Angry and disillusioned with evangelism. I'm particularly frustrated with evangelism to our friends. The people that we love the most are the people that we objectify as salvation targets. And even more frustrated with the fear that arises in a religious community when someone starts to "question". Oh God! She's reading Dawkins! He's taking a class on quantum theory! He's experimenting with drugs! She's visiting the Buddhist center! Quickly! Give her a C.S. Lewis book! Bring him to church! Treat them to coffee and fix them! Our voices fill with fear, our backpacks fill with apologetic materials, and our Bible studies contain hushed conversations about the black sheep who is "questioning."
People we used to go shopping with and eat curry with are now people on The Prayer List. You used to talk about Audrey Hepburn and the upcoming German exam, but now when you meet up you know that this is your chance, that if you don't fix him now he may be "lost" forever. She used to be a full, 3-D person: now she's unsaved. He used to like longboarding and painting: now he's a project.
And through all this objectification and demonization is fear. Total frenzy. If we don't teach them, if we don't give them the book, if we can't prove God to them - they're gone.
This is ridiculous.
People find and love God because God finds and loves them.
No matter how many obstacles you put up, if God is searching for you, then you hear God's voice in whatever you read and whoever you talk to. Why are we afraid when someone "wanders" away? Aren't we just afraid because we can't see the outcome; because we're not in control; because we don't trust God?
And a thought on wandering: sometimes people need to get away and hear fresh voices and experiment intellectually with new ideas before they embrace God for who God is. We should be constantly encouraging people let go of what they think they know in order to find truth. These people aren't usually abandoning God - they're leaving their own perception of God, leaving their fuzzy upbringing and theology books and half-baked lyrics behind and pushing out on their own. This is hugely difficult, hugely meaningful, and probably a lot more "spiritual" than the run-of-the-mill, unquestioning acceptance that a lot of people are content with. I'm not saying that everyone needs to play chicken with Truth like this - probably not everyone needs to. I'm just saying that some people do need this, and it's a beautiful and spiritually healthy path to take, whether it goes on for five months or five years for fifty years. To an outsider, it's terrifying, because it looks like that you are "letting go of God" and pursuing truth instead. But the pursuit of truth seem to me like it always leads to the same place.
Trust in God. Let go of your friends, and give the control back to God. Sometimes our questions have to lead away from "God", because we weren't really following anything real at all, just a patchwork quilt of traditions and sermons and formulas that we have to let go of before we can really know the real God.
Don't confuse your concept of God with the reality of God. Don't confuse letting go of your concept of God with letting go of God.
And for pities sake, please stop objectifying people that don't believe.
