Or a flat that’s warm and mould-free and big enough to have a table to eat at?

Well, actually, by God’s grace, I have a house. But over eight million people in the UK live in overcrowded, unaffordable, or unsuitable homes. And that doesn’t include the homeless, or the 11% of young adults continuing to live with their parents well into their 30s because renting, never mind purchasing a perch, is beyond their means. In this context, the government’s plans to build 1.5 million homes in five rapid years are much to be welcomed. Volume matters.

But so does quality.

A house is not a home.

And a housing development isn’t a community. Many of them aren’t. And many were not even designed to be so. Alas.

Too late now to set aside the space for the community centre or the playground or a clutch of shops. Too late for many of the things in a dwelling that make for a sense of joy and freedom. Every builder knows, not to mention the architect and the developer, that if you use breeze blocks in the party wall of a semi or 50-millimetre board for the internal walls in a flat, the neighbours will be listening to the 10 o’clock news on your TV and you’ll have to go for a walk to have a conversation that your kids can’t hear. Too late for much of our housing stock but not too late for the next generation of housing.

A biblical vision for home is rooted in God’s rich vision for human community, a vision for human flourishing in fellowship with him. You see it in Eden – beauty, joy, provision, safety, community, creation care.You see it in the kind of society envisioned for the people of Israel in Canaan. A place of rest (menuchah in the Hebrew) – not the absence of work but ease, security, delight, and satisfaction for family and neighbour, foreigner and sojourner, clan and nation. And you see it in the vision of the new heaven and the new earth of Revelation 21, and Jesus’ promise to prepare a place for all his disciples in his father’s house.

It’s a vision worth working for and one we can all contribute to, whether we’re policy makers, councillors, planning supervisors, developers, architects, brickies, estate agents, landlords, renters, sellers, buyers… or just neighbours.

Mark Greene
Mission Champion, LICC