Not Beyond Reach - Building Trust and Friendships, Part 2

If you've been a Christian for a long time, you're very familiar with our call to be salt and light in this world.

But what does that look like in our current climate? How do we connect and share God's love in such a hostile environment? Well, it begins with one thing that I think we've overlooked. It will be the beginning of you building a bridge with some people you love that maybe you feel like you can't even talk to right now.

Stay with me. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international teaching and discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. And in just a minute, we'll pick up where we left off last time in our series, Not Beyond Reach, from our guest teacher Aaron Pierce. Today he continues to walk us through a process of engaging young people who would never walk into a church, and it starts with a genuine relationship. With that, let's get to the remainder of Aaron's talk.

Building Trust and Friendships. He begins by describing a pressure point Christians must address when we connect with people in the secular world. Holiness and relevance is an interesting concept because they can feel like tensions or like they're actually on opposite sides of two spectrums.

Because what relevance is about is it's about being with people and being connected to people and knowing people and understanding how they see the world and to be able to communicate in an effective way. Whereas holiness is about being set apart. It's about being different and distinct.

And so what happens is you can actually err on either side. So you can be completely quote unquote relevant to the point where you look exactly like the world. And you essentially adopt the world's lifestyle and morals and theology in order to fit in and to connect. The other spectrum is that we are so quote unquote holy that we isolate ourselves from the world. That we're completely disconnected. That we do everything separate. Separate Christian schools, Christian entertainment, Christian everything so that we have no impact and no influence on the world. As followers of Jesus, we are called to go into the world and to transform it. And that means that we have to be distinct. We don't compromise morally or theologically, but we also don't hide from the world either.

So how do we do this well? So the first thing is, again, is we want to be when we're developing these relationships, these friendships, we want to be distinct. We want to be clear that we're a follower of Jesus. We don't want to hide the fact that we are a follower of Jesus. In fact, if following Jesus is core to who you are, it should come out naturally.

It should be part of the flow of your conversation. So we want to be distinct and clear, but we don't want to be obnoxious or a Jesus robot where we don't see the social cues that are going on and we're just like Jesus. We want to be able to connect with people naturally and be clear that we are followers of Jesus. The second thing that's really important in this approach is that we cannot be offended that non-Christians act like non-Christians. So many times Christians are so precious and so easily offended when someone acts a little rough or maybe makes a comment politically that you don't agree with and it's like, whoa, and you freak out.

And we need to be able to a little more relax that we're not going to freak out when someone acts like a non-Christian because that is what they are. So to give you an example, I grew up in the Netherlands and I grew up with a friend that my brother and I both had. We grew up in the same neighborhood. We had a great friendship. And then when we got older, we left.

We left the Netherlands. And then years later, I came back to Amsterdam and I thought, I'm going to look up my friend. And so I went to his house, knocked on his door, and it turns out they were having a party. And they were like, yeah, yeah, he's upstairs. Go upstairs. So I went upstairs.

And this is Amsterdam, mind you. There's a whole group of people and they're all smoking joints and they're like, come on, sit down. And I could have been like, whoa, no way, get away from me. And instead I was like, okay, fine.

Sat down, they handed the joint, I handed it off to the next person and just began to have a conversation with these people because I'm not going to be tainted. I can hang out with non-Christian people and not be offended that they act like non-Christians. So we can be a little not so precious about that. The next point is that the goal, and this is critical, the goal is not to flaunt our moral superiority, like the fact that we swear a little less or the fact that we don't get drunk.

The goal is not to flaunt that. The goal is that we actually allow them to see our supernatural hope, love, joy, and peace. So what I mean by that is what people want to see is how is it that you are joyful in suffering? How is it that you just found out that you have cancer, but you have peace?

How does that make sense? How is it that you have hope when everything around you is falling apart? How is it that you are able to love the unlovable, that you are able to forgive someone that hurt you? How is it that you are able to have hope, love, joy, and peace? And the reason is because it's not natural.

It's a supernatural thing the Holy Spirit has done in you. That is what you want people, the distinction that you want people to see. I'm not suggesting that we don't worry about our morals.

I'm just saying that is not what's going to attract someone. They want to see something supernatural. And the supernatural is the fruit of the Spirit. Especially when they see how you handle hard things, how you handle suffering. Because then what you get is you get that classic apologetic verse, which is 1 Peter 3.15, which says, Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. They're not asking you to give the reason that you swear less, or the reason that you're not drinking.

