We’re very intentional about being welcoming and friendly. I tell people on Sunday mornings at the end of the services, “If you’re our guest, I’d like to meet you.” And so I go to the hospitality room and meet people every week.
Resistance and pushback are needed to shape a better outcome, but too much can be destructive.
Likewise, effective preachers don’t just ask, “How can I explain this?” They also ask, “How can I picture it?” What story, metaphor, or image will build a picture in listeners’ minds?
We’re overwhelmed. Everyone I meet is drowning in “their thing.” It doesn’t matter if “your thing” is an artistic endeavor, profit margins, wining and dining clients, or raising children. We can’t see past “our thing” because “our thing” (whatever it happens to be) is all-consuming.
By reconnecting with your neighbors, you will bring the church back to the forefront of what has been missing--a deep community connection.
“We want believers to feel more equipped in the Word and prepared to engage the culture,” explains Amanda Barr, director of the school.
“We need to build relational capital. These guys need to enjoy gathering together. They need to love one another. They need to really practice the ‘one anothers’ that we see in Scripture. So, that was our primary goal for that fall season.” The groups took off and thrived.
First and throughout the process, becoming a belonging culture requires that we see the image of God in each other. Men need to see and recognize that God made women in his image and for his purposes and gifted them for that calling. Those gifts include leadership, preaching, and teaching.
For some leaders, listening to another person talk about their problems is like fingernails on a chalkboard. While other leaders embrace the conversations as they gain a high conversing with others.
The message of assimilation makes me uncomfortable because it requires me to celebrate the loss of other people’s culture, traditions, and languages in order to alleviate the fears that white people, including Christians, might have about a diverse society where their position as power brokers of society may be threatened.
