Meeting People

Today I met a man named Ernie in the McDonalds not far from my home. Barb and I took the kids there because it had a playplace and they needed to burn off some energy. Since it was raining and cold, they couldn't do it outside (and I might have had a hankering for a Big Mac).

When I walked in the playplace, there was a man sitting there watching a young boy scampering through the mazes and down the slide. I don't do real well at just starting up conversations with people unless I'm in an unusual mood. Just my personality. But I figured I would anyway. Soon we were talking about raising young children, our jobs (he's a mechanic), and the like. When we left, we gave him our contact information.

I've never done a good job of just reaching out to people unless I have a conducive environment for talking to them. I mean, unless I'm in a situation that lends itself naturally to engaging another person, I'm more inclined just to smile (maybe) and move on.

But I was talking to Barb the other day and saying that if we're going to see God use us to grow this church from scratch, we're going to have to step out of that coccoon and talk to people. Engage them. Enter into their life and experience a bit.

The problem is, it's not me to a great extent. I don't just naturally go up to people and start talking to them. So the dilemma: Do I put on my game face and become something I'm not, or do I just sit back and wait for those elusive, natural connections?

Talking to Ernie this morning got me thinking. For one, in looking back, I find that almost without fail, when I do reach out and connect to people, strangers, that I leave that encounter sensing something right about it. There's something profound about connecting with another human being--even if it is a stranger and perhaps because it IS a stranger. My horizon is expanded, my understanding of the world and of people grows with each contact.

Second, maybe my reticence is no more part of my personality than selfishness is. Rather, my restraint or fear or apathy in connecting with others might just be a vestige of the Fall on my personality. In other words, God didn't create me to be reclusive and reticent toward my fellow human beings. Instead, it is much more likely (indeed Biblical) that He created me for community with others. The Fall and the consequent sinfulness we inherit, drives wedges between us, sometimes through the very excuses we make such as when we say, "It's just my personality." No. My real, God intended, personality is one that is expansive and welcoming of the stranger and the foreigner (and friend).

When I meet someone like Ernie, or Isaiah the county tax assessor (another story for another day), I'm living into the reality for which God created me. Sure it's taking me outside of a level of comfort I'm used to, but in truth, that comfort level is most likely a wall I've built around myself--one that God never intended me to build in the first place.

Here's to meeting more people.