By Jonathan Kindberg
With the weather finally getting warmer in Chicago, the children are
out in mass again in our neighborhood at Briar Street. After being
cooped up inside for the long winter months, they are now able to run
outside in the sun, play soccer in the company of their friends…and
scream their heads off.
This last Sunday was a beautiful day and so our team decided to put
up the slack line and grill outside. Quickly we were mobbed by a very
excited group of screaming kids who wanted to join in on this strange
new sport. For those of you uninitiated folks, slacklining is: “a
balance sport that uses nylon webbing tensioned between two
anchor points. Slacklining is distinct from tightrope walking in that
the line is not held rigidly taut (although it is still under some
tension); it is instead dynamic, stretching and bouncing like a long and
narrow trampoline” (thank you, Wikipedia). It’s great fun and a great
way to get to know a lot of our neighbors.
As we seek to get to know our neighbors who don’t yet know Jesus, we
seek ways to build authentic, reciprocal relationships with them. One
question we have found it helpful to ask (and one that I heard first
from Bill Hybels in his book on evangelism), is: what do you enjoy doing
that you can involve others in? This activity, whether it’s a specific
sport or hobby, is meaningful in and of itself, but can take on a
greater degree of kingdom significance when done in this purposeful way.
So if anyone is wondering what our model for church planting is, you now know the answer: kingdom slacklining.
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