I talked to a guy in church today that I had met very briefly a couple of weeks before. Our first meeting was a brief introduction and I scurried along, having done my obligatory meet and greet of a new person that I have never met before. As part of church leadership, it one of my “duties” to make newcomers feel welcomed and it is also something that I am not naturally good at.
Ask me to get up in front of a large group and share something and I will be okay after the first couple of minutes, but ask me to talk one-on-one to someone I have never met and I get very nervous and anxious. If that person is a good talker I can usually get through it okay, but if they are as uncomfortable as I am, there is usually a lot of awkward silence and “isn’t the weather great” type of conversation.
Today, “Bobby” and I made eye contact as I was walking by… you know the kind I’m talking about… where you know you cannot just walk on by without stopping and engaging in conversation. We shook hands and reintroduced ourselves and then started a slow, somewhat awkward, conversation that grew into a rather engaging conversation. The more we talked, the more we discovered what we had in common.
We talked for several minutes until the service started and we had to end our conversation. I actually enjoyed talking to this “stranger”, who I know longer consider a stranger. In fact, I look forward to seeing him again and talking some more.
The thing that I took from this morning was, if we will only slow down, engage in conversation with people we don’t know, we might find we have more in common with people that are all around us. You never know until you try!
Romans 12:10 (TPT) - “Be devoted to tenderly loving your fellow believers as members of one family. Try to outdo yourselves in respect and honor of one another.”