Who Are We Trying To Reach?

The “Jesus answer” is everybody, but that is too easy…and too hard.  But it is a question that we need to wrestle with.  Perhaps a way of rephrasing it is “Who are the people in our neighborhood?”  Sesame Street sings about it, “Who are the people in your neighborhood?”

For them, the answer is “they’re the people that you meet, when you’re walking down the street, they’re the people that you meet each day!!”

Who are the people in my neighborhood?  Who do I meet when I walk down the street?  I don’t walk down the street too often in all honesty.  I usually hop in the car when I am headed out.  I walk in the morning, for exercise, and at night, for our dog’s exercise.  And I don’t meet too many people out there. 

But Sesame Street is a walker’s neighborhood.  Perhaps our answer is better found in the second part of the song, “they’re the people that you meet each day”.  So, who do we meet each day?  Co-workers?  School mates?  Family-maybe those who help us with our kids?  Friends?  Again, this kind of depends on the walker’s community.  Who are the people that we meet each week?  Who do we hang out with?  Who is in our social circle? 

But our work at this church is “To build a neighborhood in God’s Kingdom”.  So, the question for everyone to pray on, who are the people in our neighborhood?  And how do we build a church to serve them?