Awareness is the beginning.
Aware of who and what is around us. Aware of ourselves.

All too often our homes become the place where we sleep and our stuff is kept. Leaving most of life to happen somewhere else. Hopefully we can recognize our neighbor’s faces, perhaps give the complementary wave as we hit the garage door opener, but do we really know what is going on in their lives. Do you know your neighbors names? Their goals? What it is that God made special about them?

Take the challenge to complete the Neighborhood Block Map from Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon's book "The Art of Neighboring" to see how aware of your neighbors you really are.

Jesus had an unique ability to be interruptible. He was aware of those around him. For example in Mark 8, when a huge crowd was gathered to hear him, he had compassion on them about their need for food. And in Luke 19 when he was entering the busy and important town of Jericho he noticed Zacchaeus in the tree.

In our neighborhoods what can you do to break the tunnel vision and become more aware of our neighbors? Go for a walk. Move activities to the front yard. Who do you cross paths with regularly without even know their name?

The other side of the coin is self awareness. We can do a lot of damage when we don’t pay attention to the "logs in our own eyes" Matthew 7:3. Not in a conceited, image centered way, but what do people learn about us when we first present ourselves? Are the things in our hearts recognizable by the fruit of our lives. Not that we need to be perfect in our actions, but let us not neglect how SoulCare Ministry and the Art of Awareness help us become better neighbors. Here is more information about CitySalt’s SoulCare Ministry http://www.citysalt.org/soulcare/

Check out this video from Hugh Halter’s Tangible Kingdom series to help raise our awareness of the church’s role in today’s greater American culture.