Understanding and embracing the relational nature of a missional lifestyle is pretty simple--you can’t love God if you don’t love people and vice versa. By his very nature, God is relationship--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You can’t have one without them all, and to neglect one is to neglect the whole. So it just makes sense that displaying God’s personality to the world would require us to get close to people. 

How close? Well, maybe you don’t want to know. Close enough to feel their wounds--to hurt when they hurt and laugh when they laugh. Uncomfortably close.