Strangers
Author Malcolm Gladwell published a book shortly before the Covid lockdown, suggesting that people are not very good at making sense of the thoughts and decisions of those they do not know well. Then the world was placed on lockdown, and apart from those we viewed on television, social media, or Netflix, our interactions with people were drastically limited to those we knew best. This lasted for months.
Many found great comfort in this forced isolation and even now continue to struggle with reintegration into life surrounded by strangers. Apart from the latent fear of germs or potential illness, there remains for each of us the unending challenge of trying to interpret the lives of ‘strangers’ all around us. Gladwell says it best.
“Today we are now thrown into contact all the time with people whose assumptions, perspectives, and backgrounds are different from our own.”[1]
The beauty of the Church as God designed it is that it is a worldwide community. Within this community, an understanding of foundational perspectives and assumptions is shared with people from all walks of life, divergent cultures, and vastly different backgrounds.
These shared assumptions are that each person is implicitly valuable because they represent part of God’s intentional creative force. There is a recognition that what Jesus accomplished while on earth was sufficient for the brokenness of all of humanity for all of time, and that each person shares in this need for redemption. Finally, though we may have personal preferences regarding the structure of worship, it is understood that no matter the language or liturgy, we are not the audience but that all of us worship an audience of One…the living God, creator of this beautiful diversity.
These assumptions should even be retained for those who do not share our Christian faith. It is true that we might not have much in common with the strangers we meet along the way. Yet, because of what we know to be true about who God is and the work Jesus accomplished, we take for granted that everyone we come across is valuable and worthy of love. They represent part of God’s intentional creative force. We know that even in their obvious brokenness (from our perspective), the work of Jesus is sufficient and that their need for redemption is no greater than our own.
This is the freedom Jesus spoke of. (John 8:36) It permits entering even difficult conversations knowing that the person with whom we are speaking is part of God’s design. It allows us to accept one another’s brokenness as evidence of the healing that Jesus came to bring about. It even opens us up to experiencing corporate worship in freedom. For we know that whether worship is led by an organ, bagpipe, or didgeridoo, the songs are lifted to God who made it all.
May we continue to desire the eyes to see the strangers in our midst as God does. May we acknowledge the brokenness of all people and be part of sharing the redemptive work of Jesus. And may we enter worship in a multitude of contexts, free to experience new songs and voices that draw us more fully into this beautiful family.
[1] Gladwell, Malcolm. Talking to Strangers What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know. New York, NY: Back Bay Books, 2021. P. 11.
Subscribe to the Mission Outreach Blog and be the first to read our bi-weekly updates.
As RPC’s Associate Pastor for Mission Outreach, Rev. Dr. Dan Kreiss, has a heart for service and a diverse array of experiences in the mission field. Be sure to subscribe to the Mission Outreach Blog to read and follow along as he documents his personal journey and shares his vision for RPC’s mission outreach commitment. Along with providing meaningful resources, this blog will help jumpstart the important conversations our church community must be having about missional living.
Rev. Dr. Dan Kreiss
Rev. Dr. Dan Kreiss is the Associate Pastor for Mission Outreach at RPC. Dan is particularly passionate about encouraging the church to reflect the diversity found in its surrounding community in regard to age, gender, ethnicity, education and economic status.