...

They had just met and found out that they both grew up in the exact same area, just a few years apart. I find myself listening to their conversation as the three of us sit there having coffee and realizing that, no matter how hard I try, I will not be able to connect with these men in their conversation. They were in the conversational Zone. They were in that place that can only be shared by those with common experiences. You can't really understand cancer unless you've been there. You can't grasp the pain of someone who has been raped unless you have had the unbearable burden of walking that road. You cannot understand an addict's struggle unless you have tasted the fruit of the forbidden tree. But they were there. They knew the fields. They knew the gas stations and the schools and the folks who founded the place. But me? I was clueless. And there was really nothing they could do to change that.

Unless they took me there. Unless they could drive me to their old houses and walk me around. Unless they took me to that Dairy Queen.

Then, I could connect that much deeper, but it would not change the fact that I did not grow up there. It would never change the fact that I have other history that distances me from theirs.

I'm seeing this in the Community of faith. We talk to those on the outside with our own language of experience and then they are left saying to themselves, "What? How can I connect with that? They have their own history, their own world and I am not a part of it."

What can we do to bring others into the Story? Maybe that was Jesus' reason for sharing stories. They engage. Sometimes they create more questions than answers. They invite the listener to enter in.

How can we bring the story and allow those outside to become players?