The work of cultivating the common good starts in your own neighborhood. In Becoming Neighbors , Amar D. Peterman explores how the common good can be cultivated through the practice of neighbor love. And he encourages Christians to join their neighbors at what he calls “the shared table”―a space where communities gather across differences to work towards the flourishing of the whole. Within every neighborhood, people have daily opportunities to show up for each other and share the best of their traditions, cultures, and beliefs. But too often, Christians keep to themselves―and when they do show up, many spend more time talking than listening. Peterman encourages Christians to adopt a different posture: to sit side by side with their neighbors at the community table, share a meal, engage in mutual listening and learning, and actively commit to each other’s flourishing. Peterman illuminates the faith-based insights that Christians can bring to the table, such as the biblical call to love others, to seek goodness, and to build communities of belonging. And he offers tangible practices of neighbor love―including compassion, resonance, lamentation, and accompaniment―that translate across diverse populations. Peterman also demonstrates how Christ’s example as prophet, priest, and king serves as a guide for how Christians might live faithfully in their communities today. At the heart of this book is a simple but critical question: How will we live ? Amid our differences and disagreements, through the strife and terror of our world, through the reality of death and the hope of resurrection, the answer for Christians is clear: We live as neighbors. "Peterman’s passionate vision for a more connected and harmonious society inspires. Christian do-gooders will find this worth a look." ― Publishers Weekly “In a digital age in which the entire world seems like our neighborhood, it is easy to overlook our own local, flesh-and-blood, brick-and-mortar communities. It is easy to want to change the whole world but not even know our own neighbors. Amar Peterman invites us to turn more toward the places where we dwell, to the people who live among us, and to the spaces where we can cultivate the common good in our own communities―in other words, to become more neighborly. Loving our neighbors with Christlike love is a process of our own becoming, and I’m grateful that upon reading these pages, I’m inspired and encouraged to participate more fully in that process of becoming.” ― Karen Swallow Prior , author of You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful “Amar Peterman has written a book the church desperately needs. Becoming Neighbors is a beautiful vision of what happens when we move past fear and suspicion and begin to see one another as bearers of God’s image. It’s both deeply practical and profoundly hopeful―an invitation to create communities marked by love, justice, and belonging.” ― Zach W. Lambert , author of Better Ways to Read the Bible: Transforming a Weapon of Harm into a Tool of Healing “Amar Peterman connects cosmic beliefs to concrete actions in this beautiful book about how faith calls us to build community, starting with the people who live next door.” ― Eboo Patel , author of We Need to Build: Field Notes for Diverse Democracy “As Christians we are called to become neighbors―and that is not a metaphor! Amar Peterman’s reminder that love must be concrete is as invitational as it is insistent, and as visionary as it is provocatively practical . ” ― Hanna Reichel , author of For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional “If meals make neighbors, and neighbors make communities, then the table is far more than a place to eat. In Becoming Neighbors , Amar Peterman reminds us that the table is where we learn to linger, to see and be seen, and to be knit together―often against the grain of an age bent toward isolation, suspicion, and speed. Hospitality here is no small courtesy; it is a school of hope, where imagination is reawakened and the quiet miracle of God’s presence can still break in.” ― Anne Snyder , editor in chief, Comment “Amar Peterman blends clarity, compassion, and depth in his call for Christians to take seriously the kind of generous hospitality that is possible at the intersection of faithful witness and love of neighbor. Reading this book is time well spent.” ― John Inazu , author of Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect “Amar Peterman brings to the American church the ancient, precolonial values of peaceful pluralism embodied by our Indian ancestors, values the West desperately needs for its healing today. This book is a hope-filled, prophetic reimagination of what the church was always meant to be―good news for the poor and oppressed, working alongside the Spirit of God who is already present in all of humanity and creation. If you’re longing for a church that heals, hopes, and joins God’s liberati