Some cool realizations --> venting

First of all, my church on campus hosted a free retreat last night through this morning. I only got to attend last night's session and events, but I thoroughly enjoyed all of it. The topic of the session last night was "Disciples Making Disciples," and to be honest with you, I wasn't looking forward to it. Why? It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me think of collecting people. It reminds me of how a few of my friends feel about some Christians "pushing" their beliefs on others. (Not that this is what all churches teach AT ALL. Maybe it's just the way I've taken it. I don't know.)

It's made me hate it. It's brought me to a place where I shudder when I hear the word "convert," or at least the bad connotations of the world nowadays. Why?

Because it should never be about adding another number to the list.

I don't think that's ever what Jesus wanted. He wanted people to love Him out of their own choice. And He wanted the people that already loved and followed Him to love others, because we love out of the love that God has shown us.

I can't think of any place in the Bible where Jesus argued with someone over His identity as the Son of God (other people argued with Him, but He didn't like pull out his lineage and say, look, I really am from David's line, my mother and father really were told that they were to raise the Son of God...etc). He simply loved them, served them, and taught them His truths. He was bold in what He taught, yes, but He never tried to argue people into believing it. He let them come to Him.

So why do some of us Christians try to do that? Why are we defending our faith? Shouldn't we rather be inviting people to join us? Rob Bell said it best in Velvet Elvis. He said that our faith is like a trampoline; now, people rarely defend a trampoline...rather, you invite people to jump on it with you!

Now, there is something to say for spiritual conversations, where people are sharing openly about what they believe, and why they believe that. It goes wrong when one person decides that they must make the other person believe exactly what they do. That's no longer just a conversation, it's no longer comfortable for either person, and it's not loving. It's a project. And PEOPLE ARE NOT PROJECTS. People's hearts are not projects. We have to get over the thought of the quick fix and reducing our faith to a cultish nature. A cult wants to get people in, any way possible; a church should want to love people, and have people want to join because they see God moving through the members.

Anyways...back to my point. I was not looking forward to this talk. I didn't want to come out of it mad, and then making me question my whole life because I do believe in the Great Commission so what does that mean for me?....It's frustrating.

I was happily surprised though. We looked at three passages and asked ourselves, how do these passages show how Jesus made disciples? [Mark 5:21-43 (Healing of Jairus' daughter), Matthew 17:1-13 (Christ's transfiguration), and Matthew 26:36-46 (Garden of Gethsemane)]

We got into the Word, and it was so good. It was refreshing because it reminded me of what I was talking about above. Jesus wasn't trying to argue His points just to get one more follower. He was loving people, serving people, teaching people, and then taking some of them along with Him to see how He did all He did. He was raw with them, sharing His emotions in His most vulnerable moments, like in the Garden of Gethsemane before He was betrayed. In the transfiguration, He showed them a taste of who He really was- the holy son of God. He allowed them into His world. AND HE DIDN'T FORCE THEM IN. He asked them to come with Him, but they had a choice.

And I read past the Garden into His "trial." He had plenty of chances to argue His case, go back to scripture and point out all the prophecies He fulfilled, prove to them that He was who He was. But He didn't do it. Arguing someone into believing something hardly ever works (or lasts). And He knew that.


So this wasn't at all what I meant to blog about today. I meant to talk about how we talked about Peter, James, and John in these passages and how I know God is trying to teach me something from my strong feeling of comraderie with Peter...but I don't yet know what it is. (Though I have a feeling that it's something I will be called back to my entire life.) I meant to talk about how cool it was that I had just been thinking about all this, and how my personal understanding of faith right now intersects with all of it.

Another thing, the thing I most wanted to blog about- the most important thing I've learned from a book (that isn't the Bible). Rob Bell in his book Velvet Elvis (which I keep talking about, I know) talks about how people are so burdened with "taking the Gospel/Christ" to all these "lost" parts of the world. Well, Rob reminded us that God is in everything, He is everywhere. He is blessing people of the world no matter their beliefs. When God told Abraham that He wanted to bless the world through him, He didn't say "I want to bless the world, but only the good, Bible-based Christians that talk about me 24/7;" He said the whole world. No stipulations. So anyways, if God is already everywhere and in everyone in some way, then we don't have to "carry" or "take" the Gospel anywhere. We simply point out what God has been doing all around them this whole time. Because He is active in EVERYONE. EVERYWHERE.

That, my friends, is the single most amazing thing I've learned from a book. People in these little corners of the world might never have heard of Jesus and His sacrifice, but God is still there with them. Maybe we just need to point it out.

So cool.

Here's to an entirely-too-long-and-off-the-original-topic blog post, y'all.

Peace & Blessings