Get Comfortable

I feel like I’m missing something. From time to time I get a sort of creative urge. Some sort of output usually follows these urges. Right now I just have that initial feeling. I can’t quite get to the output phase.

It’s a lot like stumbling around in a dark room looking for a flangerpullet. The problem is twofold: you have no idea where it is in the room, and you have no idea what the hell you’re searching for. You stagger around the room tripping, groping the darkness trying to find something that feels like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It’s frustrating.

So here I am. Staggering and stumbling. Tripping and groping. Trying to find…something.

As I’m sitting here thinking and writing I realize I’m feeling really vulnerable. Those are the times when I tend to over-share. I think that means I should just tell a story or maybe I’ll ask some thought provoking questions in hopes of spurring a conversation.

Yeah, let’s go with option #2.

I read a great quote about John Wesley a few weeks ago. Lyle Dorsett, a professor at Wheaton College wrote, “Wesley realized that the Great Commission is not to make converts; it’s to make disciples.” I’ve never been one to focus on “saving souls.” I’ve never been a big fan of in your face, blatant evangelism. In a great moment of sarcasm and irony one of the great thinkers of our age said, “I like to make everyone feel comfortable; that’s why I want to talk to you about Jesus.” – Jim Gaffigan. Nothing shuts doors faster than asking someone “If you died tonight do you know where you’d go?”

I’m what I would call a “head Christian” as opposed to a “heart Christian.” My faith is based more on reflection and deliberation versus emotion and spontaneity. I’ve never been a fan of the “Scare them into Heaven” approach so popular in some Christian circles. I recently watched the movie Hell House about a church in Texas that every Halloween puts on, for lack of a better description, an evangelistic haunted house. Some parts of the movie were touching. Most of it was appalling.

I had more written and some of this a little more fleshed out and then my computer crashed. Above is what Word could recover. Below is what I could remember that wasn’t recovered.

How do we reach the non-religious and nominally religious (I love that term) with out freaking them out?

I haven’t even mentioned my belief that the number one deterrent from Jesus is Christians. How do we reach those who have been hurt by the church? How do we begin to heal those wounds?