I felt really old the first time I admitted this, but it's reality: I've been a public radio listener for a few years now . . .

One of the local public radio stations (I know of at least three in Seattle, including a terrific music station, KEXP which streams live) is KUOW. I was listening to this on my way to the office, and heard an ad for their local afternoon talk show, called The Conversation. Today they did a follow-up show from a show they did about 10 weeks ago on what they call "The Seattle Freeze." Basically, it's a social phenomenon in which the people you see on the street or in restaurants or shops are quite pleasant and friendly up front, but are very resistant to going any farther than a surface level of conversation. Getting to know people in the workplace or in the neighborhoods is often very difficult. Michelle and I definitely noticed it when we moved here, and in talking with at least three church planters who moved here over the last couple of years, it's a very common thing. We've even noticed this to be the cases in some of the churches we've visited. This radio show made it that much more obvious that this can be a tough place to build relationships with people.

Now, Michelle and I have been very fortunate to have gotten to know several people well enough to call them friends. This is true in our own neighborhood, as well as within the emerging church scene. But having a missional mindset about us, we're obviously interested in continuing to make more friends, get to know more people. So how do we do go about breaking through the barriers to relationship? Perhaps by doing what one of the radio show guests did, and starting a Capture The Flag and Kickball league. I think the value of continuous, non-agenda driven, genuine relationship is a really big deal.