Extend

On Sunday, Pastor Russell Johnson opened with the domino trains he built as a boy, grand plans for thousands that his patience cut down to about twenty. The domino effect is how one action ripples through a whole community, and he said that is exactly what happens in John 4. Most of us live in comfortable clusters of people who look and think and believe like we do, and Pastor Russell said frictionless lives are very often fruitless lives. Jesus had every reason to stay on His side of the well and crossed three barriers instead: seven hundred years of racial hostility, the cultural norms against a rabbi speaking with a woman, and her moral reputation. He opened with a need of His own instead of a tract, which Pastor Russell called a point of contact, since the door to spiritual conversations usually opens sideways rather than head-on. He urged us to hear someone's story before pivoting to a presentation, and to know where a person is before naming a next step. Then the woman left her water jar, walked into the town she had been avoiding, and became the first evangelist in John. Many Samaritans believed because of her testimony.

Look up Acts 1:8, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, Colossians 4:5-6, and 1 Peter 3:15. Acts gives the reach, widening from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth by the power of the Spirit; 2 Corinthians gives the standing, calling us ambassadors through whom God makes His appeal; Colossians gives the manner, walking in wisdom toward outsiders with speech seasoned as with salt; and Peter gives the readiness, always prepared to give an account for the hope that is in us, with gentleness and respect. How do these passages together shape the way you think about the people God has already placed within your reach, and what would it look like this week to ask one person about their story without steering the conversation anywhere?

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