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I love music: Alternative, electronic and chill. If I’m in that right chill mood, I can even get into “chair music.” You know, the kind you hear when you’re in the chair and you’re dentist has his hands crammed down your throat…carrying on a conversation with you. I never could understand why they do that. How am I supposed to respond?

I think that’s actually a good question for the church to today: How are we supposed to respond? How are we supposed to respond to those who are on the outside looking in? The truth is a vast majority of people these days are outside of a meaningful church connection and I don’t believe they are looking in the church's direction. So, that means we’ve got to look in their direction. Here’s some tips toward “looking outward:”

Notice…

Interact…

Remember…remember their name!

Remember the group “Augustana?”

They had hit song during the summer of 2007. The song was called: “Boston.”

You don’t know me and you don’t even care

You don’t know me and you don’t wear my chains

I think I’ll go to Boston

I’ll think I’ll start a new life

I think I’ll start it over

Where no one knows my name

I think that I’m just tired

I think I need a new town

To leave this all behind

Cause you don’t know me and you don’t even care

You don’t know me and you don’t wear my chains

No one knows my name

Not too long ago, I attended a week-long seminar about connecting with people. I thought I was a pretty good connector. Mid-way through the week, we formed a circle. I had no idea this was coming, but here’s what we had to do. Each of us had to go around the circle and say each person’s name that we could remember. If we couldn’t remember their name, we had to walk over to them, look them in the eye and say: “I didn’t care enough to know your name.”  That had a huge impact on me as to how connected I am to the people around me. How much I pay attention. How much I care.

Do I notice the people God is putting in my path to connect with? Am I getting to know them? Am I really listening? Am I looking into their eyes and into the window of their soul? Did I care enough to remember their name?

One Sunday I was walking to church. I park far away on the street so others’ can get a closer spot. As I was walking up the street, I noticed an elderly woman standing with a cane on her front porch. I was hurrying to get to the church, but I felt God wanted me to take the time to connect. I walked up and said hello and introduced myself. She asked me where I was going and I told her “church.” She said, “That’s where I’m going.” She was waiting on a ride. She asked me if she looked okay. And I told her how pretty she looked and how I loved the white blouse she was wearing. She said, “You are so kind. Let me give you a kiss.” Okay, don’t get the wrong idea here. This lady was old enough to be my grandmother. But I could tell that those simple words that complimented her appearance were seeds of kindness that touched her soul. It’s not that I am so kind or we are so kind, but that we have the kindness of God flowing through us that can produce in people “radical life-change” (Romans 2:4).

Are we so focused on tasks that we are missing people God wants us to connect with? And you know what? People feel it: “You don’t know me and you don’t even care.”

There are people all around us on the outside looking in waiting for someone to notice… someone to connect with them.

G. K. Chesterson said: “It’s not that people don’t like our Jesus, they just don’t like the Christians who say they believe in Him.”

Bono, the lead singer for U2 said this in an interview not too long ago:

“I never had any problem with Christ, but Christians were always a bit of a problem for me. I used to avoid them if I could. I found them to be completely disinterested culturally and in the world around them. I found it very hard to relax with them.  Christians can be very judgmental—particularly around the way people look, the way they carry on. They tend to judge people groups and peoples problems. So I grew up very suspicious of Christians, but determined to know more about the life of Christ.”

There are people out there just like Bono waiting for a Christian to connect with them and not judge them, but to simply love them, get to know them and remember their name.

One of Mahatma Gandhi’s most famous quotes came when he was asked by a group of British Journalists: “Why is it that you speak so highly of Jesus, yet you are not a Christian?” He responded by saying…

“I would become a Christian…if I could find one.”

If you don’t remember anything else remember this: It is up to us to re-define Jesus to the people who are on the outside looking in. Because if we don’t do it, who will?  

What are you doing with the opportunities you have to connect with people? Who are you noticing? Whose names are you remembering?

The name of the woman I reached out to was Helen. Today, notice someone God lays on your heart…take some time to interact…and to remember…remember their name!

“Your hand is God’s hand for that person…” (Proverbs 3:28 The Message).