Welcome to part three of a series of blog posts designed to help you share your faith and take steps toward making disciples of Jesus in the everyday stuff of life. If you missed “Step 1” or “Step 2”, go back and read them here and here, respectively.

STEP #3: Embrace the “proximity” principle

Missionary martyr Jim Elliot once said “wherever you are, be all there.” This sums up the principle of proximity. Being a missionary may very well mean crossing an ocean, but it can also be as simple as crossing a street.

In their excellent book entitled The Art of Neighboring; Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door, Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon ask the question, “What if Jesus meant that we should love our actual neighbors?” In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment, and his answer, as most of us know, is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind … and the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” What if every believer actually took the second half of Jesus’s response literally? Not only thinking of our “neighbor” as the person we run into at the grocery store, or walking down the street—although that certainly is true—but literally those that live right around our very own home or apartment complex. What if we took the time to truly get to know our neighbors with the intention of extending the grace and love of Christ in our everyday relationships?

A simple third step toward living as an everyday missionary is to build deeper and genuine relationships with the people that God has placed right beside you geographically! Intentionally filling out a neighborhood map over the course of the next year is a great way to start taking this step.

Your Neighborhood Map

For the eight closest neighbors around your home, fill out the following information:

• Your neighbors’ names.
• Some general relevant information about them. These are facts or data that you couldn’t just observe from a distance, but information that you’ve gathered from actually speaking with your neighbor.
• In-depth information that you would know after connecting with your neighbors. What are their career plans? Dreams and aspirations? Beliefs about God? Motivations and fears?
• What is one simple way that you could serve or bless this neighbor?