The Community in Your Front Yard

Hi there.

There are a couple of things you should know about me.  I am an introvert.  (Yes, an introvert can look like an extrovert when God calls them to be a speaker!)  I am also a perfectionist.

I’m actually okay with community if (a) they are all people I already know, and (b) I can host them in immaculate fashion with plenty of advance notice.

Ahem.

God finds that humorous.

I went to Allume last year and heard a story about this crazy Turquoise Table my now-friend Kristin had placed in her front yard in Austin.  God started saying, You need to go outside and build some community on your street. 

Just so you know, I ignored Him for a while.  For one thing, I didn’t know ONE SINGLE NEIGHBOR on my street.  We live on a busy street, and my husband and I work full time and have young children, and well you can hear all the excuses.

But He wouldn’t let go of me.  And given that He’s God and I’m just me, I went ahead and said, great, YOU figure out how this is going to happen. 

One day, I will write the story of how God opened doors to actually get an assembled unfinished $88 Lowe’s table to my front door so my triplets and I could paint it on a Saturday, in colors they chose, to have families on my street over two days later. (Y’all, God is AUDACIOUS!)

That picture up there, that’s my table.  A turquoise, kelly green, and cocoa brown picnic table.

Can I tell you this has nothing to do with me? I am a scaredy-cat. I want to make-a-good-show. I didn’t actually WANT to meet my neighbors because I was comfortable coming home after work to just my people.

I was completely freaked out by “what will people think.” The trio and I walked up and down my street on Saturday morning and put flyers in everyone’s mailbox inviting them to come to “the table” for Monthly Mondays.  The first of which would be the very next Monday with pizza and drinks.  I was WILDLY uncomfortable standing in my front yard with my kids at 5 pm wondering if anyone would come.

But this is what God made more uncomfortable for me:  I’d lived on this street for over eight years, and I didn’t know anyone that lived around me.  All of the 15 flyers I passed out on either side and across from my house went to people whose names I didn’t know and whose stories I’d never heard.  God made that unacceptable and He proposed this as the solution.  I felt like I was going to throw up as soon as we delivered those flyers.

So there we stood, in the front yard, with ten boxes of pizza, a big cooler of water bottles and juice boxes, and a bowl of name tags.

Six families came.  Y’all, out of fifteen houses, SIX whole families came.  Twelve kids played on the front tire swing and gobbled cookies one of the neighbors had brought “to the table.” I could have cried.  In one hour, six families on a busy street in a big city met each other and shared stories.

We told everyone this table was theirs too.  That our house could be a place they were always welcome.  I want my kids to know that our space has been entrusted to us to share with others.  {===>Tweet This}

We have hosted six Monthly Mondays.  And God used imperfect little me to email my pastor and say maybe our church could go into our community somehow.  Turns out, that is EXACTLY what his vision and prayer for the church was.  So he says, “let’s give away these tables to our members.  ANYONE who walks to the front on Sunday morning to sit at a table can have one delivered!”  My church, oh y’all, my church is going to be community building with the FORTY-SIX tables they gave away in February.

I’d been trying to survive with work and triplets and a maze of schedules and competing demands, but I have to show my kids life can’t all be rushed and hurried and we MUST NOT hide out behind our four walls.  We have to clear out some of the clutter and make time for community.  {===>Tweet This}

That’s what we need more of: Community. I hope God calls you out your front door to be the Light on your street too.

Shared by: Gindi Vincent