Room to Include: Doing Life with My Neighbors

I’ve lost count now, but here I stand again, this time at the trampoline. Some days the play flows easily, the interventions not needed. But today the reminders, the resets, the discipleship opportunities are ample. I breathe a silent thanks—for the friendships, for the opportunities to grow and learn and try again, for my own opportunities to practice speaking gently. The words come slowly, but firmly: “Girls, let’s try again to include.”

We play often with our neighbor-friends, and we would have it no other way. This is becoming our normal—extra plates around the table, extra feet jumping on the trampoline, extra peals of laughter, extra imagination, extra eyes keeping tabs on the 2-year-old, extra pictures colored, extra baby dolls dressed and fed. It’s more, and it’s better, and we love it this way.

More and better does not mean simpler, however, at least not always. My own kids have sibling contentions and teachable moments when their neighbor-friends are over as they do when it’s just us home—and we disciple them through their choices regardless. Having an audience sometimes adds to the complexity, but it is also accountability to disciple with love, grace, and a calm voice.

A good friend asked me the other day whether I actually enjoyed having extra kids over so often. I get that it may sound a little overwhelming, so I’d love to share the top three things I am learning are important as we endeavor to include our neighbors in our everyday life.

1. Normalize Inclusion

Our kids have differing needs for being alone, and we make space for that. It’s OK if they decline play sometimes because they need a little down-time or time to be alone. Where we draw the line is when play becomes “us against them” or more specifically in our case, “us against her.” This looks different than when one child chooses to disengage from play, and the others continue on with their play. When choices are made to intentionally exclude someone, whisper back and forth in front of another child, or have prolonged periods of play that not all who want to participate in are able to do so, I step in to help negotiate a compromise. Being inclusive is a non-negotiable. We want to welcome our neighbor-friends to join us, and we also want to include and not alienate anyone regardless of whether we have more kids here or only our three.

2. Verbalize Healthy Boundaries

You can’t have healthy without boundaries, and you can’t have healthy boundaries without verbalizing them. This has been a growth point for me. I am a 9 on the enneagram, for any other enneagram enthusiasts; for those not familiar, a surface-level explanation is that I prefer to avoid conflict at all costs. Stepping into conflicts between kids pushes me out of my comfort zone and toward 8-wing growth (back to the Enneagram), where I can become more assertive than I am naturally inclined to be. Voicing when bedtime is when it means having to say “goodnight, and see you tomorrow” is not easy for me either, but because I know our kids wake up close the same time every morning regardless of when they go to bed, next day crankies are imminent if we don’t have a bed-time goal.

Part of creating boundaries that are healthy is allowing yourself time to re-evaluate and giving your kids the space to speak up when they feel boundaries need to be adjusted as well. A recent example of this is that after a summer of often including whoever was still playing at our house at dinner-time to eat with us, our girls asked that we ask our friends to go home during dinner so they could spend time with daddy without being distracted.

Which boundaries are necessary for your family as you learn to better include will be determined by your family’s priorities, schedule, personalities, and current season. While boundaries need to be voiced, they may need to be adjusted as you enter a different season (like summer to school or vice versa, for example), and a regular practice of reevaluating them is highly beneficial.

3. Give Thanks

Ann Voskamp writes that “as long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible” (One Thousand Gifts, 33). I try to remember how she learned to put this into practice as I stand at the precipice of my own scenarios, my own opportunities to show grace and whisper thanks and live with a heart full and freely given. When I stand at the trampoline: Thank you, Lord, for these girls. Thank you for their friendship. Thank you that they are learning and growing to look more like you. Thank you for this yard and this trampoline and the day that is sunny and bright. Thank you for being here with me right now. And then it is easier to speak with kindness and compassion, to teach gently, to correct in love, and to more graciously include.

I fail to remember, and need reminded again and again—perhaps that is why I so often find myself opening Ann Voskamp’s books—but I am slowly learning to give thanks first. And giving thanks in the hard moments—of parenting, navigating hurt emotions, cultivating godly character, diffusing hangry outbursts, and living out a life of inclusion— invites joy into them. Subsequently, joy that is constant, sure and steady, no matter the storms that rage around it, helps us shine the light of Christ in our own neighborhoods.

Did your summer fly by and you realize you still don’t know your neighbors well enough to have kids knocking at your door? At the bottom of this post is an invitation for you sign up for my email list at receive your one-page, FREE Practical Field Guide to Neighborhood Missional Living to give you tools to begin living missionally in your own neighborhood today. I promise your email address is safe with me. Here is what to expect: a short, weekly email containing a link to my latest blog post, and some periodic extra insider tips for living out a life on mission right where you live.

May I end with a prayer?

Dear Father, I thank you for each and every person reading today. I thank you for the dream you are stirring inside them to live missionally right in their own neighborhoods. Thank you that YOU believe in THEM, that as a rabbi once told Ann Voskamp, “God [is] saying He believes in you, that He believes in the story He is writing through you, He believes in you as the gift the world needs” (The Way of Abundance, 47). Thank you that you believe in us as the gift our neighborhoods need. Thank you for the grace you give us to include.

Voskamp, Ann. One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Alive Right Where You Are. Zondervan, 2010.

Voskamp, Ann. The Way of Abundance: A 60-Day Journey into a Deeply Meaningful Life. Zondervan, 2018.