How To Be More Neighborly When You Feel Inadequate

Warmer weather has a way of awakening dreams. Muddy splotches and new grass carve space in our souls to linger and long for more than the mundane, hurried pace that leaves us dry. Fresh hope comes with flown geese meandering across the lawn, the sun shining through a cloudless sky, hinting at summer, and voices of children wafting through the air.

Here in my neighborhood, lengthier days mean we stay longer in our front yards, negotiate bedtime with children who learn by example that time with friends is good for the heart. We don’t apologize when we stop to chat with the first neighbor we see outside and stay for an hour. Because we’re hungry for connection. Because life is richer when we do life with our neighbors.

life is richer when we do life with our neighbors quote

If this strikes a chord in your heart, here’s what I want you to know: dreams land in tender hearts. Ones open to possibility. Ones brave enough to hope even when the flicker is faint.

When it comes to being more neighborly, you might feel inadequate. Worry you’re not outgoing enough, fun enough, hospitable enough, home enough to actually have friends who are also neighbors. You’re bad at remembering names, or learning them in the first place. Too old. Too young. Too loud. Too soft-spoken.

But that’s precisely why you’re ready. Because if you think you’re ready, you’ll overthink all of it, get stuck in your head, clam up or word vomit. You’ll forget that being relational is key to building relationships. That you’re more relatable when you’re simply yourself.

To the One Who Hasn’t Been Neighborly

Maybe your hurdle isn’t self-doubt, but guilt. You haven’t been the model neighbor. You know very few names, and even fewer stories. If you were new to your neighborhood, you’d give yourself a pass. But you’re not. Where in the world do you begin when so much time has passed?

I get that it feels uncomfortable and awkward to start over in the same place. That’s why I camped out at the edge of the dream to get to know my neighbors. I hadn’t been the neighbor I wished I’d been, and I’m not a fan of awkward.

But I wish I hadn’t hesitated. Wish I’d looked into more eyes, learned more names, drew out more stories. Wish I’d been more available. Invited more neighbors to step inside my front door. Shattered some of the walls that keep us apart and lonely by admitting I had needs—for friendship, for someone brave enough to be herself, for the egg I’m short for the cake I’m baking.

I’m here to tell you it’s possible to become friends with your next-door, across-the-street, and around-the-bend neighbors. It’s possible, and it begins with just one smile. One friendly nod. One brief moment of noticing a neighbor. One tiny yes that inches you out of your cozy comfort zone.

Beginning Imperfectly Ready

There’s a phrase from my original tagline for The Uncommon Normal that encapsulates what I felt when I first began leaning into missional neighboring. The words are “imperfectly ready,” and they describe the tension between what God’s stirring inside you and the self-doubts that rattle your resolve. We’re ready for a trajectory shift, but it still scares us.

When this tension feels like an all-out war inside us, we’ve got a choice. Stay where we are or trust that God will fill our lack as we take the first baby step forward.

God always meets us when we step forward in obedience. According to Psalm 23:3,

He opens before me pathways to God’s pleasure and leads me along in his footsteps of righteousness so that I can bring honor to his name.
TPT

This is not a push-hard, we’re doing it on our own way of living. It’s full-out surrendered trusting. Leaning into the way God loves the people right next to us. Radically overflowing what God grows inside us. Stepping out of the way so all the glory goes to God’s name.

Recommended Resources to Get You Started

Missional living sounds overwhelming when we overcomplicate it. But it’s actually simple and doable. I put my best tips into thirty bite-sized devotionals, bound in a pocket-sized book you can take with you anywhere. Because I want this to be easy for you. And because I know it can change the rest of your life.

Grab a FREE sample week of my devotional, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors here. And if it’s helpful, you can find the rest through Amazon as a paperback or on Kindle.

To help you get the most out of the book, download the 30-day missional living challenge and complete it as you read the book.

get a FREE preview of the devo

view on Amazon

take the challenge

Bonus points if you grab a few friends and read Cultivating a Missional Life together. There are discussion questions you can use at the end of the book.

A few free things you’ll find helpful:

Obstacles to Neighborhood Missional Living Series (available on the blog and podcast)—it addresses the biggest hurdles so you can get unstuck.
Enneaneighboring Summer Series—discover how to neighbor with more purpose, compassion, and intentionality.
The Uncommon Normal manifesto—grab the free printable here.

I’ll leave you with this: Don’t wait. You won’t feel ready, and that’s okay. You also won’t get there overnight, and that’s also good and right and okay. The direction is a million times more important than the pace.

Let’s pray.

Jesus, I ask for the one dreaming, and also hesitating, that You meet her today. You know all the questions she’s wrestling through. And You say come. Trust me. I’ll lead you.

I pray for the one who has been an underwhelming neighbor. Overwhelm her with your lavish grace. Give her the courage to trust You with her yes.

May we be the kind of neighbors who look into eyes. Learn names and stories. Share our honest selves. Trust God to do the rest.

Just a friend over here in your corner,