I met Earl Creps at his office last summer.  Earl is an author and a church planter in Berkeley.  He sends out a monthly newsletter that is gold.  I want to thank him for letting me post this article from his most recent:

The other day I noticed that my Timberland shoes are wearing out. I love these shoes because I bought them at an 80% discount and because they are waterproof, a key feature for rainy East Bay winters.

The shoes depicted above have been worn out mainly on the sidewalks of Berkeley, California. Our town is very compact (100,000 people in 10 square miles) and values walking or biking over driving. So developing our relationship with the community means taking the time to be out on the street with people every time we get a chance.

As the soles on my Timberlands have gotten thinner and thinner, I’ve noticed that our relationship with Berkeley seems to develop in four stages:

1. Tourist: I started out in this community as a guest armed with statistics from Google, demographics from a consulting firm, and a handful of stories about people I met in coffee shops. This first stage is about being a visitor and involves more observation and analysis than relationship. I felt this way for quite a while in Berkeley, taking in everything but risking very little, especially as I walked though the culture shock in the early months.

2. Resident: In this phase I commit. The reality that I actually live here begins to set in and I work through accepting the fact that my new address is really where I live. The statistics are behind me at this point, and I am beginning to understand the culture of the place in its own terms, letting it speak to me in its native language, so much of which is in the little things like bumper stickers and the aroma of fresh pizza on Telegraph Ave. Digesting numbers and ideas now gives way to meeting the actual people who make up all those charts and graphs.

3. Citizen: A community’s citizens take a kind of ownership that tourists and residents do not. A real citizen takes part in the activities the city offers, and starts to feel a sense of attachment to the place. For instance, I attend community and campus activities all the time now, often showing up for lectures and exhibitions at Cal, and have even joined a Berkeley writers club and the Chamber of Commerce. My relationships become deeper and more cooperative when citizenship takes root, and I begin to risk more and more of myself.

4. Neighbor: This stage is about the willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of the people I’ve met. Of course, I have in mind the parable about the Samaritan Jesus presented as an answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” He is teaching that a real neighbor is someone who helps without conditions, who cares for me when they don’t have to.

• When I know the average square footage of a Berkeley house, I am a tourist.

• When I know the first name of the people who live next door, I am a resident.

• When I attend a baby shower across the street, I am a citizen.

• When Janet takes a pan of homemade enchiladas to the woman who is recovering from surgery next door, we are neighbors.

These phases aren’t intended to be chronological. Of course, we should all be neighbors immediately and all the time. But we’re not.

It’s a process that develops over time. But it’s the only way to make the gospel loud enough to be heard in my town.

So how is your sole days?

Be a leader worth following,