front-porch
7 Reasons Your Church Should have a Front Porch
In People, Practice by Patrick ScrivenApril 1, 20155 Comments
Do you know your neighbors well enough to realize whether something horrible is happening in the house down the street? To call them if you need help? To trust that they’d put themselves at risk to help you?AAuthor Peter Lovenheim asked these questions in an opinion piece he wrote for The Washington Post following the rescue of several individuals who were held captive for a decade in a Cleveland home. It’s a great article worthy of your time and consideration.
The neighborhood my family lives in is pleasant with well kept homes, lawns, and its fair share of high fences. It is also quiet and you have to be quite forward, and most certainly extroverted, if you want to get to know your neighbors. It is typical of many neighborhoods built in the late 20th century where the privacy of a backyard and interior comfort trumped the desire to create shared communal space.

TRICK-OR-TREAT BY MATT VIA FLICKR, CC 3.0.
In contrast to our neighborhood is a different one just down the hill. While backyards and fences still abound, a commons with a playground is central. Most of the homes also have a feature that the ones in our neighborhood don’t; a front porch. When Halloween came around last Fall, this neighborhood was frenetic as the act of trick or treating became an all ages street party. In contrast, our neighborhood remained quiet.
While we might be tempted to overlook the value of a front porch, where one spends their time seems to make all the difference. My wife grew up in an older neighborhood where porches were common and I am regularly amazed at the information one accrues through impromptu encounters while porch-sitting. Years later, and thousands of miles away, she is still more likely to recall the names (and sordid details of the lives) of those neighbors she grew up with than the ones who live around us today.
The same thing is true for churches; each chooses, intentionally or unintentionally, a direction to orient its corporate life. Some churches spend their days lounging about on the front porch, developing a real awareness of, and becoming known by, their neighbors. Others spend their energy, almost exclusively, hosting weekly meals around the dinner table (worship) and the occasional social barbecue in the backyard (potlucks).
Does your church know its neighborhood well enough to know its urgent and persistent needs?
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In this era where so many churches are struggling to grow and connect with new people, I wonder if it isn’t long overdue that we reevaluate where we spend our time and energy. Some churches already understand the value of connecting with their neighbors, deeply listening, and letting ministry flow from what bubbles up. These churches have done the hard work of shifting their orientation from inward to outward.
Churches that reorient themselves outward tend to develop some unique characteristics that stand in contrast to those experienced in churches that focus inward. Here are 7 reasons your church may want to move toward an outward-oriented ministry on the front porch.
Front porch churches know their neighbors because they spend time out on the community.Relationships created out in the neighborhood allow front porch churches to find unexpected partners that share common goals even when they don’t share all of the same beliefs. Backyard churches know themselves and those who they are comfortable with. When need arises, they have to rely on their own strength or that of other like-mined churches.
Front porch churches chance upon social interaction. Because they spend a good deal of their time in the community, front porch churches are advantaged in developing more informal, some might say real, connections with people. In contrast, backyard churches need to invite people they often don’t know to something they increasingly (as non-churched populations grow) may not be all that familiar with or fight other backyard churches for the same initiated few.
Front porch churches are more ready to offer hospitality because they are familiar with, and unafraid of, their neighborhood’s diversity. Visitors are greeted and welcomed without as many assumptions and judgments because the neighborhood and the church community overlap significantly. In backyard churches, existing relationships are needed to shepherd all but the bravest through the awkward moments preceding, during, and directly after Sunday morning worship. Visitors who are different from the communal norm receive alternating looks of suspicion and desperation.
Front porch churches welcome interruption. Because they have relationships with, and a legitimate love of, the surrounding community, interruptions are more likely to be welcomed. Backyard churches are more easily annoyed with the neighbors because interruptions from the strangers over the fence derail the intricately planned programs that we depend upon to lead to life.
Front porch churches offer safe transitional spaces to join. Backyard churches believe that Sunday Morning Worship is their front porch and that all good people share their values and interests. But in a port-Christian context, a time with as many coded, and cryptic, practices as the typical worship service is hardly comfortable to a visitor.
Front porch churches aren’t afraid to declare who they are and what they are about.
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Front porch churches aren’t afraid to declare who they are and what they are about. Because the front porch is a space they live in, these communities start to move some of their belongings out with them as they understand the hospitality of a comfortable rocking chair. In practice, this requires church folks to translate their faith for the world. In contrast, our backyards, great as they can be for privacy, also suggest we have something to hide. Our devout practice internally reinforces our tendency to bifurcate our spiritual and secular lives.
Front porch churches serve more lemonade while backyard churches host more potlucks. There is nothing at all wrong with potlucks, assuming the egg salad has been kept at an adequate temperature, but they aren’t an effective outreach event. Churches that live on their front porch are more likely to plan events with the community in their foremost thoughts. Healthy churches recognize the value of each and find the appropriate balance.
The questions from Lovenheim that we opened with are troubling because in so many cases, the answereach is no. Despite the close proximity of our homes, Americans have never been quite as isolated as we are today.
Where there is a challenge for society, there is also an opportunity for the church to step in and help neighborhoods to build real community. But we don’t get to contribute without doing the hard work of reorienting our ministry outward.
So, does your church know its neighborhood well enough to know its urgent and persistent needs? Has it developed the relationships that lead to collaboration and trust in times of need? Is it known and valued by people in the community who don’t consider themselves members?
If you can say yes to each of these, I suspect you are already doing great ministry on your proverbial front porch. If your answer is no, perhaps it is time to reconsider that upcoming potluck and plan instead what you might do out on the front porch.
AUTHOR INFO