That's not what they're asking. Where does the hope come from? And so I think this is a critical distinction that we need to make as we engage secular people. So we want people to see those supernatural things of hope, joy, love, and peace in our lives. All right, so those are kind of the basic principles. Now how do we actually get friendships?

Like how do we actually do this? So the idea here is we want to adopt a missionary mindset. And so what does that mean? That means that we want to be intentional about a lifestyle that is going to put us in places and situations where we're going to be able to interact with and ultimately develop friendships with secular people.

It means that it doesn't just happen organically. Like a missionary is not a organic, Oh, look at this. I'm in Egypt now. No, I decided to go to Egypt to pursue people in Egypt that don't know Jesus. That is the mindset that we need to have right here. The approach is we need to be missionaries to our people in our cities. And so the idea is we adopt in a missionary mindset an intentional lifestyle. And again, we go back to the fact that that starts in a broken heart, counting the costs, and now we intentionally engage with people.

So how do we do that? Well, first thing you need to do is start by actively pursuing people in your oikos, which is a Greek word for sphere of influence. So who's already in your sphere of influence, whether that's obviously family, coworkers, neighbors, there are people already around you that there's a difference between like knowing someone or seeing someone at an event or Thanksgiving and pursuing them for a deeper relationship. And there are people right now in your world that if you ask the Lord, God, who do you want me to pursue?

Who do you want me to pursue for a deeper relationship? And sometimes in your own family, that means that I'm going to pursue people where I have a broken relationship. And the goal in this case is not necessarily to preach the gospel. Ultimately, we want that. But the goal is to build and mend a relationship, right?

To start there. Or maybe there's people that you're working with, worked with for years, but you haven't pursued a relationship with them beyond your work. And there's incredible, one of the greatest mission fields that we have today is our work, where we get to interact with secular people. And you don't have to build a relationship with everyone, but maybe two or three people where you pursue them and you develop a relationship outside of the work context where you can begin to have open, personal, and ultimately spiritual conversations.

But who are those people? And this is something that you need to take to the Lord, right? Because again, we have a limited capacity to develop relationships. And we need to say, God, who is it in my sphere of influence that you want me to pursue intentionally for a deeper relationship? And ultimately, we're talking about people today who would not walk into a church. Second thing, when it comes to the missionary mindset, is we should expand our oikos because the reality is in our culture, our oikos, our sphere of influence is getting smaller and smaller. Even our neighborhoods, we don't engage with like we used to. You know, working from home has made our work influence smaller and smaller, right?

Families are more separated than ever before. So in fact, a lot of times our natural sphere of influence is pretty small. And so we need to expand that by being relationally present in secular places. Again, this is that missionary mindset.

And so the idea is, what can we do? Well, go to places like hobbies, where people like to do things together. Remember, secular people are looking for belonging and community.

And if they're not finding it in the church, they're finding it in other places. And so these are great places where you can not just organically, because I like sports, because I want to develop relationships. Because I want to connect with people, where are the places that I could go, hobbies that I can be part of, where I can develop relationships with secular people that wouldn't walk into a church. The other are causes. Causes are actually awesome ways to connect, because causes, and we'll talk about this later when we talk about politics, but causes inherently suggest that people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. And that they believe the world is not as it ought to be, and they want to make it better. I mean, those are biblical truths that we can actually connect with someone on, even if they don't follow Jesus.

So finding causes, whether it's local politics, social causes, neighborhood groups, whatever, causes that you can connect into to develop these relationships with secular people. This is Chip, and I hope you're enjoying this series from my friend Aaron Pearce. And I want to let you know that the only way that we can bring new teaching and develop new resources like Aaron's book is through your financial support. Would you please consider going to livingontheedge.org and giving a gift today, so that we can actually reach the next generation. Thanks so much for whatever God leads you to do.

Now, back to Aaron. And then lastly, it's places or events, right? So it's public places where people hang out, parks, bars, gyms. Maybe it's events like festivals where you can go and you can develop authentic relationships.

Again, the big paradigm shift here is this doesn't just happen organically, right? This is God saying to you, I want you to be a missionary in your city. And part of being a good missionary is you go where the people are in order to develop authentic relationships.

