Dear
Congregation,
With great
sadness, I read a report this week that a Barna study concluded that
approximately half (47%) of “practicing Christian Millennials” agree at least
somewhat that “it is wrong to share one’s personal beliefs with someone of a
different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith.” (quoted from
the Barna website)
Horrors. We
certainly have differing definitions of “practicing Christian”!
If you don’t
believe that those who are outside of Christ are going to Hell; or, if you
don’t care that people are going to Hell; then, you are not at all a practicing
Christian.
Closer (I
hope?!) to home, I’m afraid that many of us practicing Christians are yet
Christians who are out of practice. When was the last time you told the simple
truth that you, like all other humans on earth, are a Hell-deserving sinner who
is yet sure of God’s everlasting blessing and favor unto you because of Jesus
Christ’s sacrifice and righteousness for you?
One way that
you can prepare to tell the gospel is by establishing “recurring conversation
relationships.” Same place. Same time. Maybe every day. Maybe every week. Two
or three sentences at a time.
We interact
so little now, in our culture, that the briefest of encounters make up a large
amount of our social contact. The grocery line (if you don’t self-checkout!).
The gas station. The drive-thru. The mailman.
What regular
interactions do you have? What more could you have, if you were intentionally
cultivating them? You have an opportunity, one encounter at a time, to find out
one or two sentences about their life. To think about them and pray for them
during the intervening time. To ask them about it next time you see them. To
let them know that you are praying for them. To learn when something out of the
ordinary occurs. To pray for that. To share your joy over the gospel of Christ,
when you have opportunity to say something.
Of course,
for this last idea—the sharing of your joy over the gospel—you need to meditate
upon that joy and foster it. If you just plan on saying something about the joy
of the gospel, that’s not the same as sharing actual joy, is it? In order to
share your joy, you need to be rejoicing!
And aren’t we
silly that it may take something like being prepared for evangelism to get us
to spend time at the beginning of each day cultivating joy in Christ over what
He has done for us, and who He is to us? After all, it is this joy, that drives
loving Him because He first loved us, which drives serving and obeying Him and
not finding it burdensome
We just might
find that the development of these habits will be used of God to improve every
area of our Christian practice!
Looking
forward to our weekly gathering in which we rejoice in Christ by His living
Word,
Pastor
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