Pastor Harold Zimmick serves Asbury Church in Madison.
January 30, 20120

(This is a series of brief essays by local pastors reflecting on the love of neighbor in anticipation of this year’s Kingdom Justice Summit on March 7 and 8. You can learn more about that here.)

On a hot summer evening two and a half years ago my daughter, Charis, and I met some of our Madison neighbors whom we never had met before. 

We were walking in a community prayer march on the southside initiated by Mt. Zion Baptist Church. We prayed at Penn Park, the South Madison bus transfer station, Goodman South Library and the Boys and Girls Club. The neighborhood prayer march was an effort to walk the streets, take back the streets, and to pray that God would bring hope and healing to our city and bring an end to the unprecedented violence and killings we were experiencing that summer and in the first half of 2017. 

What struck me that night was that along with the passionate praying, heartfelt focus and wonderful sense of unity and purpose was the conviction that if I was to truly love my neighbor, I needed to know my neighbor. I was convicted of the fact that I really didn’t know many of my neighbors on the southside of Madison. I didn’t know their stories and their hopes and I had never joined my prayers with their prayers. Forgive me, Lord.

I do want to love my neighbor, and a good place to start is to know my neighbor. Because in knowing comes connection, care, understanding and love. Let’s get to know our neighbors and we will be on our way to loving our neighbors. 

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