In John 4 we see Jesus on a journey with his disciples and we see him stop in a town called Sychar in Samaria. You need to know that the people of Samaria were not well thought of by the Jews… they didn’t exactly get along. So the fact that Jesus even chooses to stop there shows some intentionality on his part. He could have stopped anywhere, but he chose to stop there.

Then we see Jesus taking a seat by the well… again, some intentionality on the part of Jesus. The well in those days would be a central place where you pretty much were guaranteed to run in to someone. You notice Jesus didn’t go find a shade tree off in the middle of nowhere. He could have sat anywhere, but he chose to sit there. So we see right off the bat that to truly be missional, you have to be in the proximity of people… even just where you walk, where you sit. I think its safe to say that if we want to influence people, we need to be around people… I mean I just got a 3.0, but I’m pretty sure that would be a safe statement.

So many times as Christians we take ourselves out of the sphere of influence by only spending time with each other. Between church on Sunday, small group, ministries we are involved in, and our Christian friends… we don’t have time for anyone else. I mean think about it, when was the last time you had dinner or coffee with someone who didn’t know Jesus? Hey, I’m not saying that we don’t need other believers in our lives. If you hear that then you definitely heard wrong. It is good, right, and powerful to spend time with other believers, to disciple and be discipled, to look at Scripture and learn from others, and grow and mature in your faith…. but we can’t limit ourselves only to that context.

If we are truly going to be missional as God has called us, we must be a people who are building relationships with people who don’t know Christ… we must be a people who are showing compassion to others and pointing them to Jesus. That is what Jesus prays in John 17… that we would be IN the world. So we have to be around people, we have to be in the proximity of people, in order to carry out the mission of God.