EP 72: Dealing with Neighbors Who Aren’t Very Neighborly
For the new year, I want to tackle some of the questions that have been piling up in my inbox, starting with how to deal with neighbors who aren’t very neighborly. Listen in for tips on getting through to the people who live in closest proximity to you.
Show NotesVERSES CITED:Matthew 5:14 – “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” Proverbs 27:10 – “…Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away.”Matthew 22:36-39 – “… You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”RELATED LINKS: 25 Ways to Be a Good Neighbor – a blog post I wrote several years agoOn Loving Your Neighbor – more about our move into the Mayberry-ish neighborhoodLove Your Neighbor Coloring Page – hand-drawn design featuring Mark 12:31Good Neighbor Conversation Starters – prompt good family discussions on the topicThe Gospel Comes with a House Key – book by Rosaria ButterfieldLoving My Actual Neighbor – book by Alexandra KuykendallSTAY CONNECTED:Subscribe: Flanders Family Freebies -(weekly themed link lists of free resources)Instagram: follow @flanders_family for more great contentShop our books: Flanders Family StoreFamily Blog: Flanders Family Home Life (parenting tips, homeschool help, printables) Marriage Blog: Loving Life at Home (encouragement for wives, mothers, believers)
Dealing with Unneighborly NeighborsFULL TRANSCRIPT from episode 72Hello friend.
Welcome to episode 72 of Loving Life at Home. For the new year, I want to tackle some of those questions that have been piling up in my inbox, starting with how to deal with neighbors who aren’t very neighborly.
One of my listeners sent me the following message, which I’ll read in its entirety as she gave me permission to do so. Plus, she raises a lot of good points. She writes:
Hello Jennifer,
How do you show neighborliness when your neighbors and fellow church members just want to be left alone? We’ve been struggling with this for a long time. When we moved to our rural community a few years ago, only two families welcomed us, including my in laws.
It has taken consistent effort and willingness on our part to stop by people’s houses when we see that they’re home to even meet our other neighbors. And some pretty obviously don’t want to be bothered. Others are more open. A couple of little old ladies didn’t even know we had moved in, so we felt a bit better about the lack of reaction to our arrival.
Over the summer we started hosting a monthly open house with potluck dinner. We’ve seen more neighbors that way, though. Interestingly, we often have friends and acquaintances from farther away coming, which wasn’t quite the point, but perhaps we can disciple them towards doing something similar in their own communities.
Don’t get me wrong, we’re happy to see whoever shows up, and we believe that God brings whom he will. We just meant it primarily as a community outreach to our neighbors. I think the people from further away an old college friend drove over two hours to get here once are hungry for community. And in our fast -paced, tech -heavy society, social media fills the community gap, but it does a poor job of it. So when someone takes the initiative, a few who’ve recognized their need for community outside of social media jump at the chance.
Many who are unwilling to come, especially from our church are actively involved in area public schools, so they’re very busy. That’s good, but it doesn’t provide much opportunity for discipleship or evangelism which they think is the preachers and Sunday school teachers job anyway, so they’re confused by our family.
[And here I think that she means she wants to be able to be mentoring others in the community and discipling them and evangelizing them. But she also might mean she would like for some of the older ones to mentor her, and there’s just not that opportunity.] Then she continues:
We’re still young and idealistic to boot, so a vision of what neighbors should be like–maybe Mayberry, except with Jesus at the center instead of Andy–may not be feasible. But we’re still working at it, despite the odd looks and occasional negative comments that we get, because we feel very strongly that we are supposed to interact with our neighbors of all stripes and that we should be actively engaged with our church family more than a couple of hours a week.
What do you think?
Well, I love what this sweet family is trying to do, and I think others would benefit from adopting that same mindset. It’s very similar to the tact that my husband and I have taken throughout the years with a similar mixed bag of responses.
So I want to offer encouragement and share some of the things that we’ve learned through the process of trying to be good neighbors, even when the people around us are not instantaneously receptive to that.
My first tip for dealing with unneighborly neighbors would be to…
1 – Let them see your family outside together.This is a really simple way to handle, but you’ve got to recognize that what you’re attempting to do is not “normal” by today’s standards, but when your neighbors see you outdoors playing ball with your children, or doing yard work together, or playing four-square in the driveway, or washing the car in front of your house, or walking around the block, or riding bikes with the family, or interacting in a dozen different ways, it will begin to intrigue them.
And it will also offer some reassurance that you’re not just putting on airs or being weird with them, or trying to recruit them to some cult or a multi level marketing scheme, but that you truly are different to your core.
