Margin Meets Mission: The Gift of Availability

We gathered last night as a missional community for the first time since we got sick the week before Christmas. Though the weekend after New Year’s meant some of our regulars were still traveling, it was revitalizing to fill the house again with our “extended family.” Opening the front door so our neighbor-friends felt welcome to walk straight in, I let my gaze rest momentarily on my homemade burlap wreath contrasting with our black door. When the door is open, the wreath is visible from the inside—and it has become a symbol to me of how I want to posture my heart: open. An open door is a tangible expression of availability—a gateway to a space where community on mission can be cultivated. The gift of availability is where margin meets mission.

The door must open for the house to fill.

No matter how ready my home may be on the inside to welcome neighbor-friends, it matters little unless I take the next step of actually opening my door. Perhaps readying the inside of my home is a signal that my focus is mis-directed. Community thrives on authenticity, in real, lived-in spaces where real conversation flows. The more ready I feel my home has to be before I open the door, the less likely I am to actually open it.

Opening the door takes grit. Vulnerable humility. Releasing control. Caring more about the people I welcome than the image I portray.

An open door broadcasts that you are choosing to be present and offer the gift of your availability. Availability—it truly is a gift, the kind that reaches through the pretenses and the walls and the lies we’ve believed about who we are. Availability is like a gentle touch that melts the heart, a soothing rain that erases our dry, crusty edges.

The gift of availability meets us in the now. It makes space for our questions and imperfections. It gently brushes away the dirt to reveal the thing beneath the thing.

Yet to be available I must ardently pursue margin.

Availability necessitates white space in my schedule. It means I must say no to some things, even some good things, because I want to say yes to community, to relationships, to people. In the words of Emily P. Freeman, “May we continue to cultivate a strong no in our lives so that we can say more life-giving yeses” (The Next Right Thing, 180).

Offering the gift the availability means I must hold my schedule in open hands—be willing to surrender what my short-sighted vision might vie for.

Sometimes I forget that all the good things are not always good for my family.

All the worthy endeavors are not always right for me in the right now.

Less can make richer.

More margin can create more fullness.

But then someone in our missional community could use some help after school, and when I say yes, I am thankful all over again for the things we’ve already said no to so we can say yes more often to building a life together with our neighbors. Noes to things that would keep us running, ever busy, but not present in our neighborhood—noes to unrealistic expectations of how clean my house has to be before I can welcome others into it.

So the yard fills, because when there is one, often many more come. And in all the messy of learning how to safely direct young energy and demonstrate that respect for each other is a non-negotiable, there is beauty. Fullness. Life.

Life is far better when we are part of community—and saying yes to margin paves a path for relationships. And then the gift of availability comes like water to the seeds and neighbors become both neighbors and friends.

An open door becomes a gateway to a space where community on mission can be cultivated.

Beginning to invite neighbors inside your home is a beautiful and brave step towards cultivating deep friendships. When you let others inside you open up a new level of vulnerability, and without letting our neighbors get to know the real us we can never bridge from casual acquaintances to family-like community that we truly do life with.

I invite you to quiet your mind for a moment and let a picture form of what it could look like for your neighbors to know they are welcome in your home.

For years before it became a reality, my and my husband’s dream was to lead a missional community out of our home, specifically for neighbors. (I define a missional community as a small group of people in close proximity united by a common mission who intentionally do life together and cultivate growth in three key areas: spiritual formation, authentic community, and loving others in practical ways.) This may be your dream too, or yours may take a different shape. Fulfilling the call of the Great Commission to be a disciple-making-disciple everywhere you go—including right in your own home and neighborhood—can take shape in many organic ways.

Now, keep that dream in your heart, write it down in your journal, but let’s get practical for a moment. What is one small baby step you can take this week towards the direction you want to go? What I find about baby steps is that they take the pressure off. The direction outweighs the pace. And yet, as we continue leaning in, the baby steps begin to feel lighter, more doable.

What can you offer? A cup of tea and a ten-minute conversation with a neighbor who often walks alone? Bringing a neighbor in for a quick peek at a project they know you’ve been working on? A playdate with another neighbor mom and her kids?

When we let our neighbors in close enough to see the way God is growing us into better versions of ourselves in the various roles we carry, discipleship is happening. What an honor to use our homes to further let the things God is growing in us ripple out into the lives of our neighbors.

An open door mentality reaches beyond the walls of the walls of the house, spilling out onto the front step, the driveway, the sidewalk–everywhere your feet take you. You may welcome a missional community into your home every week, or you may simply live on mission in your neighborhood in ways that seem small but are actually not small at all. (Missional living is a precursor to starting a missional community, but you don’t have to lead a missional community to live missionally right in your own neighborhood.)

However, I may have to open my actual front door to truly learn the posture of availability—to diminish the million little reasons telling me that the safety of a closed door is what my heart longs for. I may have to let my neighbors in when the house is mess to learn how to show up in the friendships I am building with my neighbor-friends even when my life feels messy. I may need to let some chips spill on the couch, host a playdate I didn’t jot down in my planner, or invite the neighbor standing on my front step in out of the cold or rain so that the rhythm of availability moves me without me thinking about it.

Offering the gift of availability is a gift we could never ascribe a price to. It brings purpose to the  white space we carve out in our schedules so we can lean into missional living in our neighborhood.

In closing, I invite you to join me in prayer:

Lord, we come to You with open hands.

May release our hold on our schedules, our insecurities, our pride, and our expectations.

May we be first and foremost available to You. Meet with us and grow our desire to meet with You.

As Your Spirit empowers us, may we step forward into brave even when we #doitscared.

May we embrace the posture of open and begin in small ways to offer the gift of availability to our neighbors.

May we trust You as You lead us to each #nextrightthing—trust that the direction we go is of greater importance than the pace.

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