‘DO NOT TRY TO CONVERT ME TO CHRISTIANITY!’ This was my friend’s last message to me – caps-locked! – as we arranged a meet-up the following day.
We’ve known each other for nearly 30 years. For the last 20 of them I’ve been a Christian, something he’s been fine about, as long as I keep it to myself. He is – as you can tell – not open to an evangelistic encounter!
So, what did we talk about the following day? Actually we spoke of the very deepest truths about God, His judgment and His grace. How come? Did he change his mind? Did I blunder through his boundaries and force an intervention? No and no. The truth is: God is good, prayer is powerful and everything is ultimately about Jesus.
Principles first
I’ll tell you how the conversation unfolded, but before that I think we need some principles in place. Firstly, we need to repeat something I’ve said before in this column: the goal is offering Christ not gaining converts. We move out from fullness, not from need. It’s about giving, not getting – good news to share, not good tactics to deploy.
Secondly, if we’re hoping for God conversations, we need to make sure we have good conversations. It rarely works to bridge from trivia to profound gospel truths. I used to think a good evangelist was someone who could turn a pub discussion of the offside rule into a proclamation of ‘Christ, our Last Defender’. But so much of our problem is that we want to bypass ‘good conversations’ in search of ‘God conversations’. But the one leads to the other.
Thirdly, when it comes to converting people, the first person in the queue should be me. I need to repent and believe the gospel before my friend does – and that order is important. If I really believe these truths are ‘lifesavers’ for my friend, there should first be a sense that they have been ‘lifesavers’ for me. If so, discussing the tangible ways the good news has impacted me will inevitably lead to a discussion of the Source of that change. I’ll explain what I mean by describing our conversation.
A proper conversation…
The day after the email, I met my friend on a beach on the south coast. We had bacon sandwiches and flat whites and caught up on each others’ news. We’d both had another child since last we met – ours by adoption. ‘We’ve been thinking about adoption,’ he said, ‘how has it been?’ I told him about the hurdles, the screening process, the bureaucracy, the crying need, the appalling trauma faced by so many little ones. Then we spoke of the unique challenges adoption brings.
… about unconditional love
But I brought it back to this: You’ve got to believe that unconditional love is really how people change and flourish – you’ve got to believe it down to your toenails. My friend said he thought he did believe that. I told him it would be tested sorely and constantly, and that offering unconditional love like this will, at times, feel excruciating. But the alternative is hell – it’s the hell of disconnection, of further distance, mistrust, fear and anger. The only answer is absorbing that hell and – somehow! – answering with grace. It feels excruciating – like getting crucified – but it’s the only way. ‘And look,’ I said, ‘I know you told me not to try to convert you, but I’m not trying to convert you, I’m telling you what I need to hear to convert me! I need to believe this stuff for my own sanity. For Emma and me, it’s our faith that sees us through. We really believe that absorbing the hell and paying back with love is genuinely how the universe operates – it’s what God did. It’s what the cross was all about. And now, with Him, we get to see it at work in our little family. And it does. You know?’
And he really did seem to know. It was the deepest connection we’ve ever had concerning faith. Who knows where it will lead, but that morning, in spite of his forewarnings, we ended up having a ‘God conversation’. Yet we got there because, first, it was a good conversation.
Glen Scrivener
Glen Scrivener is director and evangelist with ‘Speak Life’ in Eastbourne, which trains Christians in personal evangelism, in person, in podcasts and videos.
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