Being Prepared

Living through the Christchurch earthquake I have learned one thing about preparing for troubled times. We had no electricity, no reticulated water and sewerage for sixteen days. This is not very long in the overall scheme of things. If Western culture collapses, the disaster will last much longer and more painful, but the lesson is still relevant.

During the days following a disaster, the only people who can help you are the neighbours living close to you.

• The government will be too busy trying to restore its operations to care about helping individuals. In a big crisis, it might be broke, anyway.

• They city council will be too busy trying to get roads open and infrastructure restored to worry about ordinary people. They will look after the important people anyway.

• The modern church cannot help. The leaders will be focussed on sorting out the problems with their builds and getting their church services restored.

• The people you meet when you drive to church will be too far away to provide assistance. They will have their own set of problems and will be too busy to worry about you.

Ideally, Christians should be able to support each other in times of distress. However, they will only be able to do that if they live within easy walking distance of each other. If Christians lived close together, they would be able to support each other in times of distress. They would be able to reach out together and effectively support other struggling people around them. The body of Christ could be a great blessing to the world. Unfortunately the modern petrol-driven church is so dispersed that this could not happen.

A distinctive thing about my book Being Church Where Live is that it explains how this could change.