"Very Ready to Judge You"
EPISODE 215
Confront the Roadblocks to Sharing Our Faith
This week we launch a 3-part guided study called Getting to Square One, all about the problems, paradigms, and practices of disciple-making (Matt. 28:19). If you’ve ever struggled leading others to Christ, you might relate to some of the gaffs we share in a new segment we’re calling Super Slo-Mo. We play “Monday morning quarterback” with each other’s evangelistic missteps, then we share the obstacles that others needed to overcome to teach and convert us. As always we start with Jesus, learning from some correction he gave to the “sons of thunder.” Later this season, we’ll move from “Getting to Square One” to “Square One,” a series of conversations designed for Christians to engage with non-Christians.
Takeaways
The Big Idea: Making disciples is challenging but it's easier if we get out of our own way.
This Week's Challenge: Have a conversation with someone about what does and doesn't work well in evangelism.
Episode Transcription
I'm very ready to judge you and all your past failures. I'm so ready to be judged. Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Bible Geeks Podcast. This is episode 215. I'm Bryan Schiele. I'm Ryan Joy. And thanks so much everyone for tuning in here on the episode today. We're going to get into the start of a new guided study. We've been teasing the guided study that comes after this one. We're still not getting to it. We're getting to getting to it. We've been talking about this square one series we've been wanting to do for a while all about evangelism. Before we get to square one, we're going to do a three part guided study on getting to square one. But I think this is kind of the discipler, disciple making tool that you can use to know how to better lead a discussion with an unbeliever in that square one series. So yeah, a lot of stuff to talk about here in this getting to square one guided study that we're going to be doing. I'm excited about it. Yeah. So if you think of square one is a conversation guide for leading someone from square one from starting at zero at the beginning and going into the gospel, getting to square one focuses on the disciple who wants to have those conversations, the one who's trying to lead those discussions and lead people to Christ. And so the goal of this series is to make sure we understand evangelism biblically and are prepared to be effective in initiating and leading a dialogue with unbelievers. Honestly, it feels like we could probably spend like a whole quarter long discussion on like the tips and tricks and tactics and tools and things we need to think about. And hopefully you'll see that some of these things are just surface scratching. There is a lot under the surface that we're not going to get into a whole lot, but hopefully the things we do cover here in disciple making some of the problems that we face, the paradigm shift that we need to have in our thinking, and then some of the practical things that we can do to be better sharers of the gospel. I think these things will be good for us to focus on and worth our attention. And that leads us to our conversation starter here on the episode. And that one we called "Come and See?!" This is Getting to Square One. "Come and See?!" Why does evangelism seem so hard? Pointing people to Jesus should be simple, right? Didn't the earliest disciples say, "Come and see," and people listened? It hardly ever feels that easy. It can seem downright frustrating in our modern age of skepticism. If your spiritual conversations have ever gone off the rails, spiraled out of control, or maybe you've stuck your foot in your mouth, it's time to get back to basics. In this short study guide, "Getting to Square One," we'll focus on the disciple who wants to have a more productive version of these important conversations. The goal? To understand evangelism biblically so we can effectively start and guide these interactions. So here's the big idea. Making disciples is challenging, but it's easier if we get out of our own way. We start with grand goals to turn the world upside down, but sooner or later, our evangelistic efforts face their biggest obstacle, us. Our long-term goal of getting people connected with Jesus can quickly lose out to short-term objectives like winning an argument or tribalistic fighting. Even Jesus' disciples lost sight of their true purpose when they almost called down fire from heaven after people wouldn't listen. With the best intentions, we can become our own worst enemy. The job is hard enough. Many in the world are already weary of the attempts to convert them. Most people can see a sales pitch from miles away. It's why door knocking and pamphlet peddling may not be as compelling as they were decades ago. Let's ask God for clarity, discernment, and open doors to influence the world. While our job is to plant and water, as Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 3 verse 6, sometimes we build self-imposed barriers that keep us from getting started. But praise God that the most difficult work, changing people's hearts and causing an increase, isn't ours to do. So here's the big question. What obstacle keeps you from sharing your faith effectively? So follow along with this short guided study at biblegeeks.fm/squareone, and may the Lord bless you and keep you. Shalom. So the big idea there was that making disciples is challenging, but it's easier if we get out of our own way. It is not news to anyone who's done this work that it's challenging. That's not a headline that is a newsflash, right? Where