Rockin’s the suburbs #2 – instant community
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Mark Jennings – who is a school chaplain mate of mine in Perth -? made an interesting observation about how in Australia the local suburbs look for other ways to do community – especially centred around the school.? Since proximity to local shops/clubs/pubs etc is effectively ruled out the school is a good gathering point.? That seems fairly good reasoning; we have friends we keep in touch with from Greenmount Primary School, and there are others we are looking forward to seeing when we get back.? He also pointed out that newer developments are trying to recreate the communal feel that the burbs of the seventies and eighties couldn’t manage.
And what about Hamo’s experience at Upstream Communities. It’s very name is a statement that challenge’s Brighton Community’s own boast that IT? is “what a community should be.”? “Oh yeah?” says Hamo, “Is that so? Then show me the money!”
The evidence is very clear that only? Upstream can be what Brighton cannot.? Scratch beneath the surface of Brighton and all sorts of things show up.? Not that Upstream is all plain-sailing, but? if Hamo and Danelle and the team have realised anything in their time there it is that change only comes from the inside out, it cann’t be engineered by a sociologist paid by the developer!
The problem of course with “Instant Community” is that like anything “Instant” it tends towards the artificial.? Think “instant coffee” or? “instant mashed potato” for example.? You cannot create history or the culture of a place overnight, it has to evolve.? So what happens is that people find themselves living in the same walled/fenced cul-de-sac community, one that was a sandy waste-land two years prior, and they wonder why they? feel just as? isolated as they did in the grid-road burb they lived in for twenty years before that.? They simply don’t know how to do community and no amount of physical engineering is going to enable it to happen.
Is there a circuit breaker to this?? Perhaps? I can offer the church as an example.? If truth be told, it IS? “instant community” (perhaps “eternal community” is better? ed)? in that identity with Christ as his people makes you community whether you like it or not.? Much of what Paul writes is about how to make sense of, and live? together as, that community.? So Hamo for example? has planted an eternal community in the midst of a wanna-be instant community, and? calling on people to savour the difference.? ? ? Surely that is the reason? Danelle was named citizen of the year in? Brighton and Hamo came in second (second comes right after first!? – Hamo). Only the? Spirit of God can make a community what it should be.?
May 28th, 2007 at 7:52 am
All good points Steve. I admire guys like yourself and Hamo trying to do this sort of stuff. I know I’m not saying anything new here, but “community” is a really sexy term around these parts, particularly in government policy. We now have a “Department for Communities” (ironically replacing the ill-fated “Department for Community Development”) here in W.A., though God knows what they are actually going to do. All their literature to date is about as legible to me as if it was written in Sanskrit.
Community is not always a positive thing, and no matter how much people claim to be looking for it, sometimes they don’t want it. As Big Dave C was pointing out, there are some pretty tight communities (cliques) that determine very clearly who is “in” and who is “out”. The reason most people don’t know their neighbours is because, to be honest, they don’t really want to. I’ll tell you the truth – I’m not that keen on mine. Not trying to excuse myself by the way, just indulging my mania for confession.
Dave are you really coming over in the New Year?
May 28th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
The clique thing is a problem isn’t it? But then again it’s a problem in church too. The question is How do we become circuit-breakers and change the way things are? I reckon there are plenty of people in our schools etc who don’t have communities because they’re on the outer. I know it’s hard but perhaps we have to look out for them – you know the marginalised, smelly people no one else wants to befriend. In much the same way that Jesus made us – his enemies – our friends. It is not going to be easy. I’ve known Dave for a long time and he’s always on the look out to reach out to people – and if he’s finding it hard it’s not through lack of trying.
And Dave I assume you are coming to the “Shangri-la” with the tribe for January, so maybe we could meet up with Mark for a brew as well!
May 28th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
New Year in Perth at Spey Road Shangri-la with the family is on the cards. I was definitely including Mark in the proposed festivities.
Back on the subject, I think I should either lose 10kg, get my knee fixed and play soccer, or as you say look out for the non-soccers and see where that community is going, (Mike Frost calls it following the ant-trails) and join in.
I agree with Mark’s comments about neighbours.