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Thursday, November 3, 2011

How Far Do You Live From Those You Serve?

I live just 5 ½ miles from The Orchard Church Ministry Center.  I drive on suburb streets and it takes me about 10 minutes to drive in.  When I lived in Idaho I lived 17 miles one-way from the church & office in another city called Meridian.  Without any traffic, it took me a good 30 minutes to get to church.  With any bad weather it could take 45 minutes easy.  I felt like it was very limiting to my ministry in Boise.  If someone wanted to meet with me, I found myself thinking about what time they wanted to meet. Is it close to rush hour? Can they meet at a different time to avoid traffic? Of course if there’s an emergency I would come no matter the time.

I could lead a small group from my house. But, it was very far for many people. 
I couldn’t invite people over for lunch. People did come, but it was always such a drive out to our place I knew in my heart of hearts that it was limiting to my ministry. 

Now, I like being so close to the Ministry Center and where the church meets on Sunday.  I actually feel like I am available to the people.  I am really getting to know the community around the church as well, and serving them.

Being on both sides of this situation at different times, I’m really feeling that for a modern missionary/pastor to be effective, he should live in the community that he serves.

But what about you? What do you think? Is it really important? What have you noticed in your own context?

1 comment:

Bill said...

Its funny Barry. When I lived in California it would take me 2.5 hours to get to work traveling 25 miles. If I had to go down on weekends it would only take me 30 minutes. When I moved to Idaho, I was stoked about the lack of traffic Boise had and that we could get anywhere in a matter of minutes. In your case because of what you to, yes, it is important that you can reach out to someone within a matter of minutes who is in need. On a plus note, there is a Ten Mile on/off ramp now :) Miss you bro!