Telling someone you're a Christian can kill a conversation. Many people react strongly to Christianity with a mix of fear and anger.

I hate stirring up this reaction in people, especially when I suddenly become the personal embodiment of something another person hates and fears.

To avoid this, I have found some things helpful in explaining myself as a Christian to those who do not share my faith in Christ or may even be hostile toward Christianity. 

Talk More About What the Bible Says Than Your Opinion

This gives you the freedom to be honest about how hard it can be to believe the God of the Bible and what has helped to convince you He is trustworthy.

If you start talking only in terms of your beliefs, you get away from a focus on what is true and invite this dead-end response: “Well that’s, like, your opinion man.” (And a weird, still unexplained opinion at that). 

Try to thank God for your Christian-critical friends—God is big enough to turn their criticisms into spiritual growth for you and them. You may have to do some extra studying and reading of the Bible (which is not the worst thing in the world). These videos from The Bible Project are great, share-able explanations of themes throughout the biblical story and of particular books in the Bible. I love the way they tell the Bible’s story.
 

Ask Genuine Questions and Listen

When I was doing street evangelism as Serge staff in London, I was surprised to see how blessed people felt to have someone listen to them process the big questions in life.

Simply listening is a generous gift to many people who long to be able to talk about deeper things and rarely get the opportunity. Be gracious to someone who verbalizes his or her thoughts for the first time or without much practice. Help the person understand what he or she believes. Consider their perspective and what might be going unsaid.

Francis Schaeffer, who founded a ministry called L’Abri, where people could ask honest questions and seek honest answers, shared his personal approach:
 

If I have only an hour with someone, I will spend the first 55 minutes asking questions and finding out what is troubling their heart and mind, and then in the last five minutes I will share something of the truth.

You don’t have to be able to answer all the questions—its OK to admit you don’t know and learn along with someone.

Ultimately, a successful conversation is defined by both parties learning to trust God more. We may not understand everything, but God is big enough for our questions. I’ve found I can trust God for the things I do not understand because He did not withhold His only Son, who suffered brutally and died so that I could enjoy a restored relationship with God and all His good creation.

Invite the Critic into a Genuine Friendship

Offer to take them to your church or an informal gathering where friends from your church will be hanging out together. (Implicit in this point is having good relationships within the church community and a church that welcomes skeptics.)

C.S. Lewis demonstrates how powerful a Christian community can be in The Screwtape Letters, which is a series of fictitious letters written from a mature demon to his nephew in temptation training.

The two demons in this situation are conspiring to keep a man from joining the side of “the Enemy” (God). The mature demon warns about the danger in bringing their target too close to Christian community, for he (their target) may get a whiff of the “fragrance of Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:15):

"Then, of course, he gets to know this woman’s family and whole circle. Could you not see that the very house she lives in is one that he ought never to have entered? The whole place reeks of that deadly odor. The very gardener, though he has only been there five years, is beginning to acquire it. Even guests, after a week-end visit, carry some of the smell away with them. The dog and the cat are tainted with it. And a house full of the impenetrable mystery. We are certain (it is a matter of first principles) that each member of the family must in some way be making capital out of the others—but we can’t find out how. They guard as jealously as the Enemy Himself the secret of what really lies behind this pretense of disinterested love. The whole house and garden is one vast obscenity. It bears a sickening resemblance to the description one human writer made of Heaven; “the regions where there is only life and therefore all that is not music is silence.”

The loving Christian community has massive potential. For it is in the church community that we all see what God is like to the degree we faithfully display His character. The greatest obstacle for skeptics may be the Church’s historic blunders, but the loving church is the greatest apologetic.  

Remember There’s Hope for Screw Ups

As you read the Bible and notice its heroes, you can’t help but notice they are screw ups. They are real people like you and me, bumbling and fumbling opportunities to demonstrate the goodness of God.

The Bible shows us there is hope for these people. And if there is hope for the likes of Solomon (who had everything and still wrestled with meaninglessness in his life), David (Israel’s great king who had to repent of adultery and the murder of an innocent man), Peter (the first church leader who denied knowing Jesus—despite being warned that he would do so)—if there is hope for these guys, then there is hope for us. Hope not only to be brought back into a good relationship with God, but also to play a key part in what God is doing to bring about His good Kingdom here and now and forever.

This post first appeared in Relevant Magazine on July 29, 2015. 
 

Freedom from Personal Spin Campaigns

A Life of Spin
There is a sizable institute called the Media Literacy Project dedicated to a single, increasingly-important purpose: helping people discern fact from fiction in news sources. Such a group does much needed work today, giving us fact-checking tools as we compare stories from FOX news, CNN, Twitter, and Buzzfeed among others.

It’s not just the news, but also the endless advertising. The latest products make big promises. How many times can the new smart phone really change everything? Drugs and treatments are advertised while minimizing serious consideration for side effects. Many today are tired of the slickly turned out spin. Is the church a refreshing alternative or just another place of pretense? In his short book Repentance, Serge founder Jack Miller wrote, “If we wish to be effective as Christian leaders, we must see that our own pharisaic pretense will eventually be discovered by the people we meet and rebuked by our own consciences.” Christ did not come, die, and rise to offer fresh spin on your life. He came for renewal.

