Chris Parker
Chris opened his message by referencing Luke 4:16-30. In this verse, he mentioned that the context serves as a manifesto for God's kingdom. He also tied in his message from the last time he spoke, explaining the hospitality message found in Romans where philoxenia equates to phileo (love) plus xenas (xenas, stranger, other). An example of this was seen recently when Chris was sitting on a bench reading a book. He met a woman who described a situation with police cars with American flags on them and how it was dividing their community. He then explained how our society tends to take small things and turn them into big divisive issues. We have a tendency to align ourselves with those who agree with us, and separate ourselves from those who disagree with us. Put in Chris' words:
"It's easy to love the "me's", it's harder to love the "thems".
Chris also mentioned that unity (the oneness that we have an innate desire to seek) isn't about agreeing on everything, it's more about agreeing on the source of one's heart posture. He concluded his message with his thoughts on offense, stating that oftentimes when we are offended, it's typically because we have an 'us vs them' mentality as opposed to an 'us for them' mentality.
