These words reflect the sentiments of people who have heard of Jesus and His teaching but cannot reconcile why His followers behave otherwise.
I realize that much of this is due to the hypocrisy found among “church people”. But there are other reasons that may not be quite as bad as hypocrisy but is simply a matter of adjusting the way we do ministry. Here’s one thought you may want to consider:
People are looking for relationship and not religion:
Our goal should not be to convert others rather it is to establish a relationship with them in the hope that one day we can introduce them to our God. Keep in mind that people don’t like being convinced. Neither do they want to be told that what they believe in is wrong and what you’re offering is right.
The truth is without God people will always be in need, they just haven’t realized it yet. In the meantime our job is to build a relationship where people can trust us. When the time comes that the Holy Spirit draws them we will be there to usher them into the ultimate relationship they should have – with God.
We become religious when we want people to believe what we believe. When we want them to join our church. When we want them to behave the way “Christians behave”. Fact is when people enter into a relationship with God they will believe (not in what we believe) but in Him. As their relationship deepens they will begin to behave differently. Eventually their genuine hunger for God and His Kingdom will draw them to a church.
This is the way we can reach people with the truth of Jesus without being disagreeable or obnoxious.
To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 1Corinthians 9:22
3 comments:
You just posted what I feel. Uncanny, you said it better than I could ever do.
hi ps joey, thanks for this blog. u have the gift for articulating simple truths in simple ways.
Funny how things like this can make me cry, and I'm definitely male. It just reminds me about how the people who got me saved failed so badly to prove God exists, but did so well at proving that they had joy. Yes, they did talk about God stuff (I was usually the one bringing it up). But out of the four things that are perhaps the biggest four milestones in my walk to Christ, only one of them actually involved anyone talking to me about philosophy, and it didn't take him more than about an hour (including both sides of the conversation, and it was indeed a conversation and not a shoutfest).
This conversation, I might add, is a conversation I had an almost exact same copy of two years earlier, when it totally didn't work because God hadn't changed my heart yet.
I'm even a science major, in computer science/physics/math.
I'm not going to say apologetics don't matter, but they have to come from a position of love and be totally immersed in loving actions from people/God.
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