Nobody thought much about the front porch when most Americans had them and used them. The great American front porch was just there, open and sociable, an unassigned part of the house that belonged to everyone and no one, a place for family and friends to pass time. Rochlin, “The Front Porch” in Home, Sweet Home

I pulled up just as the sun was returning to the other side for the night. I parked the car, locked the door, swung the computer bag over my shoulder and was heading up the driveway when my stroll was interrupted by a voice from across the street.

“How was your day?” It was the Donelan’s, my neighbors.

“It went well,” I turned and replied.

“Sure is a nice evening.”

“Yes,” I agreed and then I continued toward the front door.

It’s reassuring to know the Donelans will be on their front porch when I get home. I’m envious. I’d like to have a front porch, too. Their home is the only one on our street that has one. Most of our homes sport a wood deck on the back yet, the Donelan’s front porch makes this street seem more neighborly, secure, and peaceful.

I want a front porch. I’m not alone.

In our time people have a hunger for “median spaces”. Median spaces are where we make social and personal connections. Median spaces are where people experience that “front porch” feeling.

The American front porch further represents the ideal of community in America. For the front porch existed as a zone between the public and private, an area that could be shared between the sanctity of the home and the community outside. It was an area where interaction with the community could take place. For ‘the master’s farm business, the mistress’s selection of goods and produce, the home craftsmen’s sales and sundry negotiations of the cooler sort (with the hired man, the foreman, the slave or house servant, the distressed or disgruntled neighbor, even with the unpredictable stranger form the muddy road) could all be conducted in the civil atmosphere offered by the shade of a prominent porch, apart from the sleeping and feeding quarters and without serious risk to the family’s physical and psychic core’ (Out on the Porch). The porch further fostered a sense of community and neighborliness. In the evenings, as people moved outdoors, the porch served to connect individuals. The neighbors from next door might stop by one’s house, to sit on the porch and discuss personal and community issues. The couple walking down the street might offer a passing ‘Hello,’ as they passed house after house of inhabitants rested outdoors.¹

While researching material for my new book, The Search to Belong: Rethinking Intimacy, Community, and Small Groups, I stumbled across the concept of the front porch. In the book A Pattern Language: Towns, Building, Construction², there is a discussion about the effective and affective use of front porches, side porches (gardens), and back porches (decks).

The back deck has become the new standard for the American home. Americans wanting to reclaim the experiences of their childhood memories on their grandparent’s front porch, built pressure treated decks on the back of their homes. But the back deck provides a different kind of experience, one that is more exclusive and intimate than its front porch ancestor. The location is the wrong space to provide a front porch experience. Consequently, back decks are rarely used.

Unfortunately, along with its host culture, the American church has moved evangelism to the back deck. Congregation are instructed that effective evangelism uses the exclusive, intimate, and “pressure treated” language of the back deck. Get people away from the world, talk to them as though they were intimate friends, feed them the biblically marinated food from a grill, and argue them into faith.

Regrettably, evangelism marketers have convinced us that people really need this back deck kind of experience.

The front porch is a social space—an entry point for neighborly conversation. Watch Andy, Aunt Bea, Barney, Opie and Helen and you will see the Front Porch conversation practiced at its best.

People in our time yearn for this kind of conversation. They want to engage in a neighborly conversation about life—including their spiritual life. They do not however want to be dragged inside or to the back deck. Forget “spiritual” BBQs. They can smell that one coming like burnt burgers.

Want to discover how to teach your church the lost art of front porch conversations? Start by watching an Andy Griffith rerun together, then head to your local Starbucks and eavesdrop on the Barista’s conversations with some of the regulars. And don’t forget to ask the servers how their day is going.

¹The Cultural Significance of the American Front Porch

²Alexander, Christopher, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein, with Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King, Shlomo Angel, A Pattern Language: Towns-Buildings, Construction, Oxford University Press, New York, 1977.