"We invited our neighbours"

"Alison and I really enjoyed the series on ‘The Art of Neighbouring’ that we followed with our small group. It encouraged us to actively seek out opportunities to interact with our neighbours and to demonstrate the loving kindness of Jesus with our words and actions. We’d been talking about hosting something for several years, so we decided to invite our neighbours to a Christmas drinks party at our house.

We’ve lived in our current home for 11 years. We often chat to our immediate neighbours and a few others, but we don’t know the further away neighbours very well. Some we knew by name and some by sight, but we were keen to take the next step and become more than passing acquaintances.
Alison designed some invitations, and I delivered them to all the houses in our section of the road. We purchased some drinks and food, tidied the house to make it more presentable and waited eagerly to see if anyone would show up!

Quite a few neighbours came. We learned names we didn’t know and introduced them to the ones we did. We chatted about life, what they did and found out a little more about who they were. We discovered that two of our neighbours had moved in on the same day 48 years ago! So they knew each other pretty well!

But it was great for everyone to meet people they had lived close to for many months or years and hardly knew, and to have time for a proper chat.

We have some lovely neighbours, and it is our hope that we can continue to forge closer relationships, chat to them with a little more understanding of who they are, and find more ways to share the love of Jesus with them. We’re already planning a summer BBQ!"

-Michael and Alison