And you go there and you develop real relationships with them. Now some key wisdom, especially when you're going to places that are either kind of spiritually dark or there's maybe some issues like if there's alcohol there and you've got a history with alcohol abuse. The key here is there needs to be wisdom in going.

You need to be clear about your motivation, why you're going, and who's doing the influencing. And the other key thing about this is generally you don't want to do this alone. One of the things, my big challenges in this is that this should not be an individual sport.

This should be a team sport. And what's cool about doing this with a group of people is that they actually, first of all, we're gifted differently. We bring different strengths and giftings to the group, but also there are moments when I'm weak or when I'm not feeling particularly brave or courageous. But then if I'm going with someone else, it's like working out. When I know someone else is going to be there that I said I'd be there with, I show up, right? So doing this together is good because it keeps you motivated, it keeps you going, but it also keeps you safe so that you're not being influenced by the scene. You're influencing the world. So find others that you can do this with. And it makes for a really cool thing to do together.

So I'll give you an example of how I experienced this myself. So the Steiger Mission School used to be in New Zealand. And so I went to the Steiger Mission School in New Zealand and I led the outreach there.

And New Zealand is a very secular country, very progressive in terms of social things. And we were doing outreach in Wellington, the capital. And we were doing outreach in the city and one day I saw a poster on a wall and the poster was advertising a gay fair. And it was basically like a fair where they were selling things and music and events and all this, but it was all LGBTQ themed. And I looked at that and I had a deep conviction from the Lord that we should reach out to these people because so many people, and we'll talk about this a lot later, in the LGBTQ community, they think that Christians are their enemies, right?

And they don't have real relationships with real Christians. And I felt like God said, I want you to go there and I want you just to connect relationally with this group. And so I found a number and I called up the organizer of this fair.

And I was like, hey, you know, I'm Aaron. I'm a part of this Christian group. I wanted to be clear about who we were. And I was wondering if there's anything we can do to serve at the gay fair. And the person on the other end of the phone was a little skeptical at first and I convinced them, like, no, we're just here to serve.

Can we pick up garbage? Can we serve water? And eventually, all I can tell you is that in the end, they gave us permission to set up our own stall at the gay fair to serve water. And so we arrived at the venue and it turned out to be the hottest day of the year. And we set up on the left, we had this like very strange film company. And on the right, they were selling trinkets that I will not describe. And then right in the middle of that was the Jesus stall. And we had cups of water and on the cups, we wrote, whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst again, sign Jesus. Because we wanted to make sure that the act that we were doing is in the name of Jesus. It was the hottest day of the year. And we could not give away our water fast enough.

Everywhere you looked in the gay fair were people drinking water, reading their cups. And then we had hours and hours of conversations with people that would probably never have talked to Christians. Ninety-five percent of them were very positive, a few of them not, but that's part of it. And then what happened is a few weeks later, we were doing an outreach in Wellington in one of the main cities. We were doing this creative performance. And after the creative performance, a guy came up and he said, I saw you guys.

You were at the gay fair. And this was a homosexual man and we started to talk and build a relationship. And me and another guy and my wife Jen built this friendship with him.

He eventually invited us over to come to his apartment for dinner. We spent, I mean, we had weeks where we were just connecting relationally, sharing Jesus. We were reading the Sermon on the Mount together.

It was a really, really cool experience. And this is a guy who absolutely thought of Christians, evangelical Christians, as the enemy. And we were able to develop a friendship and a relationship that totally softened him to the point where he's reading the Bible with us.

Because we were willing to go to their places and develop relationships. And so again, this is something that all of us can do in our, whether it's the sphere of influence we already have, or intentionally going to places in order to develop relationships with people that were walking to a church. So the key thing in all of this is that this cannot just be human. This has got to be Spirit-led. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to lead and direct our path to the right person, to a person of peace, and to give us supernatural favor. So often when we're doing outreach, I'll say, Lord, just lead me to one person that you want me to connect with. And so you'll end up connecting with the person of peace who's open to the gospel, but also has influence in their scene, who's able to draw you into their world and build a connection in the world. And so you're able to draw and actually connect with far more people.

