Playing as a Team

Imagine you are part of a sports team.  Now imagine you are in the middle of a game.  Is it possible for you to play the absolute best game you have ever played, and still lose?  Is it possible to play the worst game of you life and still manage to win?  In both cases, the answer is yes.  So either way, win or lose, it would be silly to judge your personal performance based on the overall outcome of the game.  Yet, when it comes to evangelism, that is exactly what we do.

   What we often forget is that we are part of a team.  The other members of that team are our fellow Christians and the Holy Spirit.  If we are not doing our job as a part of that team, then we are not doing our job as Christians, period.  So what does is look like to be a part of Jesus’ team?  How can we know we are doing our best, even when it may seem like our team is losing?

   The first rule of playing as a team is to know your assignment.  How effective is a quarterback who won’t touch the ball?  Each of us has a specific part to play, and we can’t do that if we are running around doing everything else.  Know your strengths and purpose in Christ.  I love music, but I can barely carry a tune in a bucket, so outside of a miracle occurring, it is a pretty safe bet that me leading worship is probably not the best idea.

  The second rule is to be open to what needs to be done.  This may seem like the opposite of the first rule, but it is just as important.  If there is a fumble, it is everyone’s job to go after it.  If you see something that is not getting done, then go do it.  You may be the only light present in someone’s life.  Always be ready to be life and light to those who need it, even when that isn’t your “thing”.

   Finally, leave the results to God.  So I go out, and I tell someone about Jesus, and his love for them, and all the things he did for them, great.  They listen, nod politely, and carry on as if nothing happened.  What should I do?  Everything in me says that this is important, they need to understand their eternal soul is a stake, but I need to remember that it is not about me being the one to score.  My job is only to move that ball forward to the best of my ability.  The worst thing I can do it erase any forward progress I may have gotten by committing a personal foul.

   “Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”  - John 4:36-38

Engaging Truth

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think or evaluate evidence.  Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

-Richard Dawkins

   So here we have something that challenges Christian beliefs, what is your first reaction?  Do you dismiss it out of hand, or do you actually try to engage with it?  What does it look like to actually engage with an idea you thing is wrong?  The problem is that many Christians when faced with a statement like the one from Dawkins, simply dismiss it without consideration or worse, accept it.  I know this, because I have watched them do it, and for many years, I did the same.  I told myself that if my faith was a form of denial, then I would rather have my faith then be damned.  That very thinking created an arrogant sort of faith that actually impaired my ability to relate to nonbelievers.  When faced with ideas that seemed to contradict my beliefs, I would turn away for fear of losing my faith.  So great was my fear that I could not be the face of love that Christ called me to be.

   Now, imagine you are thinking about going skydiving.  You do your research.  You find that out of about 3.1 million jumps in 2012, only 19 fatalities and 915 injuries were reported, and thus you reason that skydiving is a reasonably safe endeavor  You do further research on companies that take people skydiving until you find one that has a great safety record and lots of good reliable recommendations.  Now based on the evidence in front of you, you have a pretty reasonable and rational faith in the idea that you can jump out of an airplane and land safely.  The moment of truth comes when you are standing at the edge and you are only one step away from a 10,000 foot jump.  That change in circumstance creates a drastic change in mood.  Are you going to hold onto the things you decided were true when both feet were safely on the ground and jump?  Do you let the emotions of fear and uncertainty overwhelm you and chicken out?

   So here we have an example of faith that is based on evidence, and thus does not fit Dawkins definition of faith.  Since Dawkins' claim is that all faith is in spite of evidence and we have at least one example that shows otherwise, we can explain why his statement is false.  It is important to know the truth, but it also important to know why it is the truth.  That only happens when we engage and try to understand those we disagree with.

   

   As witnesses to Christ, we are called to be a light to those in darkness, and that cannot be done by refusing to engage with the world.  We must live by faith, but that faith cannot be based on arrogant dismissal of any idea that we do not like.  Living out a faith based on love means that we must always be ready to face questions which personally challenge and stretch us.  We are called to treat those who would be enemies with compassion and humility, not defensive words and cold shoulders.

"I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” - Matthew 10:16

Evangelism: Doing the Math, Together

Imagine you are working a long math problem.  You have worked through several steps, and after all that work, you get an answer of 4.  Now, you go to your teacher, and you show them your work, and they tell you “No, the answer is 12” with no further explaination.  Not terribly useful is it?  

Now imagine you are dealing with someone who is in the middle of a life crisis, and you tell them, “The answer is Jesus”...   Again, not terribly useful.  Evangelism is about more than just telling people Jesus is the answer.  You must “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. ”  It is not as simple as telling people what we believe, we must be prepared to tell them why we believe.  That means, like a good teacher, we must be willing to take the time and sit down with people and work through the math together.  

