At Auburn University students in the architectural department are challenged to build a home on a budget of $20,000. The resulting home isn’t fancy (see Time Sept 30, 2013), but I found it interesting that they thought it important to include a large porch. The houses are about 600 to 800 sq ft, so the porch helps expand the living area and gives them a place to escape the Alabama heat. They also say the porch is important part of social life. I have found this true, in a roundabout way.
Our house has a tiny porch and has a thick hedge that separates us from the street, but I spent a good part of the summer working on the garage and sawing wood in the driveway. I ended up talking to many folks who walked by. One day, I was smashing up some metal shelves to haul to the dump and a pick-up truck pulled up. The guy that jumped out explained that he was gathering scrap metal to help pay off the mortgage on the Christian Church down the street. We talked about his church a little. It turned out he knew Mom because she had passed him during a walk for life several years earlier. He said she was amazing and an inspiration. The more I worked out front, the more people I met.
I found myself wishing for a big porch because I could see how much just being out front of the house connected me to my neighborhood. In many places, many suburbs at least, front porches have been replaced with backyard patios that remove us from the community and recreate our private slice of middle-class paradise. Rather than sitting and talking to passing neighbors from our porches, we often retreat to our computers where we join a virtual community. One strategy that has been used effectively to stop street crime has been simply getting parents to spend more time on their front porches, not just because of more eyes on the street, but also because neighborhoods become safer when neighbors know each other.
Many churches strategize about how to reach their cities for Christ but miss the simple and obvious things like porches. Another obvious thing is pooches! For the last couple years I have been walking Peter’s Doberman, Mira, up the street to the graveyard on the hill. On these walks and up at the graveyard I have talked to lots of people—some other dog owners, other’s not. Just a couple days ago while working out in my driveway, a lady walked by who I had often talked to while she ran Fletcher, her pointer, up at the graveyard. She told me Fletcher had died of cancer. I told her Mira had torn her leg on barbed wire. We connected over our love of dogs. I was sad for her loss. All of this is another way that community is built. It’s good.
Several years ago I was walking Mira when I encountered Don, who was the husband of Sandy, the pastor of the Presbyterian Church at the foot of our hill. He was walking his dog Peppy. I mentioned that I had seen men with Bibles—a rare sight in Oregon– coming out of church on Thursday mornings. Don then invited me to come to men’s Bible study. I have been attending ever since and find my connection to my community much deeper than it had ever been because I am now connected to two congregations. In addition, some of the men in the Bible study were two and three generations in Myrtle Point and knew about everyone in town.
So next year I am hosting, here in Myrtle Point, the Global Porches and Pooches Evangelism Symposium. We will have break-out sessions on Spirit-filled dog walking and the art of porch sitting. Pets welcome.
