Encouraging Churches to Be Good Neighbors in Their Communities

 

In Jeremiah 29 we find a “letter to the exiles”. God, through Jeremiah instructed the exiles to be good citizens and neighbors even in the city of their exile.

We read verse seven… “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

I submit that as good advice for contemporary houses of worship in today’s communities.

In the State of Indiana, churches are exempt of paying real estate tax or personal property tax. Very often churches, due to this exemption, hold much property, sometimes acres of real estate that, if it were available on open market, would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions.

No taxing jurisdiction, school, county, fire department, realizes any tax revenue from such exempt property.

This exemption has the effect of transferring tax burden from the church to the increased burden of individual property owners.

Given this fact, that individual property owners are in a sense “sponsoring” the local church, providing for fire and police protection, I encourage churches to be good neighbors to the community. Seek peace and prosperity, pray for the community.

Practical suggestions might include offering your facility as a polling location for election day. Churches typically have great parking and can accommodate voters.

Perhaps allow your facility to be used free of rental cost to people or organizations within a determined geographic area or radius.

Open your facility to be used for “town hall” discussions.

Maintain your playground equipment such that it is of the highest safety value.

Most churches I know of do indeed make attempts to be good neighbors.

My encouragement is that you are reminded that the non-exempt community, even folk who may not think the way you do on religious matters, are providing much actual dollar exemption to you as a religious organization. Have a policy of intentional action to be a good neighbor.

 " a good neighbor is a very desirable thing"  Thomas Jefferson

The Beatles 1969 Rooftop and Pamela's Lipstick

 

  

(Jeff Hochberg/Getty Images) (Icon and Image/Getty Images)

  It was sometime during the first week of February, 1969, that I read of the Beatles rooftop concert which had taken place on January 30 atop their headquarters at 3 Savile Row, London.

My elementary school library subscribed to the Times of London, which arrived by mail, days after publication.

I sat there, a seventh grader, in the library of Carstens Elementary school, Detroit, Michigan, by a window, the outside view adorned with much descending snow, reading the Times. It made me feel sophisticated and internationally intellectual to read a newspaper from a different nation.

summer view of now closed Carstens Elementary

    As I read from page to page reports of economics, Parliament, Queen Elizabeth, somewhere tucked deep into the strata of the paper I discovered a photo and brief description of the Beatles rooftop performance which arrested my attention. The report focused mostly on the disruption it had caused to traffic and business activity. I was amused.

    My tablemate, Pamela, was not as she was attempting to attract my attention and favorable comment on her new lipstick which she had moments earlier applied and of which she was considerably enthused.

    I continue to be amused, these fifty-four years later, not only of the report in the Times, but that I have associated it with Pamela’s momentary displeasure.

By the way, I remember reading “Yardley” on the lipstick case. It was a rich burgundy color that rested upon her lips, which were seventh grade-awkwardly posed as if an advertisement.

Eventually, having searched for word or description which might regain her favor of me, I offered “stunning”, which seemed to appease if not please.