But the key point here is this is not just a natural thing. This is a supernatural leading of the Holy Spirit to the right person at the right time. So as you say, okay, Lord, I'm going to start, I'm going to reshape my lifestyle, and I'm going to intentionally go to places in order to develop relationships with people who wouldn't walk into a church. Lord, would you lead me to the right person at the right time? And you do that, and He will lead you.

And you'll find yourself in that relationship like I just described with the guy at the gay fair. All right, so a couple of principles. Now that you're in it, you're engaging this scene, a couple key basic principles. First of all, relax when you're engaging in secular places. Be yourself.

Have fun. Don't be so uptight. Sometimes like, whoa, when you have that missionary mindset, sometimes that comes with being a little uptight and also trying to force it. So be patient. Don't feel the need to make something happen.

It goes back to the point I just said earlier, which is allow the Spirit to direct you to the right person at the right time. Have a long-term view of it. Don't take yourself too seriously. Sometimes it's awkward. We're all awkward, and most people are not worried about you. They're worried about themselves, right? They don't even see you, frankly.

So don't worry about it too much. Try to have fun because joy is contagious. One person in my world that's so good at this is Serena.

As Serena is one of the leaders of our Minneapolis team, her joy draws people, right? We were doing an outreach during the George Floyd times. We were doing an outreach right where that happened, and there was this couple. And I saw them because I was praying, Lord, lead me. And I saw them, and they were really kind of cool-looking, edgy. I was like, I really like to talk to them, but I'm not quite brave enough to do it. So I was like, Serena, I want to talk to those people. So she just comes bounding up to them and was like, hey, you guys are cool. We should talk.

And boom, we were talking. And so it wasn't that complicated for her. And so the point is that joy is contagious.

And again, also the whole point of a team, right? If you've got those people, use them. That's what I do.

So have fun, relax, be yourself. Second thing is harness the incredible power of asking questions and listening. One of the most powerful expressions of love is to listen.

Again, it's one of the simplest and most powerful expressions of love that you can exhibit to someone is to really listen and ask questions. So the principle when it comes to this is three things, or three steps to doing it right. Number one, listen. Number two, ask questions.

Number three, listen. This is, I mean, and it's the simplest and most profound thing that you can do. You know, and so I, you know, if you want to go deeper into this stuff, read the old school book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Because it's basically those principles. How to really connect, how to build authentic friendships with people. And then, again, the idea here is don't make assumptions.

We put people in boxes just about how they look, right? So the idea of listening and asking questions, don't make assumptions about them. Really listen.

Try to understand them. Learn their real, raw story. Everyone's going through stuff, right?

It's everyone is, filtered reality looks good, but in true reality, there's stuff I'm going through, so learn the real story. And what's amazing is people will tell you their real stories. Going back to that story with Serena and those two people, we connected with them. We sat down right in the middle of the George Floyd thing and just talked for hours. And they shared stories, deep, vulnerable stories of brokenness so quickly.

People are really hungry to share their stories. And then, again, really try to understand their perspective. And one of the easiest things, when someone says something that you don't agree with, just like, how did you come to believe that? Really understand.

And oftentimes, two things happen. When you understand how they came to believe, you understand the real issue. Plus, you have a love for them and an empathy for them that you might not have had before. So really try to understand what they believe. And remember, empathy is not the same as agreeing or affirming. Sometimes we're so afraid to listen and understand someone whose view is totally out of alignment with the Bible, but that's okay. That is not the same as agreeing or affirming.

Remember that. And then find common ground and genuine ways to affirm someone. We're going to talk about this more during the spiritual conversations idea, but there's always things that you can affirm in someone. Because whether they're following Jesus or not, they are made in the image of God. And there's things about them that God has designed that you can begin to call out and to affirm. And that is like water to a desert for secular people who are not hearing those words of affirmation. So the principle here is how are we going to build relationships with secular people?

My challenge to you is this. Ask God to highlight. Spend some time alone seeking the Lord. And ask God to highlight one person in your oikos that you will actively pursue for a deeper relationship. And again, don't just pick someone. Seek the Lord and say, Lord, who is it in my family, at my work, in my neighborhood, whatever? The people that are already in my sphere of influence, who do you want me to actively pursue for a deeper relationship? And the second one, ask God for one place, one place, a hobby, cause, or place where you will be relationally present, intentionally, in order to develop new relationships with secular people.

