Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. (Acts 8:26-27a)
It seems to be human nature to stay where we are comfortable unless we have to move. Even though Jesus talked about the church’s witness being to the ends of the earth, at this point in the book of Acts they have pretty much stayed in the Jerusalem area. So, a combination of persecution hitting the church and an angel giving Philip a kick in the backside sends them out. God doesn’t want us to stay in one place – God wants us to go out!
That’s the grounding behind our congregation’s guiding principle, “Being visible and engaged to build relationships in the world around us.”
One part of moving outward and building relationships is the simple goal of building relationships. It is actually an intentionally limited agenda. We don’t go to convert (that’s the work of the Holy Spirit anyway). We go to be good neighbors and to build meaningful relationships with the people God has around us. As we do, we can be witnesses to the goodness of the God we meet in Jesus. But witnessing in the context of authentic and respectful relationships is the goal – not proselytizing (which includes pressuring someone to convert).
At Zion, we do this in many ways. We do it by hosting and working at the Soup Kettle. We do this as people come in and out of our building and we interact with them (AA groups, SWAN neighborhood association, EPELs social play days program, and more). We also do it when we welcome people to worship, to events like this week’s Café Zion Spaghetti Dinner, being a part of the upcoming Lowrie School End of Year (and of the school) event, and more.
Individually we also do this. It happens when we talk to neighbors across the fence or sitting on the porch; in conversations on the sidewalk when we walk the dog; how we interact with co-workers or fellow students during the week.
In many ways, this is what the world around us needs. People report feeling lonely and disconnected – they need people who will know them and treat them with care and respect. When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, he used the example to remind people that being a good neighbor is a choice. God wants us to make that choice and the people we get to know will be blessed by our willingness to do so – and we will be blessed by getting to know them too.
