On any given day you could meet one of the local people who is struggling with addiction problems, you could meet a young professional who is on her lunch break, you could meet a retired man who has sat on that same bench at the same time for the past 5 years, you could meet the tourist who was pulled up in their motorhome beside the river, you just never know.
Why am I telling you all this? What does it have to do with anything? I was reading a book recently and in the book it contained the story of Henry Frost who was involved in the setting up on the North American component of the China Inland Mission (C.I.M). The book makes this observation about Frost "Despite Frost's long-continued passion for mission to China and to the Chinese, there is not a single sharply focused picture of an individual Chinese in all his memoirs, nor any passage showing critical understanding or culturally sensitive sympathy with Chinese practices and customs." (The Message Of Mission pg.135)
Whilst Frost was deeply concerned with the mission to the Chinese people he didn't take time to get to know a Chinese person they were always at arms length, a project. Whilst Frost was deeply concerned with the mission to the Chinese people he didn't take time to understand or sympathise with what made the nation tick what their preconceived ideas where. The people were just a mass of people waiting to be converted.
How often do we apply the same principle to ourselves? We preach in Dumfries but if you read my diary how many individual people would come accross? How much time am I spending understanding the culture of Dumfries and what makes the people tick? How often are we happy to see the people as a mass needing converting rather than individual people with individual problems.
It is possible to do all this while still having a burning vision and passion for the people, Frost's passion for the Chinese was undeniable, he longed to see them come to Christ but that perhaps didn't come across in the way he went about his work.
If we want to see the gospel spread lets get to know people, lets talk to them as human beings, lets see what makes them tick, understand their presuppositions and then we can answer life's big questions that they will have with the gospel.
If people in years to come were to read our memoirs (or our tweets) what would they find? A passion for the lost? I hope so but more than that men and women who spoke and prayed and laughed and loved individual people.
Walk along the river stop and chat to the people who are there because you never know just who they might be.
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