In this edition of The Loop, Chris has written several articles to help us prepare for A Passion for Life. They focus on evangelism and on being witnesses to Jesus Christ in our everyday lives. To kick us off, however, I want us to think about something more basic: where we live—and, perhaps more importantly, where we aspire to live.

You see, evangelism and mission don’t take place in the abstract. They happen in real places, with real postcodes, real community dynamics, and among real people. In fact, I want to suggest that our evangelism and mission will only ever be as effective as the answer we settle, deep in our hearts, to one big question: Is the world my oyster?

Our culture would very much like us to think so. We are told that life is meant to be a steady (maybe sometimes dramatic) upward climb through career and social ranks. We get our first job, then buy a house—anywhere, really. As our career progresses, we are encouraged to move to a more desirable neighbourhood, and then again later,to somewhere even better. We often talk about the American Dream, but here in the UK we have our own powerful versions of it, shaping how we imagine a “good life”.

But what if following Jesus disrupts that dream? What if, in some cases, following Jesus means deliberately resisting it?

The apostle Paul writes words that cut across our cultural instincts:
 “Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them” (1 Corinthians 7:17).

Paul goes on to illustrate this principle using some striking cultural markers—circumcision and slavery. These are challenging verses, and we’ll come back to them in more depth later in the year as we study 1 Corinthians together. For now, though, notice the explosive heart of what Paul is saying: learning to live contentedly in the circumstances the Lord has assigned to you, rather than constantly trying to shake them off in pursuit of what our culture labels “the better life”.

This grates against almost everything around us. It can sound unambitious, even like settling for less. And yet Paul can also say, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” (Philippians 4:11–13). Contentment, for Paul, is not passivity; it is a deeply learned, gospel-shaped posture.

What if learning to be content, what if resisting the constant pull towards “more” and “better”, is actually part of living an evangelistic and witnessing life? After all, mission is not something we add on to life; it is woven into the fabric of ordinary work and ordinary relationships: “Whatever you do… do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17).

Let me make this concrete. I’ve lived in Reddish for two and a half years. In that time, I’ve started to get to know people, but if I’m honest, it’s taking time for our family to feel like our roots are really going down into this community. How long does it take to genuinely get to know 50 or 100 people in a place? Months? Years? Think of that time as an investment.

Now imagine what happens if, just as those roots are beginning to form, we get swept along by the prevailing story and move elsewhere because another place is deemed better, nicer, or more desirable. What happens in Reddish? What is lost is the slow, quiet capacity to witness—to live as a city set on a hill in that particular place.

But imagine a different story. Imagine staying. Imagine continuing to sink roots down into Reddish. The faces in the local shops are no longer vague and familiar but known and named. Time spent in cafés, pubs, schools, and community events slowly turns neighbours into friends. And imagine that, over time- not dramatically or all at once, but quietly and faithfully- people begin to come to faith in Christ through diligent witness.

This kind of mission depends on longevity. Eugene Peterson famously described discipleship as “a long obedience in the same direction”. That phrase applies just as much to mission and evangelism. And Lesslie Newbigin, reflecting on decades of missionary experience, insisted that the gospel is made credible not by quick results but by the long-term presence of a community that is shaped by it—a people who stay, love, and serve over time.

Now imagine one more layer: what if all of us were thinking like this? What if mission and evangelism were central to how we decide where to live and how to live there? What might that do to the evangelistic witness of ECC across our neighbourhoods?

This opening article, then, is a call for all of us to sink our lives into the communities where we live. Not merely to live among people, but to become actively involved in the life of those places so that, over time, we might have the opportunity to share the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

So is the world my oyster? Is the world your oyster? Not if we want to be people who are effective in evangelism and witness.