do we start working that problem? And our main idea for this episode is that we start with ourselves, like so many things in following Jesus, right? It's like football coaches talk about how they don't want to be beating themselves through poor preparation or mental errors or penalties. Our brains are in football mode. You'll see in these next two episodes. We don't want to be that team who is just not giving themselves a chance. The other team isn't beating them. We've already beaten ourselves before we even started. We don't expect to bring every soul to the Lord. Of course, that's just everybody has their own choice. And we understand that, but we want to get our heart and our approach right. And so that's the first thing here we want to get to. But what's the big question? Yeah. So the big question we asked there in that conversation starter was what obstacle keeps you from sharing your faith effectively? I think all of us are going to have different answers for that, but as the great poet Avril Levine once said, why'd you have to go and make things so complicated? So well said. It is absolutely what we all do from time to time. We take what should be such a simple request, come and see, come and see for yourself. As we talked about in episode two 12, actually, how the Samaritan woman came to all the people in the city and said, come and see, just like the disciples of Jesus did early on in John, you have this simple request to come and see, and we make it more complicated than it needs to be sometimes. And so I guess just identifying those obstacles that are preventing you from letting people know about Jesus, from talking to them in such a simple way. That's a good starting point in getting us talking to people in a more effective way. Absolutely. Well, let's go from there into our lightning of the mood just a little before we dive in. And that is our icebreaker. Here's the question. If the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result, what's an area of your life you might admit is a little insane. I struggle with this a lot. There are so many things in my life that I just do over and over again, expecting a different result. And I once had this car charger for those who know, I have an electric vehicle. I drive an e-golf around. It's a cute little grain of rice that is battery powered and I love it. But I had a car charger one time and I would plug in the car charger and it would never reliably charge the car. I'd plug it in and I'd walk away and I'd come back and the car hadn't charged at all. And for whatever reason, I just kept plugging in that old charger over and over again, mindlessly thinking that everything would be fine. Oh, this time it'll be okay. And you know that saying fool me once shame on you. It was like fool me 3000 times and then it's shame on me for sure. I just, I never really learned that lesson. I kept doing it over and over again and getting out to the car in the morning and just going, Oh man, I did it again. Oh man. Yeah. There are so many things. I, again, with the season that is starting right now, my mind immediately went to being a sports fan and just letting myself get carried away, hoping for great things in a season only to be disappointed. A friend of ours, Alan and I were talking the other day about just all the times that the suns were so close and it just breaks your heart. Phoenix sports in general. Oh man. Absolutely. Yeah. Arizona fans know what heartbreak is. And so, you know, I'm like never again. And then I'm like, actually they got a good roster this year and then it happens again. But we love to do the same things over and over again, thinking that we'll have a different result for sure. So let's move on to our first segment here on the episode. And that is a segment that we call like the teacher. And this is where we go and see something that Jesus did in his life. Uh, some example that we can follow. He may not have said very much here, but he's doing a lot. And that's from Luke chapter nine verses 51 through 56. Yeah. So here we are as Jesus is setting his face to go to Jerusalem. So this is the hinge of the book of Luke as he's starting the long journey and the long journey of preparing his disciples and preparing everything for him to leave really in so many ways. And he sends messengers ahead to the Samaritans and they're preparing things, but the people didn't receive him. And when his disciples, James and John saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them? I almost hear like a WWF wrestler kind of bring in the noise on them. Yeah. Smacking them down, but he turned and he rebuked them and they went onto another village. So when you see Jesus response to James and John, there's a lot to learn from both their response and then realizing they didn't have the right response. What do you take from that? Yeah, I can see their frustration, honestly. You know, when I start thinking about it from their perspective, they're passionate about Jesus. They love Jesus. They're passionate about his authority and they want people to respect him. What is more noteworthy or noble than that? As a disciple of Jesus, to be called somebody who wants Jesus to be respected is not a bad thing. They see the importance of where others don't see the importance of Jesus. They're seeing things differently. So it's also, you know, as Jewish men, it's not exactly like they don't have examples in the Old Testament of this very thing they're asking to be done, right? Like I'm sure in their mind, they're thinking like the city of Sodom and Gomorrah and as