by Shauna Pilgreen. Article produced from speaking engagement at the Good For All Conference in West Des Moines, Iowa.
One of my favorite spots where I live in San Francisco is a place called Walter Haas Park. It was at this park, sitting at a bench overlooking the city, where I heard God say: Shauna, love this place. I’ve got a plan for this place. You don’t have to create the plan, but you get to creatively live it out.
The love you have for where you live matters. All of Scripture speaks to the importance of place. God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God sent Joseph on a journey to Egypt. Daniel lived as a captive in Babylon. God sent Paul to Athens, Greece.
Following Paul’s Example
Paul doesn’t walk onto the scene as a new kid on the block with a backpack full of his ideas, coming in and telling everybody what to do. Rather, Paul listened to the culture. He paid attention to what they treasured the most. He also paid attention to what was missing. It was only after Paul became a learner of the culture that he earned the favor and the right to speak into that culture. As believers, let’s be about learning the culture where we live.
I’ll paraphrase what Paul said to the people in Greece in Acts 17:24–27. It went something like this: God made the world and everything in it. No temple can hold him and nothing you build and create can either. If it could, then you would be God. Look at it this way. The air you’re breathing is his. Where you live was his idea. God is writing history and God is writing your story. And he’s doing all of this to get your attention.
Your local culture is trying to figure it out. They’re going to methods, vices, idols, drugs of choice, influencers, and billboards to figure it out. The good news is that God’s Good News is still good news. And we are where we live for that very reason.
This mindset will change how we see people, because it changed how I see the 800,000 people who call San Francisco home.
A Visual Sign
I’m a visual learner, so God often gives me mental pictures to speak to me. At a Christian gathering a few years ago, I saw a mental picture of what used to be a Yahoo! billboard in our city—just before you get on the Bay Bridge, right as you get off 4th Street—but instead of Yahoo!, I saw “800,000.”
That’s my dream, and that’s God’s dream, to see 800,000 people come to experience the love of Jesus.
When 800,000 is the dream, I have to stay connected to a limitless God. So I started keeping a running note on my phone. Every time I meet someone new, I write down their name in my note.
Let me share some of my list with you.
- Lupe at the gas station on Ocean and Alemany.
- John with the Bible in his lap in a wheelchair at the BART station.
- Janet, who works out next to me at the gym. She’s a lesbian educator, retiring in June 2019 and is also an adoptive mom.
- Zindakee at Sephora on Powell because God is everywhere.
- Tai at the Art Bistro.
- Letty and Dean, neighbors on my street with a beautiful corner lot and garden.
- Peaches, Frankie, and Kareem who live on Oakdale Avenue.
- Wanda at the Grocery Outlet. She’s the only one of her siblings who still has the necklace her mom gave them.
- Roberto, who loves God. He also lives on my street. Fought in Vietnam. Beautiful yard. Loves waxing his white truck.
- Fernando, who drives a “limited edition” Corolla with rope holding the trunk closed.
- Aaron and Aaron, who opened up their garage as a polling place on our street.
- Jazz. He’s an artist that never stops, at 2nd and Harrison.
- Virginia, our dog groomer.
- Dr. Abrahams. She was Nana’s doctor and is an atheist. Nana’s with Jesus now. I pray Dr. Abrahams will meet him, too.
- Frank. Remember where that Yahoo! billboard was? Frank was standing right below it, asking for money on a Sunday morning. We gave him a coffee gift card. We talked about prayer, so my 15-year-old prayed for him.
- Karen. She’s a new neighbor, two doors up from friends of ours. She and her husband work for The Gap Corporate, and they have a dog named Biggie, and he lives up to his name.
- Mimi works at the nail salon. Met her this past week. Non-practicing Buddhist whose sister-in-law and mother-in-law are Christians and she doesn’t get it.
- Joe, our parking garage attendant—because we pay to park to go to church. He loves Jesus, but he needs a different work schedule so he can go to church.
This is beyond my reach, but it’s not beyond God’s. God reminds me all the time—it’s not up to me.
Love Where You Live
I don’t know if you’ve moved around as much as Paul moved around, but when he left Athens, he went to Corinth. And it was in Acts 18:9–10 that Paul got a vision from God.
This is what he heard God say: “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you. For I have many in this city who are my people.”
For I have many in this city who are my people.
That should energize you and encourage you and make you even more engaged in what God is doing.
When we join with our friends Ben and Lindsey and their kids, and we sing Christmas carols to their eight neighbors, we’re reaching the 800,000 together. When my neighbor two doors down shares business coaching with the wisdom of God to our next-door neighbor, we’re reaching the 800,000 together. That’s just 799,991 to go!
Here’s where it gets good—where neighboring collides with evangelism on the streets where you live.
In Love Where You Live, I share strategically how to love people in a very specific culture and context. One of our many contexts when the book was written was elementary school. Our kids took Post-it Notes, and we put the names of everyone in their class up by their bed on their wall. At bedtime, we would pray over the names on their wall. We were not praying for salvation. We were praying that they would stay out of trouble, and that God would heal them from their cold or cough.
Fast-forward to Zoom school during the pandemic, when our kids were in high school. One of the kids whose name was on our wall is now in a chat room with a guy named James. And over the course of a year, James is sharing his faith with a kid whose name was on our wall. And it was in his bedroom, one day during Zoom school, that he experienced the love of Jesus and is a completely different kid now.
We’re reaching the 800,000 together.
Take the 750,000 people who make up Des Moines and the surrounding area. Start a note on your phone. Pen and paper also work just fine.
Love this place. Learn this culture. And connect your people to a limitless God.
