There was a time where I spent most of my life inside the walls of a church. In fact, it was more than just a time; it was decades’ worth of time – my entire life from birth until I was half way through thirty.

Then, over a period of several years, I came to realize that while I loved growing up in the protective walls of my church castle, I no longer wanted to stay in its familiar halls. Instead I wanted to do what Jesus did, and “move into the neighborhood.” (John 1:14, The Message) I wanted to live a life with the people in the house next to mine. Moreover, I wanted to live a generous life, “generous inside and out, true from start to finish.” A life that had time to chat over the backyard fence, to have an unscheduled cup of tea. I wanted to live with people – and people cannot be penciled into a planner. People take time.

And so, I began to disentangle myself from the obligations of church life; the meetings and the sermon prep and the ministry trainings. Instead, I began looking for opportunities to give my time to those author Jim Henderson calls “the people Jesus misses most” – the people outside the walls of the castle.

Many of my Christian friends and family assumed I was leaving church ministry so I could do more evangelism, so I could become a sort of stay-at-home-missionary. But I was disenchanted with the idea of getting to know people for the purpose of converting them. I didn’t like the way that a purpose driven way of living shaped my human interactions. Living with one eye towards conversion set my conversations to the language of debate rather than dialect, and altered my thinking so that I was analyzing instead of listening. So I left that idea behind as well. Prayer hadn’t been working for me for awhile either, at least not the forms of prayer I had ever been exposed to at church. Instead I followed the lead of some wise women friends and set an intention instead. I started each day with this kind of thought:

“Today, I will meet someone to whom I can extend a hand of love.”

Within weeks my entire day to day way of living had changed. I learned the name of the woman who ran the playroom at my local mega-grocery store. Soon Michelle and I we were building a friendship. I saw her through boyfriends and break ups, job changes and dream goals. When she was hospitalized with an emergency surgery, I was honored to sit with her and soothe her during a frightening and painful time.

As my days began to change, I found that as I spent less time inside the church I had more time to do the things I had always wanted to do in my neighborhood. One day as the children and I chalked a blessing onto the sidewalk outside of our house, I met my neighbor Katie for the first time. It’s been several years now, and she and I have lived a lot of life together: advising each other on how to make ethical buying decisions; assessing who on the elections ticket would best bring our nation to a place of peace; knitting together healthier relationships with the significant others in our lives.

Because I was no longer working as a pastor, my schedule allowed me to meet my children at the school bus each day. I waited for the bus on our street corner, sitting on the edge of their lawn reading a book while I waited. There I met our young neighbor Souren, a teenager with a single parent who traveled several months out of the year. He made his hello’s to me, we chatted until the bus came, and, a few weeks later when his mother left on a six week buisness trip, he moved in with us. Eventually friends became family, and we provided support and company during the times he was on his own.

I am no longer a pastor, or small group coordinator, or Sunday school teacher. I am merely a woman who lives with intention, loving others because someone first loved me. And that shift – the shift away from learning about Jesus in a sermon and towards living like Jesus in a neighborhood – that has made all the difference.