Can you recall a time when you didn’t believe in Jesus? Not a rogue moment of doubt or a season when work/family/life took precedence over service to others or attendance at church. I mean a time when the notion of believing that Jesus was anyone’s Lord or Savior fell somewhere on the spectrum between unlikely and absurd. I spent the first 37 years of my life on that spectrum—completely indifferent to Jesus unless I was disparaging Him or mocking His followers.
As an outsider, my perception of Christian faith was shaped things like mass media coverage of high-profile church scandals and the actions of people whose lives appeared to contradict what I perceived to be Christian principles. I did not mourn Heaven or fear Hell because I did not believe they existed. I would live. I would die. That was it.
As I enter into the Lausanne Conversation with seven years in the Christian trenches and a lifetime of history outside the faith, I look forward to discussing what it means to share the Gospel effectively in world with an increasing population of people who consider themselves to be atheist, agnostic or “spiritual-not-religious”.
As a starting point, I’d like to offer two questions for discussion:
- Does discussing the “unchurched” and “unbelievers” as if they are a homogeneous species to be converted rather than individual human beings with unique experiences with faith (both positive and negative) shut down communication before it begins?
- Might lifelong faith lived within the Christian subculture be a barrier to effectively sharing the Gospel with people for whom faith in a saving Jesus seems absurd? If so, what might we do about it?