1) The document discusses creating true connections with others in the church by extending "mini-fridge rights" or seeking to know, accept, value, and understand others beyond just close friends and family. 2) It argues that the early church embraced both Jews and Gentiles as equals through Christ, in contrast to the segregated design of the Jewish temple. 3) Several Bible passages are cited teaching the radical inclusiveness of God's kingdom and calling for Christians to value each other based on their shared faith rather than outward attributes.

1. Only Self-effacing Sinners Stay Truly Connected to Christ’s Gospel of Grace

2. TRAP
PED
When Christ-followers Become Neo-Pharisees

3. Crucial Crises
A Way God Opens
Our Minds and
Softens Our
Hearts

4. Most of us live far from our
families, barely know our
neighbors, and commute to
school, work, and church

5. 1989 - 1998

6. “Refrigerator Rights”

7. “Refrigerator Rights refer to the deep, intimate
connections that we have with family and our
closest friends…
Strangers don’t have refrigerator rights.”
-Dr. Will Miller
Refrigerator Rights: Creating Connections and Restoring Relationships (2002)

8. Might not be
possible to
pursue
Refrigerator
Rights with
everyone at
church

9. But Christ calls us
to seek to extend
Mini-fridge Rights!

10. KAVU
Searching For

11. K A V UKnown Accepted Valued Understood

12. EPHESIANS 2:11-13 (MSG)
But don’t take any of this for granted. It
was only yesterday that you outsiders
to God’s ways had no idea of any of
this, didn’t know the first thing about
the way God works, hadn’t the faintest
idea of Christ. You knew nothing of
that rich history of God’s covenants
and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue
about what God was doing in the world
at large. Now because of Christ—
dying that death, shedding that
blood—you who were once out of it
altogether are in on everything.
KAVU

13. EPHESIANS 2:14-15 (MSG)
The Messiah has made things up
between us so that we’re now together
on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and
Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall
we used to keep each other at a
distance. He repealed the law code that
had become so clogged with fine print
and footnotes that it hindered more than
it helped. Then he started over. Instead
of continuing with two groups of people
separated by centuries of animosity and
suspicion, he created a new kind of
human being, a fresh start for
everybody.

14. EPHESIANS 2:16-19 (MSG)
Christ brought us together through his death
on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace,
and that was the end of the hostility. Christ
came and preached peace to you outsiders and
peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals,
and so made us equals. Through him we both
share the same Spirit and have equal access to
the Father.
That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer
wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now
your home country. You’re no longer strangers
or outsiders. You belong here, with as much
right to the name Christian as anyone. God is
building a home. He’s using us all—
irrespective of how we got here—in what he
is building.
God is building a
house and using all of
us to build it.

15. EPHESIANS 2:20-22 (MSG)
He used the apostles and
prophets for the foundation.
Now he’s using you, fitting you
in brick by brick, stone by
stone, with Christ Jesus as the
cornerstone that holds all the
parts together. We see it taking
shape day after day—a holy
temple built by God, all of us
built into it, a temple in which
God is quite at home.
A
Radically
Inclusive
House

16. THIS VISION
CLASHED WITH THE
JEWISH IDEA OF
THE KIND OF HOUSE
WHERE GOD WOULD
WANT TO LIVE

17. Court of the Gentiles
Court of the Gentiles
Court of the
Women
Court of the Priests
Court of the Priests
Court of the Men
Court of the Men Herod’s
Temple
At The
Time Of
Christ

18. Church Sports Leagues
Rat-Sinners’ Zone
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP How
Neo-
Pharisees
View The
Church
Today
Alpha Male Pastors & Elders
Women &
Non-Alpha Males
Stuff Most Alpha Males
Don’t Want to Do
Pulpit Board
Children
Youth
Alpha Male Pastors & Elders
Singles
Single
Agains
Singles’ Balcony Jr High Balcony
Recovery
Ministries
Prayer
Ministry
Just Because They’re Straight Men
Just Because They’re Straight Men
Addicts’ BalconyTongues’ Balcony
Finances
Property
Sports

19. Where can
we find
K AV U
when some
of us might
never
compare or
conform?
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
SMALL GROUP
Alpha Male Pastors & Elders
Women &
Non-Alpha Males
Stuff Most Alpha Males
Don’t Want to Do
Pulpit Board
Children
Youth
Alpha Male Pastors & Elders
Singles
Single
Agains
Singles’ Balcony Jr High Balcony
Recovery
Ministries
Prayer
Ministry
Just Because They’re Straight Men
Just Because They’re Straight Men
Rats’ BalconyTongues’ Balcony
Finances
Property
Sports
Smart
AttractiveStable
Moral
Well Off
Educated
Athletic
Leader
Bible Scholar
Able-bodied
Married
Parent
Obedient
Disciplined
Tither
Church Sports Leagues
Rat-Sinners’ Zone

20. Missing body Parts
Not RichNot ABLE
Not Married
Not Accomplished
Not Perfect
Not Convinced
Not Respectable
Not StraightNot Educated

21. ROMANS 12:3 (NIV)
3 For by the grace given
me I say to every one of
you: Do not think of
yourself more highly than
you ought…

22. ROMANS 12:3 (NIV)
…but rather think of
yourself with sober
judgment, in accordance
with the faith God has
distributed to each of
you.

23. ROMANS 12:4-5 (NIV)
For just as each of us has
one body with many
members, and these
members do not all have
the same function, so in
Christ we, though many, form
one body, and each member
belongs to all the others.

24. “Let’s just go ahead
and be what we
were made to be…
“…without enviously or
pridefully comparing ourselves
with each other…
“…or trying to be
something we aren’t.”
ROMANS 12:5-6 (MSG)

25. K A V UKnown Accepted Valued Understood
Not
anonymous
or always a
stranger
Quirks &
faults
Passions,
challenges &
failures
Imperfect,
wired for
struggle, yet
totally worth
loving and
belonging
Same worth,
same
standing
Immense
value just by
being who
you are
To see and
love Jesus
especially in
those who
are not
valued
Vulnerability
and courage
help others
appreciate
where we’ve
been, where
we are now,
and where
we hope to
go

26. I’ve learned the most about Jesus and
his love when I’ve gone out of my way
to know and love people not like me.
Rainbow Acres Choir
Lukey Lee
Lacey Nagao

27. UNCOMFORTABLE AROUND THOSE WHO ARE DIFFERENT
REQUIRES TIME AND INTENTION
JESUS WENT OUT OF HIS WAY TO
DEMONSTRATE HIS LOVE FOR US

28. God is building a house to live in
and is using all of us to build it.