Picture a young man in a police station on a Sunday morning, head pounding, phone lost somewhere on the road the night before. He cannot remember his mother’s number or his brother’s. The officer tells him he may make one call. And the only number he knows by heart is the one painted in white letters on the gate of the church at the bottom of his road.
“Call them,” he says. “Ask for the pastor. They know me there.”
Stories like this are told, in one version or another, in a lot of congregations. They are worth thinking about, because they say something about buildings, land and neighbourhoods that we do not often put into words. Every church sits on a piece of property. The question is what that property means to the people who walk past it every day.
A building people drive past
Some church properties are known mainly for what happens around them on Sunday: the cars parked on both sides of the road, the sound system on a warm evening, the gate padlocked the rest of the week. Neighbours may be perfectly friendly toward the congregation, but they have no reason to think of the place when something goes wrong in their own lives. It is a building they drive past.
Other church properties become part of the neighbourhood’s map in a different way. The hall is where the community meeting is held after the flood. The yard is where the children wait for the school bus in the rain. Somebody at the church knows which elderly neighbours live alone, and somebody has a key. The number on the gate is the one people remember because they have used it.
Known by name
Behind the young man’s phone call is a wonderful promise that God made to a people who had failed badly. Through Isaiah, God said: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine” (Isaiah 43:1, NKJV). The next verse goes on to promise his presence when they pass through the waters and the fire.
That promise was not given to people who had behaved well. It was given to exiles whose own choices had helped to bring disaster on them. God did not wait for them to become respectable before claiming them. A church that reflects that kind of love will be a place where people with messy stories expect to be recognised, not turned away.
“They know me there” is one of the finest things anyone can say about a congregation. It is not a statement about the size of the building or the quality of the choir. It means that someone, at some point, learnt this person’s name and did not forget it.
What makes a place known
There is no formula, but a few habits seem to turn a property from a landmark into a refuge.
- A gate that opens on ordinary days. A weekday homework club, a place to charge phones after a storm, a tap where people can fill buckets when the pipes are dry.
- Somebody who answers. A number that rings out every time teaches people not to call.
- Members who live nearby and walk. A congregation that drives in from across town and drives out again after service will struggle to know the street.
- Care of the property itself. Swept pavements, a trimmed hedge, lights that work at the gate. How a church looks after its land tells the neighbours something about how it would look after them.
- Patience with people who let you down. The young man who called from the station may not be in church next week. Being known includes being known at your worst.
The same is true of a house
Everything above applies on a smaller scale to a family home. Most streets have a household that the children run to when they are locked out, where the neighbour’s daughter leaves her spare key, where someone always seems to be on the veranda. Frequently that household is not the richest on the road. It is simply the one where people have been greeted by name for years.
Consider a retired couple who have lived in the same scheme for thirty years. They have never run a programme or held a title in the residents’ association. But the young mothers know that if a child falls ill in the night, a light will come on at their house when they knock. That is a form of ministry that does not appear on any church report.
Or think of a family who have recently moved into a new development where nobody knows anyone yet. They decide to learn the names of the people on either side and across the road within the first month, and to keep a kettle ready for whoever turns up. It is a small thing. In a few years it may be the reason their gate is the one somebody stops at in trouble.
Worth asking
If someone on your street had one phone call to make, whose number would they know? Would they think of your church? Would they think of your house? If not, the change probably starts with something modest: a gate left open a little more often, a name remembered, a knock answered.
God calls people by name and claims them, whatever state they are in. Buildings and homes that belong to him can do something of the same for the neighbourhoods around them.
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