Mr. Raplee's Neighborhood

My parents' generation is almost single-handedly responsible for turning Long Island into ahodgepodge of antiseptic and disconected developments unified solely by their proximities to a mall or an exit on the Long Island Expressway.

Both of my parents grew up in Brooklyn, Mom in East New York and Dad in Park Slope. To listen to my Dad tell stories about his childhood, you would have to wonder everyone fled to the 'burbs. His house was always a bustle of activity with extended family, friends from school and church, most of whom had some kind of clever nickname and all of whom called my grandparents Uncle John and Aunt Dot. There were a lot of people in the picture, almost all of whom lived in Brooklyn and many lived within a few blocks of my Dad.

There were stickball games, cheap movie houses galore, groups of friends venturing across Prospect Park for Dodger games at Ebbets Field. My grandmother was so accustomed to having company, there was never a shortage of of biscuits or cookies on hand at the Raplee house on Windsor Place. From the sound of it, community came so natural to everyone my Dad knew, why would anyone dream of giving all that up just to have a lawn and a driveway?

Many of their friends were in their respective churches, which played a major role in these strong communities. My parents themselves met at a church softball game (which I believe my Mom's church won). Even my mother's sister and father's brother met and married someone from the neighborhood. Marriage, for most of their friends, however, became a launching pad to the suburbs.

After World War II, Long Island, Southern Connecticut, and most of New Jersey became prime real estate to developers seeking to draw people out of the cities. William Levitt invented the modern American suburb with Levittown on Long Island. The town of Lynbrook was established and intentionally named to present itself as an attractive alternative to Brooklyn. The suburbs of Long Island meant that average people could live more like Ozzie and Harriet and less like Ralph and Alice and most of my parent's friends headed east thinking that the grass must be greener where there's simply more grass.

My parents were bitten by the same bug, but it didn't have the same effect. After they got married, they moved to Queens (arguably a lateral move), and my sisters and I ended up growing up where Brooklyn was only a five minute walk from our house. The suburban seduction was apparent even to me as a kid on 78th Street, as many of the friends I played ball with on the block eventually disappeared to the 'burbs. Robert across the street spray-painted a football field on the street (which is illegal), and it remained there long after he moved out. Don't misunderstand me, I have many friends who lived and currently live in the suburbs. Heck, I have many friends who live on farms, but I couldn't live like that. God loves people in the suburbs and so do I. I just don't love the suburbs thenselves.

These days, people have discovered that the cookie-cutter homes of Long Island and other suburbs have managed to isolate people from each other and are coming to the cities for at least a taste of the community that their parents knew. Now that they're here, they don't know how to find community.

That's where we come in. Ascension Church is a community church. We are in the community, ministering to the community and are ourselves a faith community. As our church community grows and proclaims the Gospel of the Kingdom to the community, we believe God can and will transform the community. The Gospel does that kind of thing you know.