When I was a student, I intentionally set out to meet with as many people I didn’t know in my congregation as I could. I realised that I didn’t really know many people outside of my own young adult bubble.
Naturally, the people who were available during the day were retired and those of generations above me. So, we met for coffee, sometimes more than once, and simply chatted about life.
Don’t get me wrong – it took some courage to ask people, and I was nervous. But I turned up, because I sensed something incomplete about allowing my discipleship to be shaped purely by those my own age. I’d heard and accepted the gospel, but I still had questions about the Christian life as a lived experience, about complex relationships, about pain and about life-long devotional rhythms that none of my peers knew the answer to either.