people and i have no community. i live in a neighborhood with hundreds of other seminary students and i have no community. my neighbor could die tomorrow and i wouldn't find out until the next chapel service when our president asked us to pray for their family. wait, i wouldn't know then either because i don't know their names. you see, it is my fault as well as theirs. however, we are only continuing a lifestyle created before us in which we all have been raised. why else is this the case for 98% of americans? we didn't choose it and yet we choose it every day. sound familiar? we are so lonely yet we do not know love well enough to recognize our own loneliness.

i was blessed to live in a tight community last year. it had its difficulites, but rarely did i have to do anything without one of my best friends right beside me. now, i'm expected to do everything alone because i am a single male and i'm supposed to be an individual, independent from everyone. you know what, i can do it without a community around me, but my quality of life while doing it won't be the same. do you see? every day we close ourselves into our homes with our things all around us, with our tv's blaring, our computer monitors on the most recent sports page, and we live with no realization of how terribly lonely we are.

i consider myself to be a fairly healthy individual with a pretty optimistic outlook on life. i attribute these things to my parents, my extended family, and to my faith. but the majority of our society never had these three things, let alone one or two of them. i can handle being alone...i'd just rather not. i dream of life without television and the internet (ironic that i'm using it now i know, i'm not opposed to it) and without cars. in my opinion these three things have done the most to destroy any sense of community. we are sucked inside by television and the internet, while cars allow us travel across town to friends we rarely see instead of spending time with those in our more immediate circle whom we could share our lives with on a daily basis.

we could ride bicycles everywhere and we'd be healthy too.