TechPastor.net

When you talk about your faith, what exactly do you say to people? I had an interesting experience when talking to an employee at the resort we were at while on vacation.

Most of these conversations start the same way for me. Someone will ask the question, “Where do you work?” Then one of two things usually happens, they get quiet and change the subject, or they are supercharged about having a spiritual discussion. This resort employee happened to be supercharged for discussion.

She quickly gave me a list of reasons why she made the decision to stop going to church:

• I moved to far away
• There were not enough people my age
• The speaker was boring
• None of my friends would go anyway
• The music was too traditional
• No one even noticed I left the church
• I have to work every other Sunday anyway

After 20 minutes of listening to a full explanation of every bullet point listed above, I had a decision to make. What was I going to say to this person?

Option 1 – I could tell her something un-biblical but exactly what she wanted to hear and say, “God understands you just the way you are, He doesn’t care what you do.” That statement is not true, but at least it would make her feel better.

Option 2 – I could tell her something biblical that she would like to hear and say, “Don’t worry about it, Jesus knows your heart.” Completely meaningless, but at least it is a nice thing to say.

Option 3 – I could tell her the truth even though she may not like it.

I chose option 3 by asking her one question, “Do you think you would make better decisions in your life right now if you were connected to a healthy Christian community?”

She answered, “Yeah, maybe.” and then quickly changed the subject. A good friend of mine once told me that sharing your faith is dropping a grenade in someones mind. They will think about it for a while and eventually it will explode. Hopefully my grenade wasn’t a dud.