God is...a richly related being whose innermost nature is in his ceaseless participation and sharing. -- Alfred North Whitehead

There are special places in all of our lives where we would like time to stand still. One such place is the neighborhood where we grew up. For many in difficult home situations, "the neighborhood" is a source of stability. Each day brings many changes, but the old neighborhood is known territory. When I was growing up, I knew every alley, yard, tree, and fence within a two-mile radius of my front door. I knew which opening in each fence I could pass my bike through, and which yards to avoid because of hostile adults or big dogs. There was a sense of security in knowing all of this. I knew that there was always one area of Muncie, Indiana, where my knowledge of the territory provided a safe place.

I recently went back to my old neighborhood to walk, to reflect, and to remember. It was an important exercise—connecting my past with my present, seeking to understand the twists and turns through which God has led me and continues to lead me. It was hard to believe that I was in the same place. Many things were familiar, but so much had changed. But then, so had I.

There is an old neighborhood in each of us—a place where we were formed and that we helped to form. The only place where it has stayed the same is in one's mind, for we know that time cannot stand still. The houses now look smaller and need repair, the streets seem narrower, the trees are larger, and the people are older. But this is still home, still "my neighborhood."

In his best-selling book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Rolbert Fulghum writes: "There are places we all come from—deep rooty, common places—that make us who we are. And we disdain them or treat them lightly at our peril. We turn our backs on them at the risk of self-contempt. There is a sense in which we need to go home again—and can go home again. Not to recover home, no. But to sanctify memory."

Connecting. To remember means to gather together. It is a process of connecting the past with the present and of searching for meaning in each step along the way, asking, "How was God working there?" And because of who I am and what has happened on this journey, "How is God working here?"

A walk through the old neighborhood is one way to participate in the sacrament of memory—a place where we were formed and that we helped to form. It is a way to acknowledge that ours is a sacramental universe, and that each tree climbed, each alley walked, and each lawn mowed is part of our very beings. It is an exercise that sensitizes us to the truth that God is an active participant with us in the process called life, and that only from some distance can we see the mixture of shadow and light that our past represents.

We live in a disconnected world, where to dis-member rather than re-member is the operating norm. The NET Groups program is about connecting—the past with the present, faith and life, ministry and job, person with person, story with story. And at the heart of such a NET Groups connecting process is the Ministry Experience Report (MER).