Re: Religion Thread: ...and suddenly, everyone's a theology scholar
So what is your view or perspective or maybe your churches, when it comes to evangelism? I personally find the vast majority of evangelism to be not only uneffective but counter productive even. It seems to me those that respond to it were at a point in their lives when they were just ready for it, so the effectiveness of the person doing the "sharing the gospel" thing almost doesn't matter as much as they just happened to catch the person at the right time or in the right circumstances? Otherwise modern day evangelism seems to me to do far more to push people further away and to turn them off towards Christianity in general, and it is Christian evangelism that I am talking about specifically.
Do you share your faith with others?
Do I share my faith with others? Yes. Do I beat them over the head with it? No. I say my experience, how it sustains me, how I came to believe what I do and what it does for me. I do it if I have opportunity and if it fits the situation. DId this before I belonged in a church. If I had patients who were struggling I would ask them if they had a faith and if the answer was yes we talked about if it might help them. SOmetimes they forgot to lean on it and it could help them.
I came into organized religion late. I always believed but when I was little my parents (who had both rebelled and joined the Unitarian Church) decided they were p1ssed at the church and left. When I was 28, working as an FNP and seeing the underbelly of humanity one of my patients invited me to her church after I asked her if her faith mught be helpful to her. She told me she thought I would like it.
Summary- I went for the first time on Pentecost (cue creepy music) on a whim. The whole thing was about how humans didn't have to fix everything, that was God's job. Just what I needed.
Never stopped going after that. Fills my Pitcher as my Auntie would say.
My church believes in inviting without strings. They are open, accepting and have no problem with people questioning things (ELCA church). We do outreach that isn't heavy on Bible thumping. More show your Faith by showing you you live, participate in society, etc. Lots of service things- serve at shelters, work day where we all go out into the community to do various things needed, open the building for meetings, that type of stuff. They call it 'Come and see' , 'porch' opportunities. Sort of like when you were a kid and could go visit on the porch if you weren't comfortable going into the house. If you are open, friendly and willing to let the person in, even if they aren't sure of what they want maybe it will fill their pitcher too.
mr les is Catholic. That seems to be another world. Lots of rules, requirements and pay to participate (they charge for CCD??!! and people compete for the prime schedule)
IMHO Jesus went out to gather in all the 'undesirables', he was inclusive and preached against rigidity and obsession with the letter of the Law instead of the Spirit. Maybe it is my UU background but I think God is more interested in engaging as many people as possible, not judging and looking for ways to exclude them or obsessing with what humans decide is important. I have had some fascinating discussions with people of all faiths- I had a pt who was a rabbinical student, another few who were Deacons in Catholic, Episcopal, Presby churches. Never stop learning or thinking. Faith is a living, breathing, changing thing. If it is stagnant something is wrong.