An Idea For Bridging Gaps For the Gospel

A lot of times during the course of my week, I try to set time aside for planning, and even brainstorming some ideas about the future. Today was a day like that. One of the things I am trying to think more openly about is how to bridge relationships between people of different perspectives. One of the things I have been wanting to do for some time is to have a seeker class. Now, when I use both of those words (seeker and class), I know that automatically something comes to one's mind. But what I mean may not look like any of those things. That is just what I am calling it for right now. It is not a class where Christians bombard non-Christians with a rote plan of salvation. What it will be geared to do is to foster an open dialogue between those two groups, and hopefully promote understanding, for the sake of the kingdom. Now for those of us who have grown up in the church, that may sound like a waste of time, as well as a dangerous undertaking. Not at all. For one thing, if we have authentic faith in Christ we have nothing to fear, and our faith is able to stand up under the most intense scrutiny. Moreover, I obviously have an agenda to glorify God and win people to Jesus Christ. But, as Stephen Covey (a Mormon by the way), said, "Seek first to understand, and then to be understood." It is unfortunate that so many people that I have talked to about Christ do not want to hear, because they have been spiritually abused at some point in their past. It is also unfortunate that they assume that everybody is like the dopes in their bad experience. But we have all been guilty of stereotyping at one time or another (see, I just did it).

My goal in this is to invite anyone interested in finding answers to their life or in their carrying on a friendly dialogue with those who want to help, but do not have all the answers themselves, and are also on a journey to make sense out of life. Although I use the term class, the format will actually resemble a discussion group more than anything, with a facilitator guiding it very loosely with poignant and relevant questions about God and life and faith struggles.

In doing this, there are many things that have to be done on our end to prepare for this. But, I think this is one of the things we are going to try this year. Please pray that God will use this as a great opportunity to introduce people to Christ, as well as to develop non-threatening, authentic relationships with others that don't know him, but are searching.