God like calls down fire and destroys that city and like, you know, hey, God's done this before we can do it again, you know, and they're just not seeing the shift in Jesus approach. They don't understand that Jesus is not about smacking people down for not following him. He's giving people an honest opportunity to respond in faith and to accept him. Obviously he's being clear and decisive and he wants people to make the right decision, but he's not going to strong arm people into doing it. I mean, he's not going to strike people down with disease if they don't. That whole idea of Jesus calling down legions of angels to come take him off the cross. He absolutely could have done that, but it's not what he's up to right now. And so I think it's interesting here to see the disciple making approach here. We hold a respect for the importance of knowing Jesus as our King, a love for him, an honor for him, but we also hold at the same time, a love for people and a patience with people, not to force them to do things. And so I think James and John was taking this very, very personally as like an offense towards them or an offense towards Jesus. And while they did reject Jesus, you know, at some point we need to move past being so easily offended and just give people time and be patient with people. You hit a lot of the points that I thought of whenever I was reading this, one specific example in the old Testament is really similar to this. Like they might've been thinking about when with the Samaritans, just like Jesus is with here, Elijah said to the Samaritan King, if I'm a man of God, let fire come down and consume these 50 men that you've sent against me. And he kept sending 50 more and 50 more and they're in first Kings one that very thing happened, but Jesus is not Elijah. This is a different moment, a different mission. And James and John, like you said, they see this dissonance between Jesus authority and these Samaritans refusal to receive him. And that dissonance, that authority should mean judgment on them and it will, but that's not how this mission works now. And Jesus expects rejection. He keeps telling them, I'm going to be rejected from many and he allows it. That is a part of his love and his patience is to let people choose. He offers this extraordinary invitation of love and forces no one. And that has really transformed my evangelism to settle into that more and more this truth that, Hey, Jesus didn't win most people to his perspective. And he accepted that they were wrong and it is the worst kind of thing, but maybe some of them eventually did come to him. They're going to have that time to do so. It's the parable of the weed and the tares. We're going to have both all mixed up together in this world for a period until a harvesting comes. Paul says that the love of Christ compels us. It's like a irresistible force almost in us that we are yielding to. It's not that we're not choosing it, but that is the force that drives us towards him. And that's very different than raining down fire, just smacking down everybody like a pro wrestler every time they are not making the right decision. And it's really hard to allow people to choose poorly. We talked about this in the parenting discussion. We talked about this in the friendship discussion. I mean, when you know the right thing and like you say, you are concerned not only for Jesus name and for them to honor the Lord, you're troubled like righteous lot by iniquity, but you also want this for them because you do love them. And you're like, dude, do it, just do it. And, but Jesus rebukes them because once again, they had a lesson to learn about their mission. Being a Fisher of men means you put out the net, you put it out there and then they'll come or they won't. Yeah. And being in their own way is real evident here, right? Cause it was their mentality. It was their mindset that was just standing between them and doing the work in the way that Jesus wanted it done. So let's move on to our second segment here. And this will kind of tie into what we're talking about here. And this is a new segment that we're going to do on the episode and we're calling this one super slow mo. I'm ready to go in coach. Just give me a chance. I know there's a lot riding on it, but it's all psychological. I'm going to execute a button hook pattern super slow mo in this episode, we're going to play armchair quarterback for each other. You know, it's easy as you were talking about in football to, uh, on Monday morning, look back at all the decisions that were made on Sunday and be very critical of the way things happened. And, it's easy for us to be critical of each other. So we're going to open up the floor and allow criticism from each other about some very specific situations that we've faced in our own evangelism. I'm very ready to judge you and all your past failures. I'm so ready to be judged. So let's go to the instant replay here for our first play up for review. I, uh, at one point sat down with someone who they'd reached out to our congregation for financial help. I met with her for coffee and we talked at a coffee shop. She shared with me complaints she had about mega churches and multimillion dollar preachers. She was asking for us to give her money as a congregation. And there's, there's details surrounding, you know, supporting people in that way from the church's treasury that I'm not really going to get into, but you know, I tried using that opportunity as I was personally helping her out to explain to her how the church is designed, how the members of the church are meant to take care of each other, throwing back to Acts chapter two, Acts chapter four to highlight this importance that you need to be a part of the church. That's one of the great functions of the church is to care for each other and watch over each other. And in this conversation, it didn't really go super well, but I almost felt like I was making a sales pitch for like the features and benefits of what the church can do for you. And I may have let the pendulum swing too far the other direction instead of talking very specifically about Jesus and why she should be following Jesus, maybe talking a little bit more about why she should be a part of the church. And so I guess here on this segment, as we go in super slow mo, what would have been the better play here? Maybe I already nodded to it a little bit, I guess. Yeah. I mean, there's this book that I like called Irresistible Evangelism Standard Disclaimers, but they talk about seven deadly sins of evangelism and they all start with an S. This is what this makes me think of. There's seven deadly sins, of course, very tongue in cheek, but they say scheming, scalp hunting, screaming, selling Jesus as if he's a juicer, which is the one I hear in what you're talking about. Stalking, sermonizing, and spectating. So there's all these different ways that we can go wrong as we think about how we get in our own way, right? These problems in disciple making, but you're trying to turn this around as she's bringing her questions. There's another book that I really like, the title is so great, it's called Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult. It's not overselling how hard it's going to be, but the author talks about thinking with people about their issues and what is holding them back because a lot of times people don't really know what's going on with them or where they're stuck. And so you could ask her questions like, "Hey, what is it about that that bothers you? And what would it look like for there to be flawed people, but a church that is genuine? And what does that mean for you? What do you need?" And just asking different questions and letting her think through things, not trying to trap her, not trying to manipulate her, but trying to be a partner, thinking through those places where she's stuck and starting to maybe unearth some of the stumbling blocks and pull them out of the road and think through it. And that takes longer and it might not be that conversation. You're like, "Okay, we're heading to the water now." But it might lead to another conversation where you say, "Okay, here's the next things I would love to talk about." And is this something that you're interested in really getting into this and thinking through those next steps with her? And yes, the church has a different purpose than to provide financial care to the whole world, everybody that's in need. But you could decide as an individual to help her and physically help her with whatever her concern is, her need, but continuing to keep the focus on this bigger discussion. - Yeah. You can look back in hindsight and as we're doing now, critique how you've responded and could have probably made a better decision or at least taken it in some different directions. The asking questions piece is really helpful. I think that thinking through things with people is a big part of what we're going to be really getting into in this whole square one series coming up. - Absolutely. Okay. Your turn for the second play here. - I'm ready. After that one, I'm ready to go. - You're ready to pounce. So when I was in high school, I studied the Bible like debate prep and I felt it was my duty to take on all comers. I was ready for the smack down too. I was a son of thunder. I thought of myself that way. That was a good thing to slay them in the name of the Lord. There's a black hole in the ground where you used to stand after that blazing argument I just made. I won a lot of arguments, at least I thought I did, but it didn't really create a lot of further dialogue to win them over to Christ. I didn't convert anybody in my school or my friends or my work while I was doing that. I guess it's obvious to a certain extent, I was pretty extreme with it, but maybe that shows up in a lot of ways, whether it's on social media, whether it's in our discussions with people where we're trying to convince them, we're trying to prove them wrong. I don't know. Was there a better way? How would you have handled those discussions differently? Because they were wrong and it's good to show the truth and to explain the truth. So where did I go wrong there? Oh man, I feel the great struggle in what you're saying because on the one hand, it does feel like evangelism on paper might seem like debate prep. You're getting ready to argue with someone. I can't help but think of passages like Colossians chapter two, verse four, where Paul's talking about how people are going to be coming in diluting them with plausible arguments. The argumentative tactic is definitely employed by both sides. We should be trying to argue for Jesus, but that's also being employed by people who don't really want to follow Jesus. There's an aspect here of love, which is actually what he starts with in that verse in Colossians two, encouraging them to be knit together in love, to understand the fullness of the knowledge of the mystery, which is Christ. Really it is that idea about thinking with people rather than thinking at them, rather than debating them or trying to defeat them with your arguments. You made a comment, I guess, in the episode two 12 when we were talking about surprising evangelists, not feigning disbelief or unbelief when we really do believe because that's not genuine. But I do think there is an aspect here of humility and openness to think through things and maybe to consider areas in which you're wrong. I like where you were going with your answer to my situation, asking those questions and bringing those things up. Really just understanding we're looking for a fuller, more complete understanding of this great mystery, which is Jesus. How do we come to this understanding? How do we agree on these things together? How do we answer all of these questions that we have? There's a compelling way of answering those things in love that isn't going to leave a little black spot where that person used to be, I suppose. You use the term tactics there. There's actually another, I feel like I'm just going to give a massive bibliography in this episode. Good. Yeah. It's not what I was trying to do, but there's another helpful book called Tactics by Greg Kugel. He goes into, similar to what I said about one of the previous books, into this discussion on a different, it's almost like, I think of it almost like Aikido, where you're using their momentum to help them get to where you want them to go. By just asking a different kind of question, like that's interesting. What makes you think that way? Or how did you come to that conclusion and let them think through it? As they go and they are revealing their own inconsistencies, usually if they're holding to a false view, I mean, a lot of times they'll even see it as they're sort of working through it. And the goal is not to, you know, oh, they're revealing weakness. Now here's where I stick the knife and work it. Cause then they'll become really defensive and walled off. The goal is to create an opening, get out of our own way and help them get out of their way. Asking those questions that start to pivot. And at some point there's an opportunity to say, well, would you consider and then share a different perspective? And you're just working through it. And really that is so much of what Jesus did in his own teaching. You know, obviously continuing to ask questions. I guess that leads to my third play here. Feel free to critique, get your armchair quarterback on. Here's my story. So I once had this long running study with a young man and, you know, I felt like the study went really well. It was well structured. I think he showed up regularly. He seemed interested. He asked good questions and we started this discussion with a broad picture overview of the Bible and how it was pointing to Jesus. And then we dove into a study of the gospel of John and moved into a discussion of acts and studied through that kind of looking at Jesus life and then the early church and how all these things are set up. And I thought it was really positive at some point later on in the studies. He basically admitted that he was only studying with me because of his girlfriend who was a member of our church, basically the, so that she wouldn't dump him. And I was like, Oh, I didn't really address it at the time. But then a few sessions later, after he said that he kind of stopped coming. And so I may not have handled that situation very well and addressed, you know, the obvious elephant in the room, but maybe how could I have handled that situation better bracing for impact? Well, in a lot of ways that may have been doomed to that conclusion based on his, what he says there, but I think I probably would have wanted to stop the whole study and focus on that and say, okay, this is it's the problem was not an issue of knowledge. Yeah, it was an issue of openness. You know, there's this thing called gray's matrix, which is the idea of there's, there's these two axes. The horizontal axis is about openness going from completely shut to completely open. The vertical axis is about knowledge, you know, going from, they don't know anything till they know a lot. And if you can imagine that bottom right quadrant is where we want to study. That's like the Ethiopian unit corner don't know a lot, but they have an openness to it. Right? Yes. They're like, I am searching and you have the answers and I just need to hear. And, and then I'm there. It's like, they're asking the questions. Here's water. What keeps me from being baptized? You don't even have to ask. It just happens so smoothly. And that, that doesn't happen very often. There's usually a reason that someone hasn't come to the Lord, but it's usually more than just knowledge. There's something you can still do to keep working with people like down in that bottom left quadrant where someone is both closed and without knowledge. Your goal then is not to just give them knowledge, but it's first to create openness to the Lord. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that was the place to go to work is to say, okay, I can tell you all of the story of the gospel. And if, if this is just you phoning it in and you're not interested in there's some reason that you're really opposed to being a follower of Christ, then let's talk about that. Let's talk about what do you think about when you think about it? Really be honest with me. What do you think about Jesus and what are your, your hangups on this or starting to say, okay, here's where you are and think with him about where he really is. And here's where the Lord wants you. And you can put it on a whiteboard. That's how I think about everything is like, I'm just painting it all out there. I can't do anything without a whiteboard, right? We're sitting, sitting there and I'm writing it somewhere, but you're just starting to see the distinction. So if nothing else he understands, here is his situation. Here's where he's not including not just about openness, but where he's carrying guilt and shame and could be forgiven, where he doesn't have hope and he could have hope and where he's stuck, but the Lord wants to give him freedom and eternal life. And really just starting to understand that picture, then he can make his decision. And you know, you could say, Hey, you know, having done that work, I'm happy to continue this as long as you want to, but I don't know that there's much value to it until you're starting to move in this direction. And just trying to plant a pebble in his shoe. It might be two years later where he actually is, it's been working on him, the truth of the gospel and the offer of Jesus, but eventually maybe it will work on him. Maybe it won't. And you've said what you can say. Yeah, it's really helpful. I think we want immediate change. We want people to make an immediate decision, but yeah, I think that progression you were talking about, I knew it was going to be very early in the conversation. You're going to bring up Gray's matrix. Yeah, that's a kind of a paradigm that's been helpful to me. And I think it might show up again as we think through these ideas. But my fourth play is moving a little forward. So we went from Ryan in high school, now Ryan in college, I had kind of two modes. One was keeping my faith to myself. And the other was asking someone to do a formal Bible study with me in between. I was a bit cagey. And you know, anybody close to me knew I was a church guy. I mean, like I wasn't something I kept as a secret, but I kept the conversations close to the vest. I wanted to control the variables. I wanted to know that I was going to be able to have a conversation that was not going to be more of that kind of just me arguing and fighting, but also not creating a weirdness in the whole class. I wanted to figure out how do I be a gospel guy all the time, but I was stuck. So you make the call, give young Ryan some more wisdom. If you have some helpful ways I could overcome some of that. Yeah, I feel like the older I've gotten, the more I realized that struggle right between the two people, your description here of the two people, you have two modes, right? It's like you're either on or you're off. You're either, you know, you're either doing a full up formal Bible study or you're like really just not saying a whole lot. I feel that I've been there for me. The more I've thought about that shift in trying to balance between those two opposing ends, you know, it's just about sincerity. If you really are sincere about something, if you really are like genuinely concerned about something, it's going to just seep out of everything that you say and do not in like obnoxious ways necessarily, but like man, you, every time football season rolls around, like football's on your, you know, you're talking about it, right? You're wearing the shirts, you're spending your time, like people know where you are, they know what you're doing. Don't mess with Ryan on Saturdays, it ain't going to work, you know, like he's all buck-eyed out. But I think for me, the more I realized that my passion for something is going to be reflected in every aspect of my life in some way, that's where it's those small moments where you realize like, I don't have to do a full up Bible study with somebody, but I can at least comment about or ask them a question about something they said, or point out the blessing that we have today or the, you know, just mentioning to somebody like, yeah, sorry, I was late. I got stuck in my early morning Bible study and I just couldn't come out of it. Or even bringing things up in conversation, my preacher said something weird the other day at church, like, you know, like whatever it is you bring up with people, just weaving it into your conversation. I was listening to this really interesting Bible podcast, you know, whatever it is, like who knows? The more you can just do small things or mention small things to kind of, you know, really reflect that genuine concern and the genuine thoughtfulness you have over spiritual things, let that come out. That is a hard thing though, when you're trying to bounce between the extremes. Yeah, I love that word you use, sincerity. And my wife is a tremendous example of this. She's so, the word I've always used to describe her is genuineness. I mean, she's just real, but in a really, usually very positive way. And, you know, she's comfortable in her own skin, but she's comfortable with this idea that, you know, everything that she wants to talk about it, it's good news. It is very positive to share with people. And, you know, she finds very specific ways to bring that before people in ways that show love to them and are not so much preachy, but more of service to them. Like we used to do calendars where we would for the month of November ask different people, what can I pray for you? I'm going to be praying for you all day on this day. And what can we pray for you in this? Or, you know, just anytime something came up that could be a connection, she wasn't trying to manipulate the conversation. She wasn't trying to do too much with it, but just putting it out there. And that's been a good example to me of like settling in, like you say, on this turning off the on and just instead trying to get through the layers of what will they think? How do I angle this? You're trying to win the interaction or something. Yeah. And just letting the whole thing of who you are show up. And a lot of that is our love for the Lord. Being on is really hard. Like, you know, having to, having to perform and things like, no, it's just, just be right. Just be. All right. So let's move on to our third segment here on the episode. And that's where we get a little touchy feely. If we haven't been already and our reach out question. So the question that we're going to ask each other here on the episode is what obstacles were overcome in your conversion and what can you take from it? So we've been talking about obstacles, getting in our own way and all the things that trouble us in those ways. What were some obstacles that were overcome when you came to the Lord? I had this perpetual fear that I didn't believe enough. Like there's this threshold of convincedness and I still hadn't pushed the faithometer reading into the green, you know, but the, the real obstacle was a paralysis of analysis. I mean, it was like just an avoidance of decision and commitment. I needed someone to hold up the choice for me to create a moment where I had to either reject or follow Christ. It's just a question, but we need to know when to ask it. When is the right time? And we need to know that it matters that we ask the question at that moment. Sometimes the Ethiopian eunuch asks the question, what keeps me from being baptized? But sometimes like my friend at the time, our evangelist, he asked me, Ryan, do you want to become a Christian, be baptized into Christ? The walls came down, the tears rolled down with it. And I said, yes, you know, I just sort of melted and said, yes, because I was holding all of this, but I didn't know that there was a crossroads in front of me that I was avoiding looking at. And it was just that choice. Not too long ago, I had a study with one of our members, mothers. And after we baptized her, her grandson was there and I knew him well. He had been attending with us for years, his dad is a Deacon. And I just said to him, are you ready to do this now? And he said, I was just thinking the same thing. And sometimes you just need to be asked. And maybe he would have asked the question himself if I didn't, I have a feeling he needed that nudge. He just needed somebody to put that in front of him and say, you know, it's time for you too. - So that might sound like it's counter to everything we're talking about, but it's not. There are different things you do at different moments and you're not confronting people with this choice right away. Whenever they're far away, the Lord talks about different locations, right? Some people are far away, their hearts are far from the Lord. Other people are near the kingdom, you know? And so whenever they're close, they understand what they need to understand. They need to know there is a choice they have to make and you have to put that in front of, you know, Jesus is confrontational. Follow me or reject me. Those are the only two choices. - Oh man, wouldn't it be nice if everyone had a faithometer reading right on their forehead or whatever. - Oh, we're in green. Ask him, ask him. - Ask him, ask him. Go, go, go. No, I really have that same idea about the paralysis of analysis. I get that sense, you know, sitting in the cheesecake factory, looking at the giant menu, and it's like, it's so complicated. What do I want to do? What do I need to do? And then finally, somebody just clears it up. Dude, you're either eating lunch or you're having cheesecake, make a decision. It's like, oh yeah, that's so much clearer. My answer to this question, what obstacles were overcome in your conversion and what can you take from it? For me, it was a similar story, I guess, but I sort of thought of it from the perspective of the person who asked me the question. And I was a young kid, I was like 12, and I was a hometown kid. It was the congregation where I grew up. And one day our preacher, an older man, he just approached me and said, are you ready to talk about being a Christian? And, you know, it was just, again, one of those moments where it was like, okay, it's time to have this conversation and it might go a little bit awkwardly. You don't really know how it's going to pan out, but he had the courage to come up and ask me if I wanted to start the conversation. It's that knowing that it's time to start asking these questions. I think the obstacles in hindsight were pretty obvious. I was well known to this preacher and he was a real close friend of ours. And, you know, if I had said no or things got weird or whatever, like that might've created some difficult interactions in the future, but he didn't really care. At least it didn't seem that way. Another big obstacle was just the age gap. He was a much older man and I'm like a 12 year old kid, but he loved me enough to sit down and talk to me about it. Probably one of the biggest blessings there was just somebody who moved past all those hurdles and obstacles to start that conversation. He knew I was ready, you know? And I think so many times we see those people in that upper right-hand quadrant of the gray's matrix, right? Like it's the, you know, they know enough and they're open and ready to make a decision. And you just, you see the faithometer at green and you just got to push them a little bit. And other people are a little harder than that, but even for those that we know would probably say yes, it is still a difficult conversation sometimes to take on out of fear maybe, or without having the courage to take it on. Yeah. And the first thing is sort of having your antenna up about it, you know, that he was paying attention to where you were and where everybody was around him, right? What is the thing that is my role in this process that ultimately is going to be between him and God, but there is a place where we need to insert ourselves and say, okay, I have a question for you. I have an invitation for you. It's not a, that could have been the extent of what he did at that time. Just ask you the question. You said, no, move on and we'll see about later. And what is the next step and what is the, you know, but yeah, we have one of our former elders always talks about having a spidey sense about people, you know, like, yeah, I'm concerned about their soul or I think this it's time for this conversation or whatever, but just keeping that awareness and feeling a sense of ownership over what is mine to do here. Yeah. Developing that sense of intuition about people and when the right time to ask and when the right time to kind of give them space, it is discernment for sure, which maybe leads into our challenge for this week. I am ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me. And this challenge is what we just did. I guess we get a check mark already on this because the challenge is have a conversation with someone about what does and doesn't work well in evangelism. What a blessing it is to be able to lean on each other and learn from each other in these ways. You sent me a video, which I absolutely loved earlier in the week about some like meme on Instagram, like somebody inviting somebody to church. Oh, my church isn't weird. And it was some video about people up on stage dancing. And like, I think he was doing the moonwalk up there talking about Jesus or something. Yeah, it was bizarre. It was super bizarre, right? There are these epic fails that we all have in our own life, some situations where we, we ask somebody to do something, it just crumbles and falls apart. Like things that don't work well, things that do work well. But being able to like learn from each other in these situations and share our own experiences, I think is a huge benefit to being able to lean on each other in this way. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's important to have partners. It's like, okay, let's get into it and think through where they are and what you can do and let me pray for you and however I can help you. And a lot of it is just encouragement. But yeah, working through, like you said, the discernment of thinking about our fails and, you know, being able to share them without, you know, being so embarrassed that we can't be open about, hey, this did not work. And I've learned a little bit since then. Yeah. Well, I talked about praying about this and prayer is such an important part of these efforts to make disciples for the Lord. He's going to be our most important partner in this work. So our closing prayer, our suggested request in the study guide is, Father, give us open doors and wisdom in engaging with outsiders as Paul calls them in Colossians 4, 2 through 6. So let's go to God in prayer. Holy God, you rule over us with such righteous judgment and gracious love. We worship you and you alone. You know all the relationships and future interactions in our coming days. You know the hearts of every person we know and everybody we hope to point to you. You know our weaknesses and our fears. As we reach out to the lost, help us to rest in the order of your wisdom and care. When we start getting swept into the storm of our anxieties, open doors, give us wisdom to see when the doors open, teach us to knock on the closed doors within those that we talk to. Father, please guide each of us as we learn to bring the gospel with us and engage with outsiders in a way that suits each of our unique gifts and situations in a way that glorifies you. May your light shine in us and through us, embolden us to be the presence of good news in the lives of others and make us more skillful in this part of our mission, we pray, Lord. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. All right, so if you were wondering what this whole getting to square one series was, hopefully this gives you a good idea of what we're talking about. We've been covering the problems or the roadblocks or barriers of disciple making on the next episode. We're going to be talking about session two, which is disciple making paradigms. And so we're thinking about shifting our perspective, thinking more like Jesus thinks about this whole process of teaching people and introducing people to Him. We'll get into that on the next conversation. I think it's so easy to get all of our perspectives all confused and mixed up in subtle ways. Sometimes we don't even realize. And so just trying to go back to how did Jesus view this? How did Paul and the disciples talk about this and start to understand from the scriptures, how we should view this work that the Lord has given us. Oh, excited about that conversation. Thanks so much everyone for tuning in. You can find show notes for this episode in your podcast player of choice or at biblegeeks.fm/215. There's a bibliography in there. Let me tell you. You can also follow along with this series over at biblegeeks.fm/squareone. You can also reach out to us and get in touch, ask us any questions you might have over at biblegeeks.fm/contact. Let us know how we can help you. If we can answer any of your questions, if you want to hear about anything on upcoming episodes, let us know. And until next episode, may the Lord bless you and keep you. Shalom.```