Commuting, Community and Christianity

Though I had purchased this sometime ago (the addiction of buying books before I have time to read them), I started reading the past few days.  I particularly appreciated the chapter I read today.  It was an examination of the commuter culture and its effects on community and integrated lives.  This year, more than most, I can relate.  I am regularly commuting more than ever--due to the location of my church planting apprenticeship.  However, this is only for a season.  What about those who see no end in sight to their long commute?  The author comments saying,

Think of what happens to us when we live, work and worship in different communities.  If we live in suburb A but work half an hour away in suburb B and commute twenty minutes in the opposite direction to a church in suburb C, we find our sense of identity fragmented.  We are dis-integrated, and our loyalties and connections are diffused into three different geographic areas.  We especially feel tension and dissonance when driving from one area to another, say from a church function in one community to a school event in another.  There is little overlap between our disparate worlds. 

Though many don't have the luxury of living, working and worshipping in one community, the author encourages us to spend as much time within a 5 mile radius of your house as possible.  In essence, try and establish your own parish.  To the extent that you can, shop close by.  Eat out close by.  Be intentional about your area when it is within your means to do so.  Try and develop your Christian community within this area as well.  In doing so, perhaps some areas of your life will begin to overlap.  I think this is a good word and a way that we can hope to foster an authentic, counter-cultural community.  What if people put down roots and chose community over promotion?  What if Christians became truly invested in the civic concerns of their part of the city? 

As I read this chapter, I have to confess that I also felt very blessed.  Soon we will be getting to plant a church in the community where we live.  This means that living, working and worshipping will all happen in the same context.  I am looking forward to that kind of integration.