Story in the City

The latest technology reports are in and purchases of mobile phones and apps are at all-time highs. Apple is the most alluring thing since the Garden of Eden. There’s not a bite out of the side of that logo for nothing.

But the latest relationship reports are also in and countries with the most technology are finding that isolationism is at all-time highs. Cocooning is not the half of it. Those that do emerge find that they no longer fit easily into any single group. Their BFFs aren’t really. Some show up merely because they are societal outcasts, looking for what is offered and hoping it is less painful than what they’ve endured.

Believers are getting creative to actually walk among the lost. We look for persons of peace; people-linkers that actually know folks. Forming small groups is not an automatic with those who would prefer talking with their thumbs or showing up online cloaked as an avatar. Gatherings increasingly involve the disconnected.

Forming small groups, especially in urban environs, is often among non-traditional networks of dissimilar people. Evangelistic Bible Storying groups are exciting when you see grandmas and punkers and immigrants and jocks interacting side-by-side. Mingling is one thing. Disciplemaking is something else.

Jim Slack, Chronological Bible Storying pioneer, likes to say, “Worldview resides in the idiom of the heart language.” Making disciples at their heart level by using their language is critical.

Jesus never shirked diversity. Paul urged Ephesians to be alert. Every slice of urban life is an opportunity to raise up and release believers out into their relational networking as disciplemakers for Christ.