Last week I promised that I would tell you more about our evening with Shihab's* family. 

First some background:

If you have been reading my emails for awhile you might remember the Conversation Quadrants.  Most relationships start off with Casual Conversations then move to Meaningful Conversations then Spiritual Conversations and sometimes to Jesus Conversations.

I've been interacting with Shihab for months. Recently he signed up for a swimming class that I helped to organize.  This has given us many opportunties for Casual and Meaningful Conversations.

Shihab's family are Indian Muslims.  I know that Muslims around the world celebrated Eid al-Adha last week, so I thought it would be a perfect night to show him a short video clip called Celebrating the faithfulness of Ibrahim which shows the Christian perspective on the significance of God providing a lamb for Abraham to sacrifice.

Our plan was that after eating dinner my wife would challenge Shihab's daughter to a game of Jenga so that I could talk to the adults without interuption.

But Shihab's* wife had a different idea for the evening.  As dinner finished, she brought out deck of cards with questions on them. Hard questions that easily led to Meaningful Conversation.  She said this was something their family did regularly.  We learnt a lot about each other.

Then she wanted ALL of us to play Jenga around the dining room table.

There went my opportunity to talk about Jesus I thought.  But I was wrong.

This is how AI draws Jenga.  How many errors can you find?

Their family has a special rule.  There is a penalty each time you lose.  When Shihab's* daugher lost, her penalty was that she had to sing us a song.  The first time I lost I had to reenact how I asked Chris to marry me.

Seeing how much this family enjoyed meaninful conversations, I relaxed and focused my attention on getting to know them better.

The next time I lost,  they asked me "What is the secret to a successful marriage?"

Here was my opportunity for a Spiritual Conversation.  I started with a story that I have told countless people:

Shortly after I got married I was talking to a neighbour who had been recently divorced.  He told me, "No one plans to get divorced".

That got me thinking.  What is our plan to avoid divorced?  Chris and I decided that we would attend marriage conferences regularly.  In 45 years we have attended at least six.

We also have a mission statement, much like a company would have:  That together with one voice we might glorify God by living a holy lifestyle and encouraging others to do the same/

Notice the words in our mission statement.  These are words that Muslims and HIndus could agree with.  The problem is that each of us has a different idea of what "God" and "living a holy lifestyle" mean.  We think we are communicating and agreeing with each other, but we really are not.

I was able to move on to a Jesus Conversation by clarifying what our mission statement meant:

What this means to me is that we want to base our lives and behaviour on what Jesus said.

That is about all I could say in that context.  

When we got home I wrote Shihab a short text thanking him for a wonderful evening.  I apologized for not bringing an Eid Card, and sent him a link to the video clip I had planned to show him over dinner.

The next time we meet I hope to be able to ask him what he thought of the video.  I will let you know how this next step goes.

 I don't know about you, but I had never thought about using games like Jenga to encourage Meaningful Conversations.  I like the idea of penalties which help us get to know other people.

I also decided to buy a box of conversation starters.  Here are some I found.

I initially found it hard to give up my agenda of showing the video, but once I did I found I could focus on the Meaningful Conversation and honor my hosts.

 Let's pray:

"Lord Jesus, thank you for our family, neighbours and co-workers.  Thank you for the opportunities you give us to interact with them.  Keep us sensitive to your leading. Show us how to be patient and also bold.  We love you and thank you for the joy of being your ambassadors.  Amen".