Emerging in the Suburbs

David Fitch (at Out of Ur) on "The Brutal Burbs: How the Suburban Lifestyle Undermines Our Mission."

By idolizing the family, suburbanites may become focused on consuming more stuff to create the perfect home and family. There is nothing but contrived affection left to keep the home together. And children who learn they are the center of this universe from parents actually develop characters that believe they really are the center of the universe.

After decades of this suburban lifestyle America is left with families split by divorce, kids leaving in rebellion, and millions on various drugs to relieve the emptiness as the idolized family turns out to be a myth. Apart from the personal destruction the suburbs can bring, suburban isolation also poses a real problem for the spreading of the gospel.

If hospitality is to be a central way of life for the spreading of the gospel, the alienation of the suburbs is a condition of our exile we must overcome. Elsewhere I have said:

… evangelical Christians must consistently invite our neighbors into our homes for dinner, sitting around laughing, talking, listening and asking questions of each other. The home is where we live, where we converse and settle conflict, where we raise children. We arrange our furniture and set forth our priorities in the home. We pray for each other there. We share hospitality out of His blessings there. In our homes then, strangers get full view of the message of our life. Inviting someone into our home for dinner says “here, take a look, I am taking a risk and inviting you into my life.” By inviting strangers over for dinner, we resist the fragmenting isolating forces of late capitalism in America. It is so exceedingly rare, that just doing it speaks volumes as to what it means to be a Christian in a world of strangers.

Comments

[Burly]

I've noticed that you don't usually get many hits on the topic of submerging. I hope to post some thoughts later, but for now I'll just say that I think the discussion is generally limited because inviting people into your home is a pretty boring idea to those of us who want to change the world - even though I believe it is the calling of submerging people (among other things). I feel called to submerge, because I believe it is what I am called to do - not because it is that thrilling. I'm a lay pastor at a church that's attempting to be reformissional (as it were) in Libertyville, and the challenge is huge, partially because it's somewhat boring compared to say being emerging in a place like Seattle or Chicago proper.

[Kurt Nordstrom]

I don't think you realize how terrifying that (double) quoted paragraph above is to me. I'm an extreme introvert, and I don't like having people in my home for the most part, even those I agree with. Inviting my pagan neighbors to see what I do behind walls is very upsetting to my "comfort zone".

[Burly]

"I feel called to submerge, because I believe it is what I am called to do." I guess that was redundant, eh?

[the fundamentalist]

This is exactly the thing that a church I know is doing. The focus isn't on building the mega-church in the middle of the burbs, but about setting up groups in homes so people can invite neighbors/friends/family, and still be connected to a local church. This is certainly something that many of the churches in the area are doing. I hope that this doesn't become the latest fad that churches are going to adopt, but it seems to be that way, and many are doing it not for the sake of reaching the community around them, but because other churches embracing it.

[Joe Kennedy]

Yeah Fundy, that's what my church in New Orleans and the one that took me in here in Mobile is doing. Small groups in the community bringing in others from the community. Mostly spread out. The difference is that in New Orleans a few of them had the purpose of going out in order to start other churches, like the one at the University of New Orleans or the Church on the Square (transient ministry). The ones I've seen outside of Edgewater in NOLA have all been focused somewhat inward- creating community among those attending the church, not bringing people from the community into their homes in an effort to get them to the local church. (Often the local church is all the way across town or further.)

I'd love to focus on the phrase "idolized family." I think there's a lot to that concept that we haven't thought about. I think sometimes we place the role of the family over the role of the individual. But that's not what the article is about, it's a thought that's been bouncing around like a ping pong ball in my head.

This has led to a lot of thoughts- communal living among singles in the urban setting... hmm, lots to think about. Maybe I'll post on it sometime.

[daniel nairn]

The book Sidewalks in the Kingdom is a great read about the effects of suburbanization on the mission of the church. It was written by a pastor here in Missoula, who has since moved to the big city.

[stew]

I can't help but remember Francis Schaeffer's prophetic commentary, some 20 or 30 years ago, on the trajectory of American social values. He knew that we were on a course to idolize the American Dream as lived out in the Suburbs. Didn't he say that personal peace, living in such a way as to be completely independent from others, and affluence would be the driving motivation behind our pursuits? The suburbs were able to capture and capitalize on those pursuits, to our demise. Philip Kenneson, in his book "Life on the Vine" has some interesting ideas on how we can cultivate hospitality in a society that devalues it.

I live and serve in the inner-city of Memphis, yet I commute to work at a suburban church. I see both worlds. Hospitality is relationally dangerous and difficult no matter where you are. It does require vulnerablity. It does require sacrifice. It does require awkwardness. It requires that we have kingdom values that have the power to trump our innate pull towards seclusion and comfort.

[the fundamentalist]

As America migrates to the suburbs, we cannot ignore them, nor can we neglect the inner cities or country as the expense of the migration out of cities into the suburbs. It is interesting to see how some things are panning out.

I know that many chruches such as FBC Atlanta and FBC New Orleans, and other churches like them have moved away from their tradational downtown facilities to megachuches in the heart of suburbia. Many church planters are going back into the cities to start chruches were they once thrived.

[Ted Gossard]

Thanks for sharing this. The all too few times we have had people over have been refreshing, even when the effort did seem difficult and awkward. We need to get it going again. Harder in our day and time, I think, when you have both spouses working outside of the home, which is the norm. My mother never worked outside the home, but did the equivalent of much more than one job in the home, while Dad brought home the needed income. Times have changed. But the impact of hospitality surely hasn't.

[jason berggren]

I've heard so much about this article and I think it's a flawed argument. It's makes me wonder how the gospel survived when life was rural or nomadic?

Being in the city doesn't make a church any more authentic and genuine. I helped plant a church in Miami over the last five years and we found the opposite to be true. The city, even though there are more people, made them more distant.

And suburban life contributes to higher divorce rates? Now THAT'S a stretch if I've ever heard one. Give me a break.

Let's remember, the epidemic is sin and the enemy.