Is what we have as Christians really 'Good News'?

I was a little discouraged yesterday as I was thinking about the city of Atlanta. How I see zealous Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses almost every week out sharing their false version of a message of how to be reconciled to God. They are trying so hard to get the word out, which is sort of noble even if the version of their message is incorrect and eternally damning if believed.

So why aren't Christians more excited? Why is the typical Christian borderline terrified to say 'I'm a follower of Jesus.' It is because their fear social ostracism or being labeled as a 'Bible thumper', 'narrow minded', 'bigoted', or whatever negative fill in the blank negative stereotype? Perhaps that's the reason. Or perhaps it's because they've never had a single Gospel-centered conversation with a person that's definitely not a Christian and they don't know where to start. This blog post is for those of you who have never mentioned Jesus to anyone - ever - and don't know where to start.

Here are some ideas for how to start a Gospel-centered conversation with someone you barely know or have known a long time. Believe it or not, you really don't have to tell them anything - hardly at all. No, really - you probably should be asking 2 questions for every 1 thing you share in return. And here are some very easy questions to get the conversation going

-Where are you on your spiritual journey?

-Where are you with God these days? (if the person asks for clarification, simply restate the question - I'm serious...maybe with a little bit of "you know - like where are you with God these days?")

-Are spiritual things important to you?

-What is the greatest problem currently facing humanity?

I can almost guarantee that one of those questions will get you off to the races. And if they ask you any of these questiosn in return, perhaps consider sharing a short testimony of how Jesus has changed your life or how someone can be reconciled to God themselves (Greg Gilbert's book called What Is The Gospel? is excellent for this). Go ahead - I dare you. Because I believe you have GREAT NEWS to share with others, and I really hope that we have 1,000,000 more Christians in the United States regularly having Gospel centered conversations with everyone they encounter.

A Few Thoughts About The Election Cycle

Less than a week ago, the United States elected Donald Trump as its 45th President. This was a huge shock given that Hillary had ‘won’ every debate and comfortably led in the majority of the polls. No one saw this coming – as a matter of fact, you could have wagered on Donald Trump to win the morning of the election at more than 5 to 1 odds. The likeliest outcome was that Hillary would win by a landslide, and that the Trump presidential bid was a joke at best and some sort of ‘Manchurian Candidate’ conspiracy at worst.

Needless to say, America adjusting to the idea of Donald being “President Trump” is going to take quite a while in light of the previous paragraph. In my previous blog from several months ago, I wrote how this election cycle gives us a great opportunity, as followers of Jesus, to ‘reframe the conversation’ and talk about sin, ‘functional saviors’, and other larger topics (a functional savior is anything that one would believe in as a savior – whether it be his money, his political party, his economic system, or something else).

And I think we need to continue to do this. Because Donald Trump is no more of a savior (or lack of one) than Hillary Clinton or Gary Johnson. Donald Trump is a man with a sin nature just like the other two. He may move forward the more conservative agenda or he may not, but this irrelevant to the topic at hand. President-Elect Trump is a fallen person, and conservatives need to be wary of looking to him as a functional savior, just like more liberal leaning people should have been careful not to ascribe functional savior type attributes on his predecessor, President Obama.

May Jesus’s agenda and kingdom be established and extended no matter who is currently living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington D.C.