Matthew 5:14 tells us ,
"You are the light of the world. A city set on the hill cannot be hidden." And spending time outdoors in our neighborhood interacting as a family is one of the ways that we put this verse into action.
As you live life visibly in front of others in this way, it gives your neighbors a lot more data points to reference and they’ll eventually begin to accept that there really is something different about you. But that difference will likely be very attractive, and the longer they watch the more accepting and less suspicious they’ll be when your friendliness or attention is turned towards them. At least that’s what our experience has been.
My second idea for reaching out to unneighborly neighbors would be to…
2 – Cast a wide net.When we first moved to Tyler, we were in a neighborhood that was populated with young families, lots of little kids, and we got it in our head that wouldn’t it be fun to have, an Independence Day block party for the 4th of July?
We invited all these families in our neighborhood to come. We thought, oh, the kids could decorate their bikes. We could have a bicycle parade. There are so many kids in the neighborhood. We were just certain that these young families would show up for the event.
But the way I went about publicizing the event is I printed out a flyer giving the details, and I posted it on all the doors for my block and one block either side of ours. And when the day came, it was not the young families that showed up. It was all the older vets.
And if I had just sent invitations to the young families, I would have been sitting in my yard alone that day. But because I cast that wide net, I had a whole group of people that I didn’t realize were so hungry for community, but they were. And every year they looked forward to that and would come back and bring their lawn chairs and sit for hours in front of our yard.
We did do a little bit of a bike parade, the very first year (my kids were the only ones that were on their bicycles). Everyone walked around the block and one of the vets carried the flag, and it was really nice. But from then on, we just would sit in the yard, and I’d play patriotic music, and we would simply visit with the neighbors and get to know them better. So casting a wide net is how that came about.
Also, when I was planning that, I did discuss it with another mom that lived in the neighborhood. And she told me, she gave me some very good advice. She said, if you just ask people to come to your house, you’re not going to have a lot of people show up because they don’t want to be an imposition. Maybe they don’t have their plans nailed down enough to RSVP in advance, and they don’t want to show up at the last minute and find that you prepared for a certain number. And now they’ve augmented that.
But she said, if you’ll just ask them to bring something, you know, ask them to bring a bag of chips or a 2 -liter soda –we only drink water at our parties now, but back then, I took her advice–and people would bring sodas or chips or something to contribute to the meal.
And she said that will get you a lot more people than if you just provide everything, even if it’s not expensive and you could easily provide it. Ask them to bring something and they will show up.
Which this reader who wrote and said she was having a potluck meal now in her neighborhood, and she’s getting to know some of her neighbors that way. That was very smart because she’s asking them, just bring a dish and we’ll all share and get to know each other. Which I think is a great plan.
Another thing we did to reach out to our neighbors was at Christmas time we would carol and we would just post a little notice on everybody’s door saying: Our family or a group of family and friends are going to be in the neighborhood caroling tonight. And if you’d like for us to drop by your house, please leave the light on–the porch light on–and we’ll know to stop by and sing for you.
And so that made it real easy. We didn’t have to stop and knock on a bunch of doors where people weren’t home or they were hiding out in the den because they didn’t want to come to the door, they were dressed for bed or didn’t want to open the door after dark to strangers or whatever the case is. We would just go to the houses with the lights on. And that was a great way to do that.
In some years, we would pull a wagon full of hot cocoa and share that with the people who came to listen to us sing. Other years we’d bring little candy canes. I had a little candy cane gospel that we would attach to our candy canes and pass that out to everybody who came to the door to listen to us sing.
Sometimes they would have gifts for us. They would bake cookies and share cookies or hot apple cider with the people who were singing. And that was always a nice treat. So that’s how we handled it at Christmas time.
And then, the longer we lived in a neighborhood, the more we got to know the people around us, the more things we planned throughout the year for them. And I began having…. There were a lot of ladies in my neighborhood that their kids were grown and maybe some of them even had grandkids. And so I would have a mother/daughter/granddaughter brunch at Valentine’s, or when it was time to go back to school and invite everybody to come visit for that and bring their granddaughters. Or some of them would bring nieces or, you know, I made it clear on the invitation again that I was putting up on everybody’s front door that even if you came alone, we just wanted to be able to fellowship together. And the longer we lived in this particular neighborhood, the more response we had to things like that.
Now I know that this listener mentioned that when she moved into her neighborhood, only two people, one of whom was her in-laws, came to even acknowledge that they had moved in. And I think we have moved, let’s see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, maybe 8. Eight times in our life.