That's my challenge for you to take away from this time. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Aaron Pierce has been our guest teacher for this program, Building Trust and Friendships, which is from his series, Not Beyond Reach. He and Chip will join us in just a minute to share their application for this message. As a parent, are you concerned about the spiritual health of your kids? Do you sense they're drifting from the Christian faith, or perhaps they've already rejected it? In this new teaching, Aaron's going to give us some hope.

He'll unpack a series of intentional conversations you can use to better understand and reconnect with your kids, and eventually lead them to the truth of Jesus. Now, if you've missed any of Aaron's messages, catch up on the Chip Ingram app. Well, Chip's here in studio with me now to talk a little bit more about this series and a new resource we've developed alongside it.

Chip? Thanks, Dave. Well, I have to tell you, if you've been challenged by Aaron's messages, you are not alone. What he has shared in this series is a wake-up call for believers to step in and meet the very real need of reaching and discipling today's youth. I just want to encourage you to take the next step, become equipped to reach the young people in your world through this brand new resource. Not Beyond Reach is a book that is packed with practical strategies, real-life examples.

It is a biblical model. And what I love is I've been with Aaron and the team. I can tell you they're reaching youth all across the world, and the fact of the matter is what they have learned is what we need right now. And that's why we're making this book available. Can I encourage you to get it today?

Maybe you've intended, maybe you've thought about it. Go to livingontheedge.org, order the book, and get committed to connecting and reaching the people you love the most. Those inside your home are those young adults that, right now, quite honestly, they're not walking with God and you don't know what to do. Well, help is on the way. Get the book. Thanks, Chip. To get your hands on this brand new book, Not Beyond Reach, visit livingonttheedge.org or the Chip Ingram app.

Discover the simple process you can follow to share the Gospel with those who question or outright reject Jesus. Place your order for this insightful new book, Not Beyond Reach, by going to livingonttheedge.org or the Chip Ingram app. Well, before we wrap up, here again is Chip and our guest teacher for the series, Aaron Pearce.

Aaron, thanks again for being with us here today in studio. Today you challenge us to expand our oikos, or our sphere of influence to secular places. But I think it's really important for us to define that phrase, secular places. You know, I think it's easy to say, yeah, a nightclub or bars or spots.

I mean, those are secular places to engage people. But let's take a minute and share some everyday places that you and I maybe are more comfortable with or, on a general basis, relate to people. I know for me, it's coffee shops. I mean, I hang out at a bunch of coffee shops real regularly. I get to know the baristas and the people that work there and the lady in the back who bakes.

And another place is when I play golf. I mean, I literally just go on the tee sheet and join groups, and I don't know anyone, and ask a lot of questions and try and do some of the things that you talk about here. So what do you actually do to build relationships in what you would call secular places?

You know, Chip, that's a really good point. When I'm talking about secular places, I'm talking about everyday opportunities where you can naturally interact with people who would not walk into a church, who are far from God. And if you pay attention, if you ask God to show you, you find that those opportunities are all around you.

The key is intentionality and asking God to reveal to you, where do you want me to be relationally present? You know, I have four kids and they all play soccer, which means that my wife and I spend an insane amount of time hanging out at soccer fields. And what I've found is that this is an incredible opportunity to build relationships with other parents, because we're spending hours together on the sidelines and we're traveling to tournaments and sharing meals. And it's just an amazing time for me to build relationships and to get to know them and befriend them and walk them through a journey of friendship that begins to engage in spiritual conversations and eventually gospel conversations. And I have another friend who loves fancy cars and he's part of a car club that brings together all these car enthusiasts and he develops the relationships there and he gets to naturally interact with people who wouldn't be ready to come to a church, but they're looking for friendship, they're looking for connection. And so these opportunities are all around us. And it just is a matter of intentionality to adopt that missionary mindset right where you are and to pursue people in these places where God gives you those opportunities.

Thanks for that challenge, Aaron. As we close, I want to thank each of you who makes this program possible through your generous giving. One hundred percent of your gifts go directly to the ministry to help Christians live like Christians.

If you found this teaching helpful but aren't yet on the team, would you consider doing that today? Sending a gift is easy. Just go to livingontheedge.org or text donate to 74141. That's the word donate to 74141 or visit livingontheedge.org. App listeners, tap donate and let me thank you in advance for doing whatever the Lord leads you to do. Well, from all of us here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.