Taking the bible study out of the church.

Last winter my wife and I were huddled up in our safe little suburban home on a particularly dangerous night. It was a snow emergency and not even BOGO panties at Victoria's Secret could get people out of the house. It was actually very peaceful, unusually quiet even for our neighborhood. So the sirens caught us off guard. You always feel a little more gravity in your tummy when you hear them get this close. We knew it was across the street so we did our American duty and gawked out the window. Three police cruisers, and ambulance and a fire truck slid down our road and parked directly in front of our house. We watched them buzz in and out of the house across the street, bumbling in the snow and violently pounding on Mike's chest under the flourescent lights through the open garage door. Once they loaded our neighbor into the ambulance, it took them nearly ten minutes to move teh firetruck which had blocked the medics in on our icy cul de sac. Later we found out from a friend of the family that they had to restart Mike's heart three times while they waited for the lumbering red behemoth to move. In the following days Mike was fighting for his life, given about a 30% chance of winning.

Enter: Doug. The following week I saw Mike's next door neighbor (my other neighbors across the street) struggling to get out of the driveway. I helped push their Saturn up the steep, ice-covered incline and paused to share a breath with Doug. Conversation went immediately to our unfortunate neighbor. "You know it's a shame no one came to get me the night mike had his heart attack", he lamented, "I'm a heart surgeon. I was home that night and had all of my gear upstairs."

Question: How many people living on your street have the unique ability to help when your life goes to hell in a handbasket? How would you know? Would anyone even notice you were suffering? Funny that in a world where we have the power to twitter people in Singapore, we don't have relationships with the heart surgeon, or the heart patient, next door.
I've been thinking about ways to reverse the isolation, the fear, and the illusion of safety that my wife and I endured in the suburbs. Working in a church for the past few years I'm familiar with the "bible study" as a social model. We call them community groups, or small groups, most of the time now.

What I'm wondering is, why does this have to be a uniquely religious experience? What's wrong with having the folks on Apple Valley Ct over for drinks and Scrabble? No office friends allowed! No church friends or fishing buddies or homeschool moms allowed! Get to know the people you share air with. Get to know their hurts, their gifts...and see if you might just get the chance to restart their heart some time.