Fire Breathing Pagans

You will often hear me talk about unchurched (no or little church background) or dechurched (formerly churched, now not affiliated) people as we talk about getting out and engaging with the world. Unless you have lived in one of those worlds or are close to people living in those worlds, you may not realize how much unchurched and dechurched people often look like us…Christian Churchgoers. That statement might be hard to hear…even appalling to some of you since Christians are supposed to be “the light of the world” and “the salt of the earth”. After all, we are supposed to be significantly different from the lost and unchurched world.
Before you give up on reading this blog, let me explain. In our everyday lives, churched people and unchurched or dechurched people walk similar paths. Most all of us are concerned about our families. Certain moral values such as cheating or adultery are usually not dissimilar. They work alongside us and their children play with our children. Some of these unchurched and dechurched people are our children’s teachers and doctors. The unchurched and dechurched live in our neighborhoods and carry on pleasant conversations with us. They often have the same financial burdens or concerns we do, they are just as patriotic, and most of them react with the same sadness when they see a sick child or person in pain.
The problem is, many churches often speak of unchurched and dechurched people as pagans; as if they are fire-breathing aliens from another planet. Many see the unchurched and dechurched as angry or hostile at Christians, doubtful of the existence of God, and bitter toward the church; however, the reality is, that based upon research and personal experience, about 95% of unchurched and dechurched people don’t fit this description.
It is true that there are a fair number of people that hate God and everything we stand for, but the vast majority of people we meet everyday are not actually anti-church or anti-Christian. Many of them need a friend to see that not all Christians are crazy if they have had this experience. Many of them have had bad experiences with church and simply need a loving guide to show them that Brussels sprouts are a terrible way to judge vegetables (talk to me if you don’t understand my analogy). Many of them don’t realize how much of a support system a loving church can be. Many just don’t think church attendance is important or at least they think sleeping in or mowing the grass is more important. Many of them are simply waiting for an invitation to church.
Rather than looking at the unchurched or dechurched as diseased or better yet, fire-breathing pagans, let’s consider getting to know them. Find out what makes them tick. Invest time and energy in them. And then show them, by your own life and words, what a Christian looks like…an image that accurately reflects the one we serve…Jesus!

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God’s Intervention vs. Common Sense

I received a question through email just a few minutes ago from someone asking for some help in answering a question from a friend who emailed her about God’s help versus our common sense.  Here was the original email with a few modifications for space and privacy.  My answer follows.

The 3 year old boy that I watch came today with a splinter in his hand.  Although it was tender, he said that God will make it better.  I agree that God will help, but don’t you think God gave us brains so we could take care of ourselves and our children?  Just wondering what a Christian thinks of this.

Friend,
So often, God does directly intervene in our lives…when and how and why He chooses this direct intervention, only He knows.  He often works in subtle ways that I wholeheartedly believe we often miss.  For instance, this splinter will most likely heal and have no long lasting problem; however, perhaps God has already intervened and kept a MRSA infection at bay, or kept the splinter close to the surface so it didn’t get into deeper tissue and cause a bigger problem.  Perhaps the splinter made them just late enough to keep them from getting into a terrible accident on the way to your house.  Perhaps the splinter occurred so you would ask this question…who knows.  At the end of the day, it is fair to assume that God knows and probably only He knows.  His ways and thoughts are higher than our own (Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.).  God does work in mysterious ways that we do not often see, or perhaps I should say, He works in ways we often miss.  But God, for whatever reason, often uses people to be His hands and feet.  He works through those who believe in Him, as we strive to see like He sees and love like He loves.  He uses believers to reach out with a kind word, or a kind act to let people know that God has not forgotten about them.  He asks Christians to come alongside a hurting world to be His ambassadors.  Unfortunately, many Christians miss these opportunities when we forget that we are to love God first, and everyone else second.  When we love our “neighbors” with the kind of love God wants us to love with, we become the ones who remove the splinters in people’s lives on behalf of a loving God who cares about splinters…for He even knows how many hairs we have on our heads.
So it is fair to have confident expectations (hope based on faith) that God is moving and working in our lives; however, He may work so subtly, we think He is absent when He is in fact working diligently for those who love Him, often with those and through those who love Him.  We may be stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire and pray that God helps us.  If someone stops and changes the tire, is that an answer to a prayer, an example of God working behind the scenes that we can give thanks for, or are we mad Jesus didn’t show up and change the tire for us?
God definitely gave us brains to think and act and make decisions about life here…but He also gives us that ability to make decisions about Him as well.  God gives us freedom to choose Him or not choose Him…to love Him or not love Him.  If He showed up like a genie every time we said Jesus three times, we could no more deny Him than we can deny the reality of gravity or air – that’s not freedom.  But God wants us to choose Him freely without forcing Himself on us…chosen love is the only kind of authentic love.  If He forced Himself on us, any love we have for Him would be out of obligation, and it wouldn’t be real…He wants real love from us for who He is – God…not a magic genie.  When we choose to love Him for who He is (which He has revealed to us through the Bible), our faith grows.  Faith is choosing to believe even when things look out of control or don’t make sense or aren’t clear.  As we grow in our faith, we begin to have confidence or hope, which often leads to trust, which eventually and miraculously leads to peace even amidst the greatest storms of life.
Yes, make decisions, but don’t leave God out of it…even the smallest of things.  And remember that God is crazy about you and loves you like a doting parent loves His child.  And lastly, remember that He promises to never leave you or forsake you if  you are one of His…the catch is knowing that God might just use another person to show you that is true.

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So What’s a Sciolistic?

I love unusual words; however, I hate it when people use them and don’t explain them.  We do this in church all the time…we use “Christianese” that most churchgoers are familiar with (although I would guess many don’t fully understand some words us preachers like to use) but CEO’s (Christmas and Easter Only) and pre-Christan attenders most likely don’t understand what we’re talking about half the time.

So, in the explanation of this blog, I used the word, “Sciolistics”.  A sociolistic is someone who shows a very superficial demonstration of learning or it is someone who never even thinks about matters of faith.  This is different than a skeptic, cynic, or critic.  How would you define skeptic, cynic or critic?

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