The public schools in our area are closed today, so my ten year old niece was home. We ate lunch at McDonalds this afternoon, along with my mother. At the restaurant, my niece ran into a classmate who also happened to be out with his family.

The boy wasn’t someone that my niece was really friends with. Just acquaintances from school. But within seconds of seeing him in the restaurant, she had struck up a conversation and staked out a seat for us next to him and his family. By the end of the meal, she’d asked to invite him over to play for the afternoon.

I spent most of the time amazed at how safe the two of them felt building a friendship with one another. It struck me that that kind of social confidence isn’t something you find very often in adults. We’ve all usually had too many bad experiences, so we keep virtually everyone at arms length until they can prove, in some respect, that being in an actual friendship with them is safe.

It makes me wonder what our personal and corporate ministry endeavors would look like if we threw caution to the wind and simply pursued relationships with one another regardless of the risk.

Because, it seems to me, that ministry and evangelism and discipleship happen both in and out of this kind of relational caution. But when we have our guard up and aren’t honest about it, I think we do a lot more damage than good. It could be argued that it’s from that kind of fear that the church got the holier-than-thou reputation. In an attempt to defend themselves from being hurt by other people, they put on whatever costume is necessary—and it’s totally inauthentic and thus, ultimately ineffective.

Although I’m far from being the one confident enough to lead this charge, I must wonder what it would look like for a small community to decide together that the risk of being hurt is less than the benefit of authentic ministry.