The neighborhood

"When we practice presence in the neighborhood, we give people the opportunity to feel the life of the gospel and not just hear it. If we are not present in the neighborhood, we have no credibility to do some of the more proactive rhythms identified in the next few chapters. And if we are not present, we have no right to expect people to take the message of the gospel seriously. Presence establishes us as people who live in this world and as people who have a God who can do something about what is going on in this world."— Missional Small Groups, page 135

<idle musing>
The incarnation is a perfect example. As Roger Olson put it the other day: "For God so loved the world…that He couldn’t stay away. Yes, to academics and scholars it sounds simplistic and even smacks of folk religion. But if you strip from it any connotation of God being “lonely” or absent it’s an apt statement of the gospel itself."
</idle musing>