PCA Conversations

by Jeff White

Our family moved to the Harlem community in 1998 to begin New Song Community Church.  We have learned many things over the ensuing years about what it means to be followers of Christ.  But at the heart of it all has been the discovery that the highest calling in the Christian life is not pastor, nor missionary, nor volunteer, but that of neighbor.  And that, of course, is a title that belongs not just to a few of us but to all of us. Jesus in summarizing what it means to live well before the face of God says: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind.  Love your neighbor as yourself.”  The call to love our neighbors–and therefore to be neighbors–is central to what it means to be fully human.

Think about the term neighbor.  It implies mutuality.  It is not a relationship in which one person is superior to the other.  It is not a relationship in which one person exclusively gives and the other exclusively receives.  It refers to people who stand on the same ground and share the same space. It describes people who are shoulder to shoulder and face to face. Neighbors maintain a posture of mutual humility in which we honor each other as those who bear the image of God.  We recognize in our neighbors those who have gifts and strengths from which we can benefit and learn, regardless of the differences in educational backgrounds, race, religious affiliations or socio-economic status.  We trust that they will look at us similarly.

Christians have the great gift of the gospel to give their neighbors, but this in no way implies that we are better than others.  While few people would explicitly make such a claim, that is often the posture that Christians take (in spite of the clear gospel teaching that we are ALL sinners).  We act superior. Taking such a posture, even subtly, undermines the possibility of a genuine relationship. However, when you have a firm understanding of yourself as a neighbor with its implied mutuality, then authentic and meaningful connections can take place.  Sharing the good news of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection in such a context is especially fitting.

In its most obvious sense neighbors are those who live in close proximity to one another.  Our family’s experience in Harlem has allowed us to explore these kinds of neighbor relationships in ways that we had never done before.  A deliberate and intentional approach to immerse ourselves in the life of the immediate community uncovered great riches from which we gleaned much.  Our neighbors look after each other and lean on one another.  They grieve with each other and they rejoice with each other.  They understand that they have claims on one another.  They bear one another’s burdens.  They demonstrate care for each other’s children. “Better to have a neighbor close at hand than a friend far away” goes the saying.  The truth and power of that have been in clear evidence.

The mobility of our society invariably leads us to expand our definition of neighbor to include those who don’t live within walking distance.  Still we need to recover a sense that the God who “determined the exact places where we should live” (Acts 17:26) has placed on us a special obligation to be neighborly to those who live in our apartment buildings and blocks.  Think of what would happen to the quality of life in the city if we took that seriously!

The call to love our neighbors as ourselves truly raises the stakes.  What you would want for yourself you are to desire for your neighbors and give yourself to that end. At New Song, that has meant developing substantial educational programs so young people are able to excel at their academics in the same way that we want our children to excel.  It has meant starting to develop decent affordable housing just as we would want for ourselves.  It has meant cultivating a youth ministry that encourages teenagers to develop into all God intends for them to be just as we desire that for our teenagers. The fact the some of us were born with economic resources and others without them quite apart from anything we have done serves to increase our desire to see the most troubling inequities eliminated.  At the same time, we want to avoid activities that would harm our neighbors or lead to injustice. At its best this desire arises neither from guilt or pity, but from a passion for justice and genuine love.  Jesus’ genuine love for us manifested on the cross–through which we have complete forgiveness and which assures us that God is on our side–is that which fuels our ability to engage in costly neighbor love.

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Jeff White is the planter and pastor of New Song Community Church in Harlem, which recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary.