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Please, don't evangelize my friend!

So, Saturday night some of our colleagues at the church were putting on a night of jazz and gospel music at the café Genesis. It was a good night, but also presented clearly the clash between the Evangelical Christian culture that has been dominant here in France and where we are trying to move.

Our friend -- the one we've been telling you about lately -- came along. He and another friend. Neither of them has been in a church setting for a long time. And this -- along with most things we do at Genesis -- was designed to be a non-churchy affair.

For the most part, we succeeded. But getting church people to be non-churchy is easier said than done.

Our friend gets there. He's having a good time. Meeting people. Mingling. Having a drink and listening to the music that's being pumped up from the concert downstairs.

Then he gets cornered by a guy I had never seen before. The conversation started about wine. The guy had been a drinker before becoming a Christian, apparently. Then he asked our friend whether he was born again and went into a discussion about the book of Ecclesiastes.

  We then went into rescue mode to extract our friend from this discussion.

"Actually, it was fine," he said. "He was harmless. But I found myself a little at a disadvantage in the conversation because I hadn't read up on Ecclesiastes."

My friend does know more of the Bible than one might think, however. And he isn't against a good discussion about faith. It's a discussion that is fair game in a relationship, he says.

But that's just it. Evangelically reared Christians need to understand that the problem is not that people are against the discussions. But we need to get the relationship part.

The relationship doesn't even have to be deep. But to ask someone whether he is "saved" or not two minutes into your relationship? Launching into a Bible lesson? And all of this at a jazz soirée?

Problem is, those who have grown up spiritually in Evangelical churches have a hard time understanding the concept of any type of soirée that does not have as it's primary goal the preaching of the gospel.

So I can't criticize this guy for reacting this way. In a sense, he's probably learned it from his years in the church here. How could the goal actually be good music and a good time together?

But that's what we've been trying to do. More than getting people into the church to hear a message, we want to BE the message in our world. If there is something different or appealing about us (I hope that's the case sometimes, at least) then it will be seen in relationship.  That's what this café is all about, I think.

It struck me that this French guy has learned a way of being and relating from the French church that is decidedly un-French. At least un-Parisian. They are not into shallow relationships and one-sided discussions. They are into exchanges and sharing and relating. Hearing ideas and thinking them over. Then criticizing them and challenging them. This takes time, of course. And relationship.

And we wonder why we've failed over the years to attract greater numbers of people.

Of course the interesting thing is that the evangelist dude didn't know about our recent discussions and how my friend had recently expressed an interest in coming to our meetings. My friend, in my eyes, is already a disciple.

He's on the road. He's walking with us. We're trusting God to take him wherever God intends to take him.

Hopefully he won't run into to many more people who feel they have do the "saving" in God's place.

(Of course, who knows? Maybe that person was doing exactly what God wanted him to do as well. I need to have grace and understanding going in all directions.)

Lord, help us all to walk in step with you. Amen.

What can we do?

One of the principles we talk about in disciple-making is that faith needs to be about action, not just about values. The values must be lived out, fleshed out.

So, I am frustrated here in France as I watch and talk about Katrina. What can I do concretely?

I've been touched to see stories about people offering their homes and making other sacrifices to help people. I am especially touched when I see people whom I suspect are disciples who do so WITHOUT using it as a platform to say they are Christian or to try to convert others to the faith.

All too often I think Christians shoot our message in the foot by making their generous and loving acts look as if they were done with an agenda in mind, rather than simply out of the love of Christ that pushes us to compassion and love.

Anyway, regardless of how well we do, my hats are off to all people (regardless of their faith or motives) who are giving of themselves in the face of this disaster.

One of them is my sister. After doing her tour in Iraq she has now been dispatched to the hurricane zone to help there. While I sit here and write about how things should be, she's out there on the line. Please say a prayer for her, too.

Both my sisters are heroes to me, by the way. My elder sister works with foster kids in Ohio. And believe me, she is also on the front lines of sacrificial love in action.

Behind Katrina

Speaking of America's deeper moral and social issues that Katrina brings to light, Nicolas Kristoff of the New York Times points out the following:

"But Hurricane Katrina also underscores a much larger problem: the growing number of Americans trapped in a never-ending cyclone of poverty.

"If it's shameful that we have bloated corpses on New Orleans streets, it's even more disgraceful that the infant mortality rate in America's capital is twice as high as in China's capital. That's right - the number of babies who died before their first birthdays amounted to 11.5 per thousand live births in 2002 in Washington, compared with 4.6 in Beijing.

"Indeed, according to the United Nations Development Program, an African-American baby in Washington has less chance of surviving its first year than a baby born in urban parts of the state of Kerala in India.

"The U.S. ranks 43rd in the world in infant mortality, according to the C.I.A.'s World Factbook; if we could reach the level of Singapore, ranked No. 1, we would save 18,900 children's lives each year.

"So in some ways the poor children evacuated from New Orleans are the lucky ones because they may now get checkups and vaccinations. Nationally, 29 percent of children had no health insurance at some point in the last 12 months, and many get neither checkups nor vaccinations. On immunizations, the U.S. ranks 84th for measles and 89th for polio.

"One of the most dispiriting elements of the catastrophe in New Orleans was the looting. I covered the 1995 earthquake that leveled much of Kobe, Japan, killing 5,500, and for days I searched there for any sign of criminal behavior.

"The reasons for this are complex and partly cultural, but one reason is that Japan has tried hard to stitch all Japanese together into the nation's social fabric."

