Colliding with Others’ Stories
The theme of Orange is COLLIDE, and the encouragement so far has been to recognize how our lives collide with God and others, and how those collisions can change us. I’ve really appreciated the focus on how our collisions with others actually change our view of God.
As such, I’ve spent the morning so far less focused on seeing all of the main session, and more on meeting and connecting with people here. I spent some time talking with Chad Swanzy, who’s spent the past 15 years serving students and their families. I also spent some time with Kyle Reed, who helps leads a bunch of different efforts (here’s one) resourcing churches with social media tools.
I’m working hard to push beyond the “where are you from and what do you do?” conversations, attempting to truly hear and learn others’ stories. As a somewhat Type-A personality, this isn’t always easy for me to do. But I believe that the current chapter of the story God is telling on planet Earth is found first and foremost in the stories of those around us.
