Last night, three young people stopped by my house to visit. These are young adults who started out as children who happened to be in a mentoring program that I was coordinating in Homewood. They became my neighbors when I moved into Homewood four years ago. Over the years they've spent a lot of time with my family at our dinner table, in our living room, or in our back yard hanging out. They don't come over every day, but they stop by often enough for our lives to be interconnected. That's actually a really cool thing that God has done for us as we moved in the city to live in the same neighborhood where we had started a program to mentor kids. The program continues, but the program begins to fade into the background as real, authentic relationships develop as a result of our incarnational presence in the community. We are neighbors now. The lives of me, my wife, and my children are deeply connected with the lives of my neighbors in Homewood. We never really experienced that type of community in any of the previous neighborhoods that we lived before moving to Homewood. We don't do things for people, we share our lives with people.
The gift of authentic relationships in my community is something that God gave me as a result of moving into the same neighborhood where I lead. I am a big advocate for leaders living in the same neighborhoods where they lead. The community element helps leaders transcend the boundaries of a "job" in order to be able to more fully live out a "vocation" or a passionate "calling." Pastors and nonprofit leaders should live in the same neighborhoods where they lead. School principals and teachers should live in the same neighborhoods where they lead. I think the power of incarnational leadership, or the leadership of presence, is crucial for just about any vocation or calling. It's very difficult to lead effectively from a safe distance. I am experiencing this first hand by living in the same urban neighborhood where I serve as a pastor and as a leader of a mentoring program. Yes, my lifestyle comes with its share of challenges, but I wouldn't trade the relationships that God has brought into my life for anything that a lifestyle more disconnected from my vocation might have to offer.
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