Nellie's Life

Shannel Hanft
Journey to the Center of the City
By Randy White
Pg. 65-134

“As we have built friendships with people already here, we are beginning to understand that they already have a very good sense of what the needs of the neighborhood are. On one street we pulled way back with the initiative we were taking and instead worked on developing these relationships.” (89) I think it is very important to understand the real needs of the neighborhood before one even starts to try to help it. The neighborhood has been there a long time, and there are people who have lived there their whole lives. Talking with these people about the strengths and weaknesses of the neighborhood would probably be a good place to start in the life of that community. Sometimes the needs that we see in the neighborhood are not exactly the real needs that are necessary for being addressed in that neighborhood. It is all on a case to case basis because different communities need different things.
One form of ministry that I believe works in every neighborhood is relationships. I think building relationships is the key to any ministry. The seventh chapter titled
“Songs of the City” consists of poems, stories, and songs in which people who have intentionally moved into the city have written. Funny thing is that each one had to do with a certain relationship in which God had used the intentional neighbor to minister to another person through that relationship. These relationships, I believe require a lot of trust which means that once a strong relationship has been formed, the intentional neighbor may feel comfortable sharing with the other person the truth about Christ. The other person would have already developed a trust with the intentional neighbor therefore actually taking to heart what they have said.
One of the poems includes this quote, “Fact is, I’ve had the ‘fan on high’ most of my life, conveniently deaf to the cries of pain around me. It’s easier not knowing; Not knowing is a hard habit to break.” (102) I believe the word fan in this poem can have many different meanings but I am going to say it means relationships. If there are no relationships with people in your community it is very easy to go without getting to know any of the pains around you. That is why it is very important to turn off the fan and jump into getting to know people and developing genuine relationships in the neighborhood.