How We Lost Our Audience...and how to get it back.

I got a lot of positive feedback from my message yesterday. I seemed to have hit on something that many people had questions about.  You can download "Lost in Translation" if you missed it.

In addition to talking about Desperate Housewives and Country music I talked about how it is that even though we have the best story in the world  to tell (the story of Jesus) yet so many people ignore it. They are unimpressed. The truth is, we've done a good job of losing our audience.  I looked at five ways we lose our audience and then what the Bible says about how to win it back.

One of the things we ("we" meaning most Christians) do wrong is we don't give people enough room to think about faith and dialogue with them about it.  When I was a kid and learning to fish I would always want to reel the fish in the moment my bobber went down but my dad told me to let the fish run with the bait for a while. I think that's true with us. We often aren't patient enough to let people wrestle with issues of faith. We just want them to believe and be like us!  But that's why people spit our story out of their mouth.

Jesus rarely "closed the deal" with people's faith questions. He typically just asked them more questions. He wanted them to fully understand the issues and not just believe a doctrine or make a decision. Jesus wanted to engage people in discussion...that is, a relationship. He's not looking for a convert as much as a disciple...someone that walks with him, talks with him and learns to do what he does.

I think there are more spiritually interested people out there than we realize. We just need to stop being religious and learn how to talk as naturally about our faith as we do sports or gardening.