Talking to Strangers

I have an amazing Fair Trade Coffee shop in my apartment complex with an amazing view of the river.  The baristas are all really fun folks and the atmosphere is fantastic!  Given all these things, I spend quite a bit of time in the coffee shop.  I don't believe I've ever approached someone I don't know, but I've had a few people come up to me.

One day I was working from the coffee shop and a lady came up to me and complimented me about how hard I had been working.  The irony of the situation was that I had finished working for the day and I think I had been checking ESPN.com.

Another time, I brought the book "Celebration of Discipline" in with me because our small group is going through it.  I actually wasn't reading it as I was on my laptop.  A guy who was meeting there with a prayer group came up to me out of the blue and asked me, "How is God working in your life?".  It caught me by surprise (I also hadn't realized that he had saw me bring in the book).  I was thinking that was a pretty gutsy question to go up and ask a complete stranger.  It took me a few minutes to come up with an answer, but then we had a really good conversation.  He asked if he could pray for me and I ended up praying for him as well.

It got me to thinking about risk taking.  I wish I was so bold as that.  I saw a video for a local Church here where the person was traveling to Church for a service.  Along the way, they traveled on the subway and walked on the streets.  All the while, captions would pop up over the various people he passed saying things like "lonely" or "going through a divorce".  The point being that we are constantly passing people all the time who are dealing with things and we never interact with them.  I'm a decently social person, but I never approach strangers; I usually avoid talking to people on planes.  I saw that video and thought "great video" and then of course went on with living my life the same way I always had.  Perhaps I need to be a bit more open to talking to strangers.

Church across divides

I was in Seattle a little over a week ago and I got to walk the halls of UPC again.  UPC is a Church that I spent 6 years at through College and after College and is a place with many memories.  A great thing about UPC is that you can show up on any day or any night of the week and there is always so much going on.

While I was there, I noticed several posters around the Church advertising for Lenten small groups.  The campaign was very well done and consisted of various people within the Church holding signs describing characteristics of small groups.  As I walked up a stairway, one in particular caught my attention.

 "Small Groups are intergenerational"  -- Don & Cool guy

I have been involved with two very large Churches -- UPC and a Church here in Atlanta.  Large churches tend to get very segregated across age and marital status.  I know that when I first returned to Seattle from Ireland, I eagerly sought out the Young Adult group and my biggest priority was connecting with people my age.  However, during the last couple of years, I have become more and more convinced that the Church needs to cross divides.  A cool thing that use to happen at the Young Adult group is that a group of 55+ year olds called "Second Wind" would come and bring deserts every once in a while.  As a result, I developed a friendship with a man named Lee.  I had a conversation with Jon Epps (the UPC young adult leader) while I was in Seattle where his vision was very much along these lines.  It was cool to see UPC taking on these divides.  The high schoolers, college students, and young adults were all attending the same Church service.  Students do work for elderly populations with the Church.  Small groups are being formed across ages.

Martin Luther King Jr. famously said that Sunday mornings was the most segregated hour of the week.  The body of Christ is made up of people of all nations, all races, all ethnicities, all ages, all abilities, and all backgrounds.  If we are missing this in our Church experience, we our missing out on a wealth of experiences and relationships.  That is one of the reasons I am excited about my current Church.  I attend service with and know older generations, children, married couples, lawyers, teachers, students, etc  We also held a joint Ash Wednesday service with a predominantly African American Church which just felt so right.