"I wish I could find a Christian that would be willing to spend some time with me"

I have heard comments like this from some of the non-Christian people that I work with. For example, yesterday I heard comments similar to numbers 2,3, and 4 from a devout Muslim friend. I heard comment number 1 from a non-Christian friend who had visited SI and read the exchange over Matt Olsen. We have people in our church who, before they came to Christ, were like comments 3, 4, and 5. And last week I encountered a number 7. The last number 6 I heard was years ago when a non-Christian was describing a Christian who was terminally ill and rejoicing about going to heaven.

Is it possible that our church schedules are so packed with activities that there is little time to spend with those outside of the church?

I’ve met people from each category over the years. The response I’ve heard the most is that, when speaking to Christians, they feel as if they are being ‘sold’ something, like Christianity is a product we are hawking like ShamWow.

I’d say, like Bro. Peet, that they most likely get this feeling because the only time they experience any interaction with Christians is when we ‘want’ something from them- usually their keister in a pew on “Bring a Sinner to Church” Sunday so we can win a free Bible.

[Jim]

Is it possible that our church schedules are so packed with activities that there is little time to spend with those outside of the church?

In some churches, absolutely. Perhaps a larger problem is we’ve so emphasized “separation from the world” that people in our churches won’t spend time with them or simply don’t know anyone to spend time with.

After thirty years of being in “full-time Christian service” (whatever that is) I find myself working in the real world where I’m working with non-Christians. I interact with them when I talk about sports, politics or work. I engage them when I talk about Christ. (BTW, I’ve realized that I am always in full-time Christian service–especially now.)

Alex,

Your post shows that you have never really interacted in traditional Fundamental circles. For a long time, we were discouraged from interacting with the lost. At work, it was to be done on a very cautious level, but never meaningfully. Evangelism was to take place on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings. But to build redemptive relationships was not encouraged until the mid to late 90’s, and even then only in a small pocket of the movement. So your assertion is mistaken at best.

[Alex Guggenheim] I find it a bit ludicrous frankly to propose that Christians don’t spend much time with non Christians. Most Christians work and they work right alongside of non Christians everyday and they interact with them so I don’t buy this claim.

I would venture to say that most workplace relationships don’t lend themselves to meaningful interaction. Just occupying the same space isn’t ‘spending time’.

Also, there are perceptions such as:

1. Christians are against more things than they are for. “It just seems to me that Christians are mad at the world and mad at each other. They are so negative that they seem unhappy. I have no desire to be like them and stay upset all the time.”

There are many Christians who seem to marinate in despair, or they are consistently snide and disparaging. If, as Christ proposed, one of our defining characteristics should be love toward the brethren, generally speaking I’d say we are sadly lacking in perpetuating that ideal.

My experiences echo Bro. Carlson’s. It was OK to hand a lost person a tract, but becoming ‘involved’ on any level was verboten.

[Alex Guggenheim] I find it a bit ludicrous frankly to propose that Christians don’t spend much time with non Christians. Most Christians work and they work right alongside of non Christians everyday and they interact with them so I don’t buy this claim.

Not asking you to spend anything—don’t have to buy the claim— but there’s a difference between “spending time” with someone and spending time with them. In the fundamental churches/circle I’ve been a part of a good portion of my 50+ years, most church members don’t want to and/or don’t know how to spend time with the unbelievers they “spend time” with at work. In other words, the superficial work relationship involves communication about work, weather, sports, maybe simple family stuff. As far as really spending time with unbelievers to discover their hurts, fears, idols, etc., etc. so they can minister the gospel in a non-canned way? Doesn’t happen much.

It is folly for an individual or an organization to set its’ agenda according to the dictates of its detractors.

Meet these 7 statements there will be more.

Just get in the Book and do what’s right today.

I don’t think we should seem to be dismissive about those to whom we wish to minister, since they aren’t commenting about the Scriptures themselves, but about their perceptions of the ways Christian act in accordance (or not) with what they claim to believe. The author of the article states:

I’m not celebrating their absence of faith in Christ. My joy comes from listening to those who don’t believe as I do, so that I might be better equipped to witness to them.

I personally don’t see unregenerate souls as ‘detractors’. They are unbelievers, and Christ has commanded us to show them compassion and share the Gospel. Knowing how to do that better in our society, especially if you are loaded with inaccurate theological baggage, can be helpful.

For all the talk about how we Christians are supposed to relate to the world, the Bible doesn’t say much about the matter. Whether the Old Testament saints or the New Testament church, the vast majority of attention is given to A) how we relate to God and B) how we relate to each other. When time is given to the relationship between the faithful and the faithless, most of it consists of being separate from the world, not trying to woo it or improve its opinion of us.

Of course, there is the great commission imperative, but points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 really have precious little to do with evangelism. As a matter of fact, the old canard of point 1 is anti-evangelistic. Point 3: how about you repent of your sins and believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ first, and THEN learn about the Bible, ok? If they were serious about their peril, about the reality of sin and hell and the holy God that is Lord and judge, they wouldn’t want to be catered to at Starbucks, or critical of the flaws of people who, whatever their shortcomings, won’t spend forever in unspeakable torment. And so on.

“Do you see the pattern? Non-Christians want to interact with Christians. They want to see Christians’ actions match their beliefs. They want Christians to be real.”

Yeah, sure, fine, whatever. You know what? I could care less about what non-Christians think or want. Why? Because non-Christians are sinners. They are dead. They lack wisdom and knowledge concerning spiritual things, and instead possess the opposite: false ideas and strange imaginations that reflect their fallen condition. Why should we care about the judgment of Pharisees, Sadducees, Caesar and Pontius Pilate? We should care about what God wants and thinks, and what our fellowservants in the faith want and think (and even then only because our fellow Christians are indwelled by God, and God therefore sanctifies their ideas and affections) and all other considerations are worth less than what is adhering to the bottom of my shoe at any given moment in time.

Yes, we are to care about our witness to the world … being salt and light, showing the love of Christ, and being blameless without even the appearance of wrong. But we are not supposed to do this in order to make the world like us better, and we are certainly not supposed to get the utterly false idea that getting the world to like us better will win converts. Instead, we are supposed to do this only because God commanded us to. And the converts? They will come as a result of our faithfulness to God. It is God who converts people, not us.

Also, stuff like this is the opposite of evangelism. This is giving the unsaved what they want according to their flesh. It is filling the desires - not needs mind you but superficial, carnal, capricious desires - of spiritually dead hearts whose natural inclination is all sorts of abominations, which they mask with human self-righteousness that has a form of godliness but denies the power of God. Well if you are going to spend all your time giving spiritually dead people their wants that arise from their condition of spiritual deadness, then when are you ever going to get around to telling them that they are spiritually dead? And is it that you think that getting them to carnally like you is going to make the job of telling them that they are spiritually dead any easier? That they are going to be more likely to listen to you? Can anyone tell me when in the history of the church has this approach ever worked?