Pastor’s Perspective in a small community June 4, 2026

The social media platform Nextdoor, to which I have been posting for nearly a decade, was initially tightly focused on serving specific neighborhoods, thereby ensuring that the posts pertained to a particular geographic community. It was perfect for the uniqueness of our bridgeless island, because we are, to put it kindly, logistically challenged when it comes to connecting with our mainland neighbors. Yet, at some point and for some reason (I would guess that it had to do with advertising revenue, but what do I know), Nextdoor decided to include in our feed of neighborhood information posts that were from areas that fell within a reasonable distance from our community. Now we have to filter through information that comes from places that, while only a few miles away, are actually an hour or more away. As the crow flies, we are relatively close, but we don’t fly, and we can’t drive across bridges that don’t exist, so the community that they are trying to connect us with has almost no relevance to our lives.

If our community was like nearly every other community in the nation, easily accessible by car and therefore conveniently connected to neighboring communities and towns, the standard operating model would likely work for us. But it doesn’t work, precisely because Nextdoor made an assumption that all neighborhoods were the same when it came to certain parameters. They assumed that if someone in Brooklyn could easily get to Staten Island, then surely someone on Daufuskie could just stroll into Savannah. After all, both communities are just a few miles apart. Yet the presumption that proximity equals accessibility that underlies the Nextdoor model doesn’t work here, so what was meant as a convenience becomes instead a nuisance that we have to wade through to find information that is really helpful.

Too often, we are guilty of doing what Nextdoor has done. It is so easy for us to make assumptions about people or things based upon our previous experiences, and we will lump people into groups because, frankly, it is easier for us to process. Yet when we do that, we likely fail to see something unique about a person – a detail that sets them apart from everyone else that might cause us to change how we interact with them. I assure you, those details are there, but for us to find them, we have to resist the urge to lump everyone together into neat categories that we have accepted for the sake of simplifying our own thinking. Our fantastic community is so special precisely because of that one detail that sets us apart from the other developed islands in the area, but you have to push beyond the assumption that if an island is developed, it must have a bridge to it. Fail to see that from a distance, and you will miss what could have been the most fascinating place to visit when you are in the region.

Slow down when you are meeting people. We are automatically drawn to those things that make us similar, so you have to look harder to find those things that make each of us unique. Our individuality gets lost if we only look at the surface level, but if we allow ourselves to look beyond the obvious, we open up the opportunity for some truly fascinating conversations. It takes a bit more effort, perhaps a few added questions, but sometimes the most fascinating attributes of a person, attributes that will make that person unforgettable, are only revealed if you are willing to peer beyond our standard programming.

Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron