I was a mess. How could I pursue a friendship, let alone a serious relationship, with someone who could be taken from me at any moment? I had to find a way to work on The House story.

The way I understand it, seeing God differently — as they practice at The House — allows them to do what is good for God. At first this struck me as a strange idea, but the more we talked about it, it started to make sense. Luke pointed out to me that seeing what is good for God isn’t all that hard, since He told us about it and showed it to us. Generally speaking, it’s doing good and great things in service to others. It’s building a bulletproof character that allows us to partner with Him. Luke argues that what’s good for God is also good for us. That’s part of the good news.

And serving people differently means that we start seeing what is also good for them. It doesn’t mean that they get their way. A person getting their way can be one of the worst things ever.

What is good for a person generally falls in the categories of helping them build their capabilities and character, then join others in the pursuit of good and great shared goals.

What is good for a person generally falls in the categories of helping them build their capabilities and character, then join others in the pursuit of good and great shared goals.

I’ll admit this is different. A good different, but I just don’t know exactly how to describe this yet for my readers.

This weekend was an Applied Servant Leadership teaching time. The House cycled through a public offering on See Differently – Serve Differently every quarter. These experiences were open to students from any campus, nonprofit leaders, government workers, and professionals from the

community. House alumni came from out in the work world, some of whom were the teachers for the session.

The coffee at The House, like much American brew, was overdone to me. I went to Common Place to pick up a cup of Costa Rican light roast. The coffee and the cool morning air combined to wake me up.

There was an atmosphere of excitement at The House. Looking around I saw firefighters I recognized standing back near the door. We were in a room crowded with chairs, sofas, and floor pillows organized in large circles. I couldn’t find a front of the room to face, but Julie waved me over to where she was sitting on one of the outer rings. I realized that I might be making a friend. Julie handed me a 3×5 card from a stack sitting beside her. Cards were definitely part of their plan to help me learn…