Lutheran Church of Mahomet, The Invitation 2018 Programming Invitation | Page 11

How are you filling your mind with new material? What
new experiences and situations to which are you expos-
ing your mind? Every day is a new day, and so every day
is an opportunity to learn something new. But, the ha-
bitual nature of our lives usually prevents us from ex-
panding our knowledge of God or God’s creation. We
like operating inside our comfort zones and interacting
with things and people we already know quite well. It
takes effort and intention to widen our perspective and
learn about variety in the world.
We are called to know and serve our neighbor. More often
than not, we choose to serve the neighbor that looks,
sounds, and acts like ourselves. It is easy to do this, be-
cause we understand people better if they ’re similar to us.
But, we are called to know and serve all of our neighbors,
which means we are called to put in the effort necessary to
understand someone with vastly different experiences than
our own. We are called to read books we wouldn ’t normally
read, watch shows and movies we wouldn ’t normally
choose, and above all to befriend and converse with people
outside our scope of reference. We all have a comfort zone:
what’s yours? When you’ve answered this question, you can
then choose to be generous with your learning and start
journeying outside of your comfort zone.
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