Just Walk Across the Room: An Explanation

I started a new blog today. It had been several years that I blogged at my previous one.

Earlier this month I had another birthday. In my mind, part of starting another year of life in this world was to start a new blog.

In August I purchased Bill Hybel's important book Just Walk Across the Room. I started reading it this month and it resonates so much with the place where I'm at spiritually and ministry-wise.

I got to hear Hybels at one of WillowCreek's earlier church leaders seminar in 1986 while at Wheaton. I found his strategy of "a church for unchurched Harry and Mary" revolutionary. It resonated within me.

But in recent years, I've felt that this strategy was getting old. After all, baby boomers are aging and the next couple of generations are becoming increasingly important. The Busters and Millenium generations are very different. We also are in a multicultural and multi-faith world.

But I am pleasantly surprised by the necessary adaptions that I've seen in Hybels in this book. I got to hear him in Paris at a conference this month and it echoed what he had written.

Programs for reaching preChristians must change with the times. What was effective in one place and at one time can become drastically ineffective in a short time. Resting on one's laurels can make us become terribly irrelevant as cultures and places change.

However, what is timeless is the idea of stepping out of one's comfort zone and crossing the room to speak with someone whom we might not know. In our Internet world, this might entail reaching out through e-mail, Facebook, chat rooms, etc. But it will also mean intentionally approaching preChristians whom God places before us.

In this section of our lives, we have multiple opportunities to walk across the room. And that is what I want a lot of my focus to be for this next year. I'm tired of church management and trying to solve disputes among the brethren. What I really desire is to see new life spiritually and people moving closer to relationship with Jesus and entering into it.