i think this is how most non-churched people respond when believers talk.
there is a huge language barrier that exists today,
& we need to intentionally do something about that
if we are going to be effective at all at evangelism
or even just being a relatable friend.
if you are a believer, before you were saved,
if someone came up to you & asked how you feel
would you respond with something like this:
sinful, distant from my creator, in need of reconciliation with my omnipotent God
no.
neither would i … i still barely understand what those words mean.
so here is a challenge out of a book i just finished reading for my contemporary evangelism class:
Try to write down in a short paragraph what being a Christian means to you without using any Christian words like sin or salvation. Try to answer the question, “Christian, what do you believe?” Express your faith in terms that any unbeliever, one with no familiarity with the Bible, could understand.
If you are a believer, leave your short paragraph here.
If you are not a believer, what are some of the things that Christians say to you that either just don’t make any sense or just really make you feel worthless or angry?
ltlo
To me, being a Christian means: Jesus is Lord. That means, in my relationships and my language and my habits and my thoughts and my money and my time and everything, I’m going to defer to Jesus’ instruction. Before I recognized that Jesus’ way is the only way to live life well, I considered instruction from myself on some issues, my friends on some issues, my parents on some issues, my teachers on some issues, people on t.v. on some issues, people in books or writing books on some issues…that is, there were a lot of sources that I wanted to look to in order to make decisions on how to live. Looking to these sources made me mostly self-centered and often prideful, insecure, confused, and sad. Sometimes I really even felt like everyone I knew was worse off for having known me. That’s depressing, but it wasn’t just a pity party–I had evidence, I thought. But now I don’t worry about any of that. I just look in the Bible and I pray [just talk to God believing he hears me and then listen silently] for what Jesus wants me to do, and then I do that. It’s really simple and liberating, and I feel much more love for everyone and more loved. I also have a lot of peace knowing what happens after I die.
there is this dude that saved me from myself, i was on a road going nowhere, very confused, and now i have lost all that and have this peace in me i never had before. his name is Jesus.
i believe that i am more than just skin and bones. i didn’t use to believe this. rather, i only believed in my flesh. i use to be in a lot of pain from drugs and alcohol. while i still experience pain today, i look at it as growth rather than loss. pain is growth. pain is growth because i now know that i am more than skin and bones. if i only believed in my body, i would be very sad about death and pain. i believe that i have a spirit inside of me that God gave me to communicate with Him. every time i hurt now, i grow closer to God. i have a spirit inside of me that very literally gives me peace in my physical pain. this spirit also leads me to meet new people and to enjoy life with them. this spirit helps me understand what will hurt me and will help me. this spirit gives me the words to say and the thought to think right when i need them. i use to try really hard to be nice. i use to try really hard to enjoy this life. now, i don’t try. because one day i asked God for help. “God, i hurt really bad right now, why don’t you make my pain go away?” “well son, i love you. i love you so much that i came to you exactly where you were. but i love you too much to keep you there.” God is now my father and i am His son.
i felt so empty, never content, always looking for the next thing. i was introduced to this idea that my emptiness was not abnormal, it was not surprising, in fact this is how we were created to be … always searching for something.
i then was asked to give this guy named Jesus a try. my head agreed, but deep down, i wasn’t real sure about this guy that lived on this earth thousands of years ago; i wasn’t sure how His life could actually impact my life.
the entire time i only studied His life, i still found myself empty.
one day i decided i’d tried enough, closed my eyes, and asked in faith for Jesus to fill my emptiness.
He did.
i still struggle in life often, but it is never without hope. i can’t explain in detail why that hope comes or what it feels like, but i can tell you it’s like nothing else i’ve ever experienced.
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