Creating Opportunities for New Relationships
“The two of them, (Paul and Barnabas), sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogue. John was with them as their helper.”
-Acts 13:4-5
The relevant question is: How often do we intentionally go to new places or step out of our comfort zone in order to have the opportunity to potentially develop a new relationship with someone we had not known before that time? Too many times, we Christians, spend all of our time or the vast majority of our time with those who are already Christian. Too many Christians end up at the church all the time and they don’t have any time left to spend in new places where they can meet new people and develop new relationships with people who are not connected with Christ yet. That’s one of the reasons why we have a discipleship pathway that emphasizes connecting to God through Jesus Christ by spending an hour in worship each week, growing in our faith with Jesus by spending an hour in a small group experience each week, and serving in the church and the community by spending an hour doing ministry in a ministry action team once a week. We have often said that we ask you to give the church three hours a week. If you do that you will be growing in your faith and you will still have time to seek out new places in order to develop relationships with people you do not know and who are not connected to Christ. We need to be intentionally going places that are new, foreign and even uncomfortable so that we will have the opportunity to create new relationships. Going new places and stepping outside of our comfort zone involves risk so that is what we will talk about this week: taking risks for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