Patrick Scriven Facebook Twitter Google+I'm a husband who married well, a father of three amazing girls, and a seminary educated lay person working professionally in the church.
Image Credit: “What a front porch should be” by Flickr user Angie Garrett, Creative Commons.
Nobody likes change, but change is crucialSANTA BARBARA, Calif. (UMNS) — 
NOBODY LIKES CHANGE
By Joseph Yoo

Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man / Image courtesy Marvel Comics
Nobody likes change.
When people claim that they love change, what they really mean is they love to be the implementers of change. Nobody likes change sprung upon them.
When Facebook rolls out a new layout or changes in policy, people flip.
When Apple rolled out the Lightning charger for their iPhones and iPads, people flipped because they had to upgrade/change all their accessories.
When Marvel introduced us to Miles Morales, the new Spider-Man, people were upset because Miles wasn't Peter Parker. (Read: white.)
When rumors of Idris Elba possibly being James Bond surfaced, people went ballistic because James Bond is white, not black. People were also upset with Daniel Craig as James Bond because Bond has brown eyes, not blue.
The point is — nobody likes change. But change is necessary for survival.
One of the reasons why many of our churches are in decline is because of our inability to change and adapt to the changing times and culture. Some of our local United Methodist Churches serve as time capsules — you walk in and all of a sudden you're transported back into the 70s and 80s. Don't get me wrong, the message of the gospel is universal and timeless. But we can't deliver that message in the same style, manner and method we used in the 70s, 80s, and/or 90s. For the most part, you won't reach young folks with camp songs that were sung in the 80s. So why do we insist on doing that and calling it our "contemporary service?" But I digress.
While change is necessary for survival, it's also scary. Change confronts us with the uncertainty of the future. If everything changes, the thing that I’ve held as familiar, as comfortable, as safe will be gone. Then what am I left with?
One of the biggest hurdles for change in our local churches is the fear of not knowing what that future holds or what it will look like. So while we may acknowledge the need to change, we're afraid to change. And one of the negative effects of that fear is that we cling tightly to what was. We create sacred cows of things not really sacred: the color of the carpet, the church furniture; that banner with the Lord's Prayer which has 100 years worth of dust caked on. I'm reminded of the Israelites after they crossed the Red Sea.
The Israelites said to [Moses and Aaron], "Oh, how we wish that the Lord had just put us to death while we were still in the land of Egypt. There we could sit by the pots cooking meat and eat our fill of bread. Instead, you’ve brought us out into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death." (Exodus 16:3)
The Israelites are basically saying they'd rather be slaves in Egypt than free and uncertain of the future — even though God is literally guiding them; even after the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea.
At least in Egypt, we had food, they lament.
I find it interesting how they so easily remember the meat and the bread but neglect to mention that they were slaves in Egypt.
Oftentimes the unknown future can be so frightening to people that they'd rather be stuck in the past — no matter how awful that past may be — because at least they're familiar with it. They'd rather face the enemy that they know than face a future of endless possibilities.
Instead of focusing on the promised land where milk and honey flows, they can't look beyond their current situation. So they turn to the past.
I wish I could give you answers on how to deal with congregations that are lamenting like the Israelites when changes need to be made. Like many of my colleagues, I'm navigating through the tension and fear of past and future, and many days I’m not doing a very good job at it.
I'm reminded of Andy Stanley's words: "Vision leaks."
While it's important to have a clear and concise mission/vision statement, it's important that everyone buys into the vision/mission statement and not just the pastor and leadership team. It's our job to continue to point to the bigger purpose that God has for our churches and to remind folks that God is always faithful. And it's up to us leaders to discern whether we need to gently remind them of our purpose and mission with a loving nudge or knock them over the head with it (in a loving and grace-filled way, of course).
God provided for the Israelites. God is always faithful.May you find strength, courage, wisdom, and grace in God — who is our source for everything — as you continue to lead your people to live out God's vision for them.
Looking ahead: