Last night I heard about “know, like, trust” for the first time. Religious groups (usually YouTubers refer to cults in this case) to espionage use this marketing paradigm coined by Bob Burg. Here is the progression in short.
- Know – A person has to get to know me.
- Like – After they know me, person has to decide that they like me.
- Trust – After they like me, a person is more inclined to trust me.
To me it clicked as evangelistic in a post Christian world. While we do not lure or trick someone into the Christian faith, western Christianity no longer has automatic trust in the culture. Furthermore, some Christian groups or individuals push the truth of the Faith (or their interpretation of it) in a manner that makes them disliked, and thus not listened to, let alone trusted.
Positively, evangelism requires Christians making intentional relationships. Next, if the relationship continues, the Christian cannot stop at just being liked, but must work to build trust, not just that they trust me, but that they also know I trust them.
I can’t know everyone, but I can know someone.
I don’t expect everyone to like me, but I shouldn’t be content with merely being liked.
I build trust so I can best deliver the message entrusted to me.
My perception now is that public libraries have less books and less open hours, but more community events (such as children’s reading times) and more computers. (I remember the days of the card catalog.) With these changes, whether real or just perceived, I asked myself if the public system is failing or just changing. To answer that we need to know what is the purpose of the public library.
information, internet connected computers are a necessity. The Saint Paul library system provides reading times in multiple languages, not to enable people to avoid learning English, but to enable people of all ages to learn.
We must ensure we have the correct mission, and methods have to adapt over time in order to continually fulfill the mission, even though that may mean for me a father that I have to buy my daughter her own books. Thus, the old ways are not necessarily thrown out, but they may be moved. The mission of The Church is to: love God, love others, make disciples, and heal (Matthew 22:36-40; 28:16-2, Luke 10:8-9, 2 Corinthians 5:18). I think we can all agree on that, so the question we have to face is not: What is my favorite way of accomplishing this mission?, but What is the best way?
Lift up a song for Him who rides through the deserts, Whose name is the LORD, a father of the fatherless. God makes a home for the lonely; He leads out the prisoners into prosperity. Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! (Psalm 68:4-6, Matthew 6:26; 7:11)
The oblate candidates spend 24 hours at the monastery for a final discernment retreat. We spent much of our time either in silence or prayer, even taking our meals separately from the monastic community, but still participating in all the chapel prayer times.
According to Genesis 2:15, God offered work to humanity as part of the good creation. Work becomes more difficult in Genesis chapter 3, but the curse on the earth does not make work on the earth any less a holy task. So while in Religious Studies I learned to delineate 
Set Goals
Have Community
Form Relationships
Limit Time
Use Symbols
The answer for my Benedictine teachers is prayer, while for me the answer is currently fatherhood/my daughter. While I work on the personal ramifications of that realization of my life, I also began to wonder: What is the pulse of my church? I think small groups, local congregations, and denominations/Christian movements all have pulses.