So, what does that look like?

That means doing your homework.  You cannot help someone solve a math problem unless you know the math yourself.  You cannot explain to someone what happened in the Garden of Eden or why Jesus had to die for our sins if you don’t know these things for yourself.  This is why careful, reflective study is core to the Christian philosophy.  It is essential to the process of sanctification, and it is essential to evangelism.  Before you can teach someone else, you must know it for yourself.

That means seeking to understand them before we make ourselves understood.  You cannot help someone with a math problem without looking at their work.  Similarly, if we do not understand the other person, we cannot possibly know where they went wrong in their thinking or how they got where they are.  In addition, this helps establish common ground.  You can’t work a math problem with someone until you both agree than 2 + 2 = 4.  Talking to someone who believes that “God does not exist” is very different from talking to someone who believe in a distant God who is no longer involved in the world.  You need to find what you have in common, and work from there.

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” -1 Peter 3:15-16

Fire and Brimstone

Fear is a powerful emotion.  It cuts to the heart of all of our survival instincts.  We want to live.  We want to be safe in an uncertain world.  No one can argue that fear can be a powerful motivator, but is it a good one?
Fear makes us build walls, but love makes us step outside our walls and build bridges.  Fear makes us hoard our resources both physically and emotionally, but love drives us to give freely.  Fear makes us lash out defensively at any challenge, real or imagined, to our faith, but love asks us to have open, honest conversations with those who disagree so that we may learn to understand each other better.  At the end of the day, which is a better reason for having faith, fear or love?
About a hundred of years ago, a preacher decided that people were not concerned enough with the consequences of their choices after death.  He sought to make sure that people were aware that God’s judgment was hanging over them.  The end result was the the Fire and Brimstone sermon, and the revival it sparked.  That revival had a profound impact on Christianity.  While it brought many people into a deeper and more complete relationship with Jesus that was grounded in love, it also created many believers with relationships that were built on fear.  The end result of that relationship grounded in fear was a faith that was limited and defensive.
Why is this important?  Think about how non-Christians, especially those in America today, view Christianity as a whole.  They see Christians who lash out defensively in public at anything that they perceive as a challenge to their faith.  They see churches that are social and emotional fortresses, excluding those who need Jesus most, rather than welcoming them.  In short, they don’t see love.  They only see the fear.  As Christians, we are supposed to have a healthy fear of God and his justice, but when people look at you and how you present your faith, are they seeing the love, or do they see fear?
I say all this, because I grew up only seeing that culture of fear.  I grew up in a church where everyone was expected to have the same beliefs, and asking the wrong questions was frowned upon.  At the age of 18, I was not ready to give up on God, but I was ready to turn my back on churches entirely.  I went to a small bible study hoping to find something else, and I did.  I asked hard questions and in return I got honest answers.  Sometimes those answers were, “I don’t know”, but never once did they get upset when I poked holes in their faith.  In addition, these men were always ready to sacrifice themselves for others, even complete strangers.  In short, I found some Christians who had built their faith on love, and their actions did more to convince me than their words ever could.  In the end, I gave my life to Christ because more than anything else, I wanted to have what they had.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Introduction

"Faith... is the art of holding onto things our reason once accepted, despite your changing moods."

-CS Lewis

No matter who you are or where you live at the end of the day, if you are human, it means you are still a finite and limited creature.  No matter how much you study or how well you reason things out, there is always going to be some element of uncertainty.  Despite all that, at some point you have to simply say, “Based on what I have experienced, I believe this to be the truth” and accept the consequences, right or wrong.

That is the essence of faith.  You are making a choice to trust in what you have decided is true, even in the face of the consequences of being wrong.  Sometimes it is an easy thing with little room for doubt, like trusting that your ladder will hold while you change a lightbulb.  Sometimes it is a hard thing full of doubts and second guessing.  Either way, you have two choices, to trust in what you have decided is true, or to shy away and play it safe.  The problem is that even the decision to play it safe is an act of faith.  How did you decide what safe is?  Did you get there by using the same finite knowledge and reason that led you to decide that the other course of action was unsafe?

When you make these kinds of decisions, you are drawing on all sorts of experiences.  These experiences all go together into a melting pot where they stew together.  While some people spend more time slicing and dicing(i.e. analyzing) their experiences, ultimately everything that happens to us get thrown into the mix in some way, form, or fashion.  From that stew emerges the set of beliefs that you use as a guide for navigating the world.

It is not an easy thing for anyone to lay out the full set of reasons why they believe what they believe, but my purpose is to take some time to try to discuss some of the reasons myself and others choose to believe in God, and more specifically Jesus.

“They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” -Revelations 12:11