OPERATION 2:14 – How do we participate?
I am helping to knock down the walls that divide our human community by taking the following steps:
Pray for self-insight, for mutual understanding, and for reconciliation.
Recognize and repent of exclusive behaviors and words that raise walls instead of knocking them down.
Develop listening skills and practice hearing the needs and hopes of others.
Suspend judgment of those who think or act differently.
Move out of the “comfort zone” or “home base” to engage persons who have historically been on the other side of a racial, social, economic, cultural, language, or political barrier.
Seek and cultivate a new friendship with someone from a different background and neighborhood.
Celebrate the things in common; agree to disagree, when necessary.
SHOW RESPECT!
Remember that Jesus has made us one and already knocked down the walls that divide; live accordingly.
For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. Ephesians 2:14 NRSV
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey A. Hosmer – North Lake Presbyterian Church, Lady Lake, FL