And only once, only one neighborhood, did the neighbors come out of the woodwork to welcome us. We had people dropping by every other afternoon with browies or cookies or a potted plant or candles or tea towels or just coming to introduce themselves. And it was really delightful. And it did feel a little Mayberry-ish in that particular neighborhood.
But everywhere else, we either got no acknowledgement when we moved in or maybe one or two. You know, maybe the person right next door would come over and say, ”Hey, welcome to the neighborhood.” Which was also nice.
And so I don’t think that that was a big aberration to just have two people. At least–I mean, we live in the south and people are very friendly in the south, but that has not been my experience. most of the time, is to have every neighbor show up on your porch introducing themselves. Usually I’m really grateful if one or two do that, so I wouldn’t feel bad about that.
But if you know how much that means to you when people do acknowledge that you move in, Keep an eye on your neighborhood and on the moving vans that come in and out and the houses that sell and be sure to be one of the ones who welcome the new people on the block when they show up. Even if it weren’t done for you, you can be the kind that does that for them.
Then my third tip for dealing with unneighborly neighbors would be to…
3 – Invest in those who do show up.Keep praying for and keep inviting (but not pressuring) those who don’t come. Like tacking the little notice on their doors. I don’t skip doors in my neighborhood. I’ll just put it on everybody’s doors. And some years they can come, some years they can’t. Sometimes people acknowledge it, and sometimes, I never hear from them, but, I do keep casting that net.
But my focus is on the people that actually show up. Focus on the ones that accept your invitation. Even if it is a college friend who lives two hours away. That listener who said that God will bring whomever He will, is 100% right about that. And we want to be grateful for the people that do show up and never take those for granted or ignore or marginalize them in order to keep chasing after people who’d rather be left alone.
Instead, just trust that God will bring those who need to be there in his perfect timing.
And closely related to this is be sure that you’re responding to bids for attention. When we first moved to Tyler, I had some dear older neighbors who would come and bring me their World Magazine every week. And I didn’t realize for years, really until it was too late, that that was a bid for attention, that I should have invited them over for dinner and done some of the things that I’ve done as an older person. I should have recognized that they were looking to be friendly and responded better to that.
I was always very, very grateful and would visit with them on the porch. But I really dropped the ball on reciprocating that bid for attention and I regret it now. So I would encourage you, if you do have somebody that extends a courtesy to you, be sure that you are reciprocating. If they bring you a plate of cookies, return that plate to them with some brownies on it. Or if they have you over tea, invite them over for lunch. And just be sure to have this back and forth.
I know that when I was growing up, we had some very dear next door neighbors that were so good to spend time in our home. And we’d go to their home, and my mom and that woman would visit back and forth a lot. Even though they were not that close in age, they really benefited from one another’s friendship.
And I know that after that couple had passed away and new neighbors came, mom was always a little sad that she didn’t have that same kind of reciprocal friendship between her neighbors after that.
And then my fourth tip for dealing with neighbors who aren’t very neighborly would be to…
4 – Look for needs that you can meet. Shovel the snow off the steps of your elderly neighbors or rake their leaves. Share your magazine subscriptions, like my neighbor did with me for so many years. Bring a meal to someone who is sick or shut in or is recovering from surgery or has a new baby.
But also, you’ll need to be willing to accept help. Sometimes it’s even beneficial if you’ll ask for help. Borrowing a cup of sugar is a classic way of asking for a small favor from a neighbor. That kind of opens that line of communication so that you can both feel comfortable meeting needs as they arise.
Proverbs 27:10 tells us,
"Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away."And so you want to establish that kind of a relationship where you can call on your neighbor in a pinch, and they feel comfortable doing the same with you.
Also, it’s important to be considerate. There’s a lot of things that your neighbor might like that they’re not going to come right out and say, so be sure you’re keeping your yard tidy and you don’t make excessive noise late at night or early in the morning, and that you’re being a good neighbor to them in every way possible.
I wrote a post several years ago that shares a lot more of the ideas and strategies we’ve used over the years to try to be good neighbors ourselves, which I’ll link in the show notes with a couple of other related books and articles. So check those out if you want to dig deeper.
Loving your neighbor is serious business. Jesus said it was the greatest commandment, second only to loving God with all your heart, soul and mind (see Matthew 22:36 -39). And if it’s if that important to Him, then it should be important to us as well.
Thanks for joining me today. I’ll talk to you again next week.
The post EP 72: Dealing with Neighbors Who Aren’t Very Neighborly appeared first on Loving Life at Home.
