New Voices:

On my first day at my new job, my husband and I were hustling to get out the door, since we were also going to do the dance of car sharing so that we could get our state inspections taken care of. Wrangling two small children, winter gear and the bags of stuff I was taking in to my office had pushed us about 10 minutes behind my schedule.

Then I realized that one of our cars wouldn’t start. Of course, it was the one in the single car garage, the one with no easy way to be jumped.

That evening, as we pushed our car out of the garage and worked to get the other car close enough to make the cables reach, I wondered how many of our neighbors were peering down at the sight. Two adults, two small children and a comedy of errors with our two cars.

The next morning, we discovered that it wasn’t merely a charge that needed to happen but a whole new battery. So, for the second time in two days, we repeated our finagling to get the car started.

We’ve lived in our new neighborhood for two weeks now and haven’t met any of our neighbors. Not only have we been out jumping our cars (twice), we also had moving day, playing outside in the sandbox and an unfortunate challenge with the mailbox bank and package retrieval key that wasn’t working. I know we are all busy people, absorbed in our own worries, but I find it hard to believe that all these kerfuffles have gone unnoticed. While I wish that my neighbors would come to me, offering a smile or introduction, perhaps even with a loaf of fresh bread in hand, it seems that it will not happen that way.

It’s not just in my neighborhood that I have to push beyond what comes as naturally comfortable to me. Part of moving to a new place means finding a new church home, too. In the place we have come from and the place we have moved to, there is no shortage of Mennonite congregations. But of all the parts of moving I have complained about, settling into a new church has been the part I wish we could just skip over.

While driving across town, I noticed a banner hanging outside a church building. It said something like, “We would like to meet all our neighbors; please come visit our church.” While I assume the intent is to say that all are welcome to check out this congregation, it seems that leaving the uncomfortable part to those who are new won’t yield much result. Wouldn’t it be more effective for members of this congregation to be out meeting people in the community?

And then I was convicted—how welcoming have I been? Am I not guilty of just sitting in the same pew each week, expecting others to come and feel welcome? Is it really reasonable to expect that people will come through the doors—take the risk and discomfort of being the new person?

If I, a cradle Mennonite, am so anxious about going to a new church, how must it feel to the new Christian or anyone new to the tradition? Though hardly “young adults” by many definitions, we fit into the highly desired group for congregations—a young family. We are easy to recognize as new and easy to connect with since you can ask about the children or direct us to the nursery. If we wonder where we’ll fit in a new church, how much more must those who are single, widowed or in marginalized groups feel about visiting a congregation?

It is our family tradition to make homemade donuts on the first snow day of the year, and recently there was some snow in our new town—enough for a snow day. So I decided to introduce my 2½-year-old daughter to this special treat. In addition to being best fresh, even when making only a partial recipe, you still end up with more donuts than one family should consume.

After nap time was over, I bundled us both up. We took our paper-plated offerings of fried dough and knocked on the doors around us. I risked, knowing there could be awkward conversation or rebuffs. I pushed myself beyond my comfort zone in yet another context, not only to model for my daughter what a good neighbor could be but because it is the start of friendship and community and the best way to build the church.

Sherah-Leigh Gerber is director of advancement for Virginia Mennonite Missions. She lives with her husband and two young children in Harrisonburg, Va.