Yesterday I asked you to complete a neighbourhood grid.  How did it go?

This grid has been completed by people all over North America, and the creators report that about 10% of people can fill in every name on the grid.  About 3% can write down one fact about each neighbour, and less than 1% can write something of depth about every neighbour.

Yes, Jesus says love your enemies, and we should work towards this.  Unfortunately, we can’t start there very easily, since if we aim for everything, we usually hit nothing.  Trying to be neighbours with everybody all at once often means we’re neighbours with nobody.  We need to start somewhere.

In our culture, we often experience the opposite problem as  Jesus’ original hearers.  They  lived in a tightknit community with strong traditions and bonds.  Loving their similar neighbours came naturally, but loving enemies did not.  Their definition needed broadening.

In contract, our culture can make this story too metaphorical and remote.  We don’t regularly see wounded enemies laying on the road, and can tell ourselves, “if I do, I live in a country with universal health care so I can leave it to the profesionals.”  For us, our definition of loving neighbour can start out too broad, and needs narrowing so we can learn to truly love, and not just write people off.

There are two ways we will start off easy.  We’ll start with our actual neighbourhood or cubicle cluster.  Secondly, if love sounds mushy or weird, we can just start with learning names, and then we can figure it out from there.

mapthumbChallenge: For this week, work on learning all the names possible in your grid.  If you don’t know them all, just go knock on their door and ask.  You may find out they forgot your name, too!

Have you completed the neighbourhood grid yet?  If not, click here

Ryan Sim - May 19, 2014

Monday - A New Idea - Pioneer People

Pioneer Story

We introduced our Pioneer Story series with the story of Steve Jobs. This may be because I just watched the film “Jobs”, that chronicles his life from starting the Apple company in a garage, and growing it to what we know today. There’s a scene where the filmmakers go to great pains to show a transformation in Steve. It’s the early days of Apple in a garage. He is angry, having found out his girlfriend is pregnant, and he’s told her to leave his life. He says it’s her problem, not his. We then find him enraged before a mirror, tucking in his shirt, tidying his hair. His face hardens. The next few scenes are designed to show us he’s isolated, hardened and hyperfocused on his success as a businessman. His anger is driving him now. One of his former friends explains to another ,”Steve changed.” This was not exactly a change to be copied in our own lives, that’s not why I tell the story! Steve Jobs accomplished great things, but at great cost. And the turning point, according to this film, was that day his girlfriend said she was pregnant. We’re going to explore a life transformation this week, but one that was ultimately for the good of the entire world, and those who were transformed themselves. This was the transformation that happened in Jesus’ followers when they received the Holy Spirit. With the resurrection of Jesus, they were transformed from terrified failures into emissaries on a mission. With the day of Pentecost, that we learned about last week, the Holy Spirit arrived and transformed them into confident speakers riskily challenging the status quo We’re going to see how that kind of transformation can happen with us. We want to explore those times where people say someone changed, not becoming a hardened, ruthless person, but changing for the better. Jesus still changes lives today, and it’s still up for debate among many whether that’s good or bad. People changed by Jesus are still disowned by families, shunned in workplaces, even killed in some places in the world. Following Jesus entails a transformation not to be taken lightly. Question: Have you ever seen Jesus transform a life? What changed in that person? Was it for the better or worse, in your opinion? What did they do?

Related Topics: Early Church, Jesus, Pioneer, Transformation | More Messages from Ryan Sim | Download Audio

From Series: "Pioneer Story"

We read through the Book of Acts as a Pioneer Story for the church.

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