The other night at Sola (Young Adults service at Northview), the speaker was talking about how some Christians are hypocrites, and the church thinks it's their job to condemn people to hell. He said that throughout the Bible anytime Jesus rebukes anyone, it's the religious people. The Pharisees and church leaders. Anytime Paul rebukes someone, it's in his letters to his own church. He never tells sinners that they're going to hell.
Then the other night, out for dinner with Dave, Graham, and Jenna, we were talking about church, and how we can draw people in. Graham said that the only way people these days are going to come to a small-ish church is through personal relationships.
And now, this morning on Facebook, one of my long-lost-friends from high school had written a note that everyone could see. He's a very anti-religious person, often known to laugh at those 'religious idiots'. He had been searching YouTube and found some things that interested him, about people dying and coming back to life and claiming to have seen heaven and hell, and that sort of thing. Bogus, most of it. He said that it didn't change his views of religion, but it made him start to think. He got a really weird feeling in his gut, and he's very curious. The next night he went to Tim Hortons with a few guys for coffee, and another group of guys sat next to them, and started talking to them, saying they seemed like nice guys, but if they're not saved they're going to hell. That kind of thing. Good intentions; going about it all wrong.
So this freaked him out a little bit, it was such a coincidence. Just that afternoon he and his friends had been debating those very same things.
Now he's really questioning religion. He still claims that nothing is going to change his anti-religion beliefs, but he still wants answers.
I so badly want to invite him to church this sunday (it's baptisms, so nothing super intimidating for a non-christian, but a good chance to see how God has changed other peoples' lives), but I haven't really talked to him in a long time, and coming out of nowhere to invite him to church would probably scare him off. It would be like all the people he makes fun of; trying to be friends with people just to get them to church. If I had taken the time to maintain that friendship awhile ago it would have been totally okay to invite him to church, and maybe spark his curiosity even more.
Take the time to develop personal relationships with people who you've drifted apart from. You never know when you could be called to make a difference for them.