Preaching again (Katrina)

My freind called back yesterday.

He wanted to say how much he had enjoyed our discussion the other day and that he'd love to take part in our faith get-togethers whenever we restart them this month.

He also had been watching the news about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina and had to talk to someone about it.

"I just can't believe this is America," he said. "It looks like this is happening in the Third World. It really makes you see a side of the country that you don't normally think about."

We talked for a long time about the tragedy and how sad it was to see all the suffering. He wanted to do something to help.

Then he noted that the thing that struck him most was the state of so many of our people. The poor and uneducated people without access to anything. Bitter. Angry. Hopeless. Ready to take up arms and shoot at police and loot.

"You forget that America is such a divided, segregated place," he said. "The image you get from television is that everything is great. Everyone is together and advancing.

"But when you see these images, you see a different picture. I was shocked."

I told him that America -- all countries, really -- is a lot like we are as individuals. We try out best to deal with the surface. We want to convince others, and ourselves, that everything is getting better.

But meanwhile, there are things festering below the surface that need to be dealt with. They can't be dealt with in a simple way. It will be painful. It requires admitting wrongs and sacrificing some of the things we've become accustomed to having and doing.

All the quick fixes and distractions we try to use to get around our need for deep healing just postpone the day when it comes bubbling to the surface.

"But we have to admit we have a problem that has to be dealt with," he said. "Not many of us want to admit we are in need of help."

At this point I wasn't sure whether he was talking about nations or people -- America or himeself.

But once again I was impressed at how perceptive and spiritually on target people outside the church can be.

I think my friend has come to a place in his life where he realizes that he can't go on covering over his wounds. He needs to be healed, even if it's painful.

I wonder if my country will recognize its need in the face of disasters like Katrina. Will we recognize that the problem is not just one of disaster management and government, but the very makeup of our society.

DIFFERING NEWS COVERAGE

By the way, one of the things my friend pointed out to me was a report on how the U.S. had initially dismissed offers of aide from European countries. Later, according to the report, America changed its mind, realizing that it was once again sending the message that it doesn't need anyone else.

I searched for the story on my American news sources and heard nothing of the sort. Perhaps I just missed it. I did see and hear several quotes, though, of people complaining that no one was willing to help us in our time of need while we send help to "save the whole world."

Fact is, countries are sending lots of aide to the US. Even impoverished Bangladesh pledged $1 million. Yes, Europe is pledging lots of help and money. The Netherlands, a nation built below sea level and depending on a system of dikes and levies, has offered its expertise to help rebuild and improve those that are needed to protect New Orleans.

Preach it, brother

Sometimes, when you do what I do for a living, you end up saying the same things so much you forget whether it's true or whether you've just convinced yourself of something.

I'm speaking particularly about all of the talking I do to Christians about our often judgmental attitudes toward groups of people we deem sinful and/or worse than ourselves.

In speaking about heart healing this summer, I talked a great deal (you can hear an admittedly long sermon from this summer by clicking here) about how we tend to slip into a vision of God as one who accepts us based on our performance, our righteousness or some other qualities -- rather than the Biblical idea that God accepts us by grace and love. It's His qualities that save us, not our own.

Problem is, not only do we tend to judge others, but ultimately, if we see God like this, we will also live in fear of judgment as well. And our ability to share the "good news" becomes feeble at best. People are seeking God. They are hungry for what Jesus offers. And all we can offer them is rules and condemnation. We can tell them what they're doing wrong.

... OK. I've said that a lot. But am I off track? Sometimes I wonder. Especially when brothers and sisters point out to me that the Bible says lots of things about sin. And when some of them say I'm compromising the faith.

But then I have discussions like I had this week with a friend here in Paris.

UNLIKELY PREACHER

He's a person who has lived a lifestyle that Christians spend a great deal of energy denouncing. Right now he's searching and hurting. He's become a good friend to us. And he says the same of us.

This week we were having lunch and he told us about a time, a few years ago, when he was asking spiritual questions. He went into a church for answers. He had a good discussion with the priest, up until the moment when his lifestyle was divulged.

Then the whole question of how you come to God came to a halt. The priest told my friend that he needed to deal with this issue in his life if he was ever going to find a relationship with God.

"I thanked him for his time, and I went on my way," he said. "I couldn't believe that someone who claims to follow Jesus -- who made a point of befriending sinners and inviting them to come to God -- was telling me that I had to deal with my sin BEFORE I could come to God.

"I thought, that was what Jesus came for?"

I did too, my friend. I felt like saying, "Preach it, brother." He was really laying down the Gospel.

This was just a part of our discussion, but it reconfirmed for me the importance of the church presenting Christ accurately. Sometimes I think we are more concerned with defending God than we are with representing him accurately, with being his image here on earth.

But does the word tell us to defend God's honor? Is that part of the great commission?

Someone this summer pointed out to me that perhaps it's because we see God as someone waiting to punish us for our next mistake that we fear what will happen if we don't "stand up for what is right" when we see something the Bible says is not right.

Christians know about grace, and I think most want to extend it. But they fear wimping out. They feel like, if they don't denounce things, they will themselves be guilty in Gods eyes. Collaborating with the enemy?

But my friend is not the enemy. He's my friend. And I believe God sees him with eyes of love, too.

The more we talked the more I came to see that he's had his own research for God over the years, and that he is more than open to discovering God. The problem is, is the church going to be open to discovering our friend.

Maybe not. But thankfully, I know that our God is.