This question was of course asked of Jesus by one of the Jewish scribes, and it led to the parable of the Good Samaritan. Today, in the 21st century, it is a question that needs to be asked again because the whole concept of community has changed. We can no longer focus simply on those people in a certain geographic area because that is no longer where many of our relationships exist. Through social media such as Facebook many people today have closer relationships with people who live thousands of miles away than they do their next door neighbor. Community is not so much a matter of geography as it is a matter of sharing common interests. Today I am related to people through my blog, my web site, Facebook, and e-mails. It is not uncommon for me to talk more often to people across the country and in other countries through these various forms of media than I talk to my neighbors. I can only talk to my neighbors if we both happen to be outside at the same time. I can communicate with my on-line community at any time. This is having a profound effect on churches, and I believe will have an even greater impact on how we "do church" in the future.
Many younger people today see little value in church membership. One of the reasons for this is that they don't want to be tied down to one church. In fact, one of the trends today is that people may be involved in two or more churches at one time. They may attend one church on Sunday morning because they find the worship meaningful and attend a different church during the week because they appreciate the depth of the Bible study. Their children may attend yet a third church because of the quality of their youth ministry. It's not too difficult to see that a cyber church could come into the picture as part of their spiritual life. That church with the quality Bible study may be a cyber church, and the messages are downloaded as a podcast that can be listened to at the convenience of the listener. I listen to the messages of 3-4 ministers each week on my I-Pod that are automatically downloaded on my computer each week. Another scenario I can see is when a person moves to another community. Rather than joining a new church a person may decide to remain connected to their old church back home. Services can be downloaded or even watched in real time. Sunday school classes may have a blog they can participate in. If the site offers on-line giving it's easy for them to continue tithing to their old church.
All of these possibilities means the church must rethink how it ministers to its community, and in fact must rethink what its community might be. While this presents challenges to the smaller, bivocational church it also offers some options that did not exist even a few years ago. With a web site or blog your church can now minister to people throughout the world. You might struggle to have more than 30 people sitting in the pews on Sunday morning, but at the same time there may be many times that involved in some way with your church through the Internet. I am now a "member"of two of the churches I serve in my Area through Facebook. I now know what is going on in those churches just as if I attended there every week. It's really neat, and it means that your church can now go into all the world sharing the gospel and ministering to hurting people.
Web sites can be very inexpensive. I pay less than $20 a month for mine. This blog doesn't cost me anything. Through these two channels alone I touch people across the country and around the world without ever leaving southern Indiana. Your church can do the same.
Who is your neighbor? Today it is anyone living anywhere in the world. Although your primary responsibility is to your Jerusalem, your church also has a responsibility to take the gospel to the end of the earth, and today any church can do that. It's an exciting time we live in, my friend. Enjoy it.
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