Open Minded: How to Trade Exclusion for Mission
Open minded. It’s an often skirted-around word in Christians circles, for sometimes we take it to mean that “anything goes.” So we go the other way. And in the process, we categorize and criticize those we are called to love, which is everyone.
If you’ve walked into a church and felt you didn’t fit in, been shamed or rejected or judged by those who claim to love like Christ, or been looked down on, begrudgingly offered assistance, or treated like a project—we are so sorry. Please accept my sincere apology. That was us, not Christ.
I want you to know that you are welcome here. All are welcome here. Here in this safe place where we are learning to trade exclusion for mission.
We’re learning that Jesus always comes for people—not systems, denominations, or preferences. Not cliques, not factions, not just a fraction of us. He comes for all of us, always.
Missional living is about adopting Jesus’s mission—and Jesus’s heart is to include, invite, adopt, heal, and make whole. Jesus would go to the end of the earth for each of us, and He has.
He loves us. And that period at the end, that’s a full stop. He never stops loving because that is who He is. He loves us into wholeness, but He loves us no less when we are broken; and His heart breaks with the things we hold onto that create a chasm between us and Him, because love is who He is and He never stops being God.
That end-stop—there is nothing beyond love because love is everything.
I trace a well-worn path back to the words of James 2:8:
Your calling is to fulfill the royal law of love as given to us in this Scripture: “You must love and value your neighbor as you love and value yourself!”
TPT
The people all around us matter to God, and looking like Him means loving them like He does.
What’s missing from this scripture? There are no excepts, buts, besides, or other thans. There are no conditions. No criteria. No checklists. There are just people. People we are to love and value as we learn to imitate Christ.
For many of us our hearts are in the right place. We want to imitate the way Jesus loves our neighbors and others in our lives, we just don’t always know how to. If that’s you today, let’s talk through four tips that will help us grow in love that is open minded and inclusive to all because that’s how Christ loves us.
4 ways to become more open minded (the Christ-minded way)
1—Notice
We can follow Jesus’s lead in being intentional about the way we notice those around us. We can slow our pace, direct our often-selfish focus off ourselves, and lean into including others in our lives by first paying attention to them.
What do you notice about the rhythms in your neighborhood? When are people out walking? Who seems especially burdened by life? Who might be lonely or misunderstood or in need of knowing that someone sees them? Where might you be able to offer a hand, a smile, a hello, or a hug?
2—Listen
As we begin to form friendships with our neighbors, listening is a key skill to practice often. Listening looks like valuing the person before us enough to engage with what they are saying, not simply glazing over and thinking of the next thing that we want to say. It’s reading between the lines, helping draw out the thing beneath the thing in their story.
It’s also listening to the Holy Spirit as we listen to our neighbors. How might God want to encourage the person before us through our words? Where is He already at work in this person’s life?
3—Remember
Listening is an essential part of loving without partiality, yet it’s only part of the equation. We communicate that we really care, that we are really interested in doing life together with our neighbors, when we remember the details shared.
Remembering the little things—like your neighbor’s name or that her daughter is due soon or her dog is having health concerns—opens the door for them to trust you to handle the closer-to-home details of their stories with caring respect.
If, like me, your intentions are good but you remember faces better than names, keep a log of notes to help you remember neighbor’s names as you meet them. Leave space to add in key details and things you can keep in prayer.
4—Share
An attitude of inclusion and genuine love entails that we are willing to share the less-than-perfect pieces of our lives too. We can unintentionally keep others at arms’ distance by avoiding the deeper-than-surface-level conversations. We must let ourselves be known if we are to trade exclusivity for open minded inclusion of our neighbors in our actual lives.
We lead with the less-popular values of humility and vulnerability. We care more for the people around us than maintaining an image that we have it all together all of the time. We are willing to be real at the expense of our comfort zones.
And this openness, it opens doors. It invites God to invade our everyday rhythms and turn our hearts in sincerity to Him. It paves the way to deeper friendships with our neighbors. Consequentially, it nurtures a ripple-effect mindset that remains open to the work God wants to do within us so that it can ripple out beyond us.
In an age where divisiveness is prevalent, open minded inclusion of our neighbors into our lives breaks down barriers. It communicates that people matter regardless. Always.
Being open minded doesn’t mean we condone every choice, but that we understand none of our choices negate that God loves each of us. God meets us each right where we are and calls us to Himself, and as Christians, our call is to love large from right where we are. For many of us, that means in our neighborhoods, communities, schools, and workplaces.
Being open minded looks like 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 lived out in our neighborhoods:
Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong.Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. Love never stops loving.
TPT
Let’s pray.
Lord, what the world touts as open mindedness is but a faint reflection of how You love us each as we are, never stop coming for us no matter where we go, and never give up on us no matter how far we retreat. You show us what it means to live a love that is large. Teach us Your better way so we can lean into missional living that includes our actual neighbors in our actual lives. In the precious and holy name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Change your actual life in less than 5 minutes per day!
You can change your actual life in less than 5 minutes a day because baby steps truly can change the trajectory of your life. If you want 2021 to be the year you actually start living on mission in your neighborhood, this little book (available as a paperback and on Kindle) will help you get there. Each of the 30-day devotions takes but a few minutes to read, but they will lead to lasting life change.
If you’d like to check out Part 1 of the devotional FREE and also gain access to the rest of the missional living resources I’ve created for you in the new For You library, let me know here where to send the unlock code!
