CONNECT WITH NEIGHBORS
Connection and Community
As you meet and get to know your neighbors, don’t be afraid to initiate. Everyone wants to be known and loved.
Three simple ideas for connection you can try today:
- Invite someone to join you for coffee, a walk, or a meal. You don’t have to cook. Store-bought items are perfect and feed hungry friends too. Remember, it’s not about the food, but the conversations that will happen around your table. If you want to meet other neighbors, nightly after-dinner walks can help you see who is outside. Evening walks are a great time to introduce yourself to people who you won’t see out and about during working hours.
- Be mindful of others. When you make cookies or a loaf of bread for yourself, double the recipe and deliver the extra to a neighbor. As you run daily errands, ask if they need anything from the store. Notice needs and offer to help (bring in a large load of groceries, cut the grass, etc.)
- Initiate and attend fun events for your neighbors and possibly their children. Hosting a neighbor block party is a great way to mingle and get to know others. Or try these fun ideas: go bowling or set up a park playdate. Be a part of what is already going on around you. Attend neighborhood socials, say yes to playing games, join organized sports or your community pool.
As we connect with neighbors, a thriving community will be a natural overflow of those connections. Over time, neighbors begin to care for one another, and relationships will deepen.
Instead of independent houses sitting in isolation one right after another, imagine a community of people caring for one another and becoming a place where friendships grow. Building a community takes prayer, time, and intentionality. It does not happen overnight.
Three aspects of a community:
- Real friendships
Be on the lookout for ways to introduce neighbors to neighbors: on walks, at a potluck, cook-out, or fire pit night. Create a community where people call on one another for help, spend time together, and know what is going on in one another’s lives. - True hospitality
Hospitality is not about the way our homes look or the kind of food we serve. Community is welcoming and serving our neighbors according to their needs. We can give neighbors a seat at our dinner tables and a safe place to share their worries. As we create this environment, it will be a place where neighbors will want to do the same for others, and hospitality becomes a part of the atmosphere of the neighborhood. - A place to belong
We can include, support, and care for one another by creating space for community. From writing notes, texting, and checking in regularly to finding opportunities to have fun, we can move from isolation to belonging.
