219: Loving Samaritans like Jesus Does with Terry Crist

Terry Crist is a husband, father, pastor, and the author of the new book, “Loving Samaritans: Radical Kindness in an Us vs. Them World“. He has a heart for inspiring people to follow Jesus and love others well, and that comes through really well in our conversation today.   What We Chat about in Today’s Episode: ~Terry’s new book, what led him to write it, and what readers can expect ~How a love for the church does not negate our passion to call the church up to be her best - that that is actually an important part of loving the church well ~Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4 and what we can glean from it ~How Jesus’ whimsical, loving, gracious interaction with the woman at the well enabled Him to touch on the tricky topics of sexuality, religion, politics, power, cultural identity, and more in a way that caused her to open up to Him in conversation; how this is a model for us for cultural engagement ~The folly of making assumptions about people as opposed to asking them questions and getting to know them and why they do what they do; getting to know them as individual persons as opposed to groups; the wrong decisions we make when we fail to do this ~Jesus’ model for us that all people are worthy of love and respect, time and attention, of being heard, and of hearing truth without insult ~Asking the question of who the samaritans are in our world and what we may have gotten wrong about them ~Divisiveness now being viewed as a virtue in our day; what our call is instead - to love people on both ends of the ideological spectrum ~Fear and the Pharisaical problem of a “fragile righteousness” and how it can lead to the dangerous desire of eradicating the “other”; understanding that our righteousness is not our own but rather the gift of Jesus’ own righteousness and will not be tarnished when we go into the world as He has called us to ~Asking “Where does the Spirit want me to go today?” as a way to model the way and ministry of Jesus; walking through your day with your heart and eyes wide open to where Jesus is already at work and joining Him there instead of thinking it’s all on us ~Going from religious, dogmatic strangers to compassionate, understanding neighbors and why this change is so important ~Being in it for the long game and understanding that people are worthy of love and affection even if they never come to Christ ~The importance of having both biblical orthodoxy (truth) and biblical orthopraxy (how we’re living out that truth) ~What Pastor Terry would say to those who are afraid that their children will become corrupted by the culture ~The power of the ministry of “withness” ~The problem with being a culture warrior and how it keeps us from from being kingdom ambassadors sent on a mission with a message of peace ~Daniel as a model for cultural engagement ~And more! For full shownotes, head to www.hargraveshomeandhearth.com/podcast