Advancing the Kingdom

We had a great leaders' meeting on Monday night with Carl Madieras. He was talking to us about "making disciplies" - advancing God's kingdom by introducing people to Him and seeing them accept Him and change as a result. It was a very thought-provoking, and generally provocative discussion about a model of what we would call evangelism or witnessing based on an alternative to the "us" and "them" mentality that can be so charactristic of evangelical models. One of the problems with the latter is that we can end of acting as salesmen and women for a bunch of doctrines or intellectual ideas. I loved the simplicity of just inviting people to ask themselves who they think Jesus was. Simple things like not giving Him His title of Christ or Lord in discussion with people who haven't accepted that yet can help break down barriers or avoid them going up in the first place.

Personally, I think I have been guilty of avoiding some discussions with non-believers (not a term I like but convenient shorthand) because I just don't want to get into having to defend Christianity or Church History - Northern Ireland etc.There is great freedom in the thought that is not what I am primarily called to do - who could successfully defend it? (not quite the same thing as defending the guilty in court!) People come to know God when they meet Jesus - whether or not they have any understanding of doctrine or church history.

We had a change of tact at House Group last night and talked about these issues with reference to John 4:4-42 - the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus had a couple of opportunities with her to get into debate about religious differences or doctrine. He simply presented to her what He had to offer - and when she seemed a bit dubious He revealed some of His divinity by telling her "everything [she] ever did". Great stuff.

We recognised of course that there are times to sit down and talk people through the scriptures and teach them. An important aspect of the "making disciples" process. Perhaps we can be a bit guilty of jumping in at that end too soon. It will depend where the person is in their own thinking - for example, when Philip was taken to the Ehtiopian he was already reading the scriptures so Philip had a perfect opportunity to sit down with him and tell him where Jesus fits in.

I have prayed for an opportunity today to put this into practice. Nothing as yet unless I've missed it. I've just eaten a massive baked potato with tuna, coleslaw and loads of salad so I'm not going to be good for much for a while. Hopefully my circulation will have returned to my brain by 2pm as I will need all the wisdom I can get for a conference.