…i’d call it “dangerous love” and talk about the frustrating tension between loving people and the danger that we put ourselves in by loving them. because we love people, we go into their world…but in so doing we often leave safety and refuge for a time. had a great conversation a few weeks ago with another member on staff, about how we have been commissioned by God to reach people, and if in fact we’re committed to reaching people who are broken and messy, we’re inevitably gonna get wounded in the process. if we’re gonna speak intelligently to culture, we need to know it’s influences, and in the process we’re gonna hear profanity and we’re gonna see brokenness and we will get hit where we’re weak. we want to be smart about it, but not be so naïve to think that we’ll just “reach” them by them driving by our church sign and reading the nice little one-liner underneath it while we sit comfortably in the church. nor do we want to be so confident by thinking that we’re Jesus talking with the woman at the well, totally invincible to the danger around us. God wants his people at the hub of culture, speaking to the culture without catching and integrating the culture’s values personally. and it’s in that tension that we so struggle to find balance. so many take the easy road and go to one extreme or the other, but God has called us to the middle…to love people with a dangerous love. it’s a surprisingly messy business…
but i’m still trying to stay caught up on emails…so there’ll be no books anytime soon…
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