The Authentic Way Out: Repentance
We are foolish if we think that modern men and women do not see when we are putting on a show. Think about it, how do you carry out your own personal brand campaign: In your church? In your family? In your workplace? In your prayer life? The Holy Spirit himself is deeply grieved, weeps holy tears over our religious fakery and instructs us in a better way – by the path of renewal through sincere repentance:

“God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” James 4:6,7

God is merciful to let our self-promotion campaigns fail – He wants real relationship with us. He also wants real relationships for us. In his letter, James is most direct with those who use God when it makes them look good:

“Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.… Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” James 4:8,10

Where Do We Begin with Repentance?
In Repentance, Jack Miller urges us: “We must stop parading around as a shell of person, living as those that T.S. Eliot called “hollow men.” Ask the Holy Spirit to make you willing to be searched by God (Psalm 139:23-24). And in turn, you will realize you are truly known by him. Do not expect the process of searching to be always painless and pleasant. No, hardly. But you will begin to have the joy of a clear conscience and a deepening fellowship with Christ as you realize He is unafraid of what He exposes, willing to heal, awaiting your return to Him. As you learn to thirst after Christ and drink of Him, you will find the living waters of the Holy Spirit flowing through you (John 7:37-39). No longer will you be the shiny appearance of something good, but you will be really living—and from you waters will overflow into others’ lives.”

Quotes from Repentance: A Daring Call to Real Surrender by C. Jack Miller, © 1975 by CLC Publications. Used by permission of CLC Publications. May not be further reproduced. All rights reserved.

Image sourced from Flicker and used under a Creative Commons license.

This blog post initially appeared on the Serge blog Life Wide Open on January 23, 2015. 

Recovering Craftsmanship in Christian Hospitality

A group of young men (all apparently named Dude) sat in a circle on the airport carpeting and eagerly discussed their plans for a trip to Europe. The group of plaid-clad, bearded, craft-beer enthusiasts was headed overseas not for hip bars in Berlin or the pubs of London. As it turns out, they traveled exclusively in search of French and Belgian monasteries. Monks, even in today’s modernized beer industry, are still considered to be the master brewers. Trappist monks in particular make some of the finest beer in the world: Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, and La Trappe, to name a few. These monks are the inspiration of celebrated breweries like New Belgium, Unibroue, and Ommegang.

The monks’ high quality of craftsmanship and their artisanal attention to detail have had a great influence far outside the monastery walls. But what separates their beer from most is that it is not sold for profit. Not that making a profit is wrong, but these monks want to emphasize that their labor is for the delight of others and the glory of God.

Craftsmanship and Hospitality: Two Peas in a Pod

I hope those dudes got to see the monks’ worship of God (rather than a worship of the craft itself) and I hope they experienced excellent hospitality in the service of all (not just those who could pay them handsomely for it). How would they have comprehended all that from drinking in a monastery? Because historically, craftsmanship and hospitality were two peas in a pod. And to stretch the analogy, the pod was the Christian, monastic church.

The Light Side of the Monastery in the Dark Ages

The Medieval monastery in many ways functioned as a mission outpost to the surrounding region. In the midst of hostile territory, it was a place of safety and education. A place of “kind welcome, laden table, and warm beds,” as Greg Thompson recently put it at a conference that Serge sponsored. The monastery was the place you go in crisis or in leisure. All were welcome. Hospitality was beautifully practiced.

The Need for Genuine Hospitality

Today, the novelty of magazines like Kinfolk (and others like it) hints that there is a void of hospitality in our culture. Hospitality is a lost art in the modern hustle. And the restless pursuit of rest results in activities like, well, studying Kinfolk’s hosting ideas instead of actually having people over! Kinfolk may facilitate beautiful gatherings but all too often it serves to sell a lifestyle brand to high-end markets. This makes the movement simultaneously exciting and troubling. It is like visiting Chicago’s Ralph Lauren “mansion,” a gorgeous home and a surprising oasis from the crowded Magnificent Mile. While beautifully crafted, the Ralph Lauren “mansion” is actually a store and fundamentally a place to shop. You will feel welcome if you have money and unwelcome if you don’t. This is not real hospitality.

There remains a great need and unsatisfied longing for genuine hospitality. The Christian Church, once famous for its careful craftsmanship, which served its generous hospitality, is no longer looked to as a leader in this area. Only a small piece of this legacy is known today among niche craft beer brewers. Greg Thompson says it well:

“The Christian Church must recover its vocation of hospitality. Not as a folksy ethos. Not just as artisanal practices of self-actualization in an industrialized world. But as a definitional theological conviction about the meaning of life in the world. The deliberate recovery of a foundational theology of hospitality is the greatest task before the missionary church in the secular west.”

God’s Hospitality and Christian Hospitality

In the coming weeks, we will take a look at Serge staff who are refining their skills in the service of hospitality. One Serge missionary finds creative expression in baking pastries – she shares her passion and trains others to bake so they can escape sex slavery in South Asia. Another Serge missionary has helped to transform Dublin through the Arts. And finally, we will see how a musician in Vienna has learned the importance of presence in ministry. The world over, Serge staff are this very minute opening their homes and lives to the people they serve, reminding the world that God is a yearning host who wants to fill his table (Luke 14:15-24) and we, with all of the Church, are sent to gather his guests to come to the table. If the monks have taught us anything, we can guess that fine beer will be there.

Photo credit: Brewery at Abbey Notre Dame de Saint Remy, Rochefort. Paul Cooper, Rex Features.

This blog post initially appeared on the Serge blog Life Wide Open on May 19, 2015.