This past weekend, our church held a yard sale.  I was so impressed by our leaders and volunteers, and was excited to see steady traffic at the sale.  I know our parishioners were happy to extend the life of their once beloved items, and shoppers were happy to find items that may become useful to them or their families.  All in all, it was a great event!

As I watched the constant stream of shoppers, I was struck by a contradiction.  You see, the town I live in is relatively small.  Most people share one or two degrees of separation.  Either you know most people, you know someone in common, you’ve casually crossed paths, or you’ve heard of them.  But the vast majority of our shoppers this weekend were unknown to me.  They were a diverse group of people, representing diverse stages of life.  Some brought children and grandchildren, some came with a loved one, and some shopped solo.  Some seemed curious about what they might find, while others seemed like yard sale veterans who knew how to discern value.  But as someone who believes themselves to be fairly connected in the community, I was surprised by how many strangers I met that day.

The experience got me wondering:  how can someone (like a pastor) who is constantly meeting new people in a small-ish town still have a sizeable set of people they do not know?  How often do we assume success (if, say, our goal is to get to know our community well and share Christ’s love widely) when in fact our success is superficial at best?  Has our definition of “wider community” been narrowed to “strangers who are similar to me”? 

I wonder if our invitation is not to sit in the comfort of thinking we know our community, and instead to stretch how we engage our community.  Maybe we need to shop occasionally in places we do not normally shop.  Maybe we need drive in parts of town we do not normally drive.  Maybe we need exchange our normal polite nods for actual words of conversation and connection.  I do not know what the first step is for you, but I look forward to hearing what you choose and where you are having encounters with God in the process.