I often wonder why people aren't more involved in the church. Perhaps in a society that values independence and rugged individualism we'd like to think that we don't need to depend on anyone or anything outside of ourselves. John Donne famously said,

"No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main."

Thomas Merton used "No Man is an Island" for a title of his book.

As much as we'd like to think that we can be wholly independent and free from dependence on anything consider the fact that your very life depends on other things whether you like it or not.

You are dependent on the billions of tiny microorganisms that are in your body and on your body. If I could remove them all from your body you would surely die. Your body wouldn't be able to digest and break down the nutrients you need without this symbiotic relationship. You would be subject to manifold infections being devoid of the barrier of good organisms that populate your body. You would wither away and shrivel into nothingness before your certain death.

The same thing happens to your spirit if you remove God from your spiritual body. You slowly wither away, devoid of the nutrients you need for a spiritual life and you die a spiritual death. We depend on God to nurture us and give us our spiritual health.

Perhaps you make the claim to "spiritual but not religious". If you do you have been sold a bill of goods. I've been there. How wonderful to think that we are so independent that we can survive such a farce, such an empty thing - how cocky, immature and completely wrong! It's not the mature spirit that believes that he or she does not depend on anybody else but themselves, it's a immature spirit. It's the same attitude that makes a teenager believe that they can take on the world, leave their home, free themselves from the tyranny of oppression of their parents. Most children grow out of that stage and realize how wrong they were.

This raises the question of whether you can be a Christian and not go to church.

Certainly you can be a Christian and not go to church.

You just can't be a very good one.

The Body of Christ nurtures us and prepares us to go out into the world and do His will. Paul talks about us being members (actual pieces like a hand, a foot, a heart) of the Body of Christ -- so what good is a hand or an ear all by itself? What can a head do without a body? What good is your arm without a shoulder connected to a torso? What are any of these without the rest of the parts of the body?

They are ineffectual.

Conversations with those who do not believe

I wish you knew Christ like I do - Conversations with those who do not believe

I was a participant at a retreat recently where we were encouraged to share with someone we didn't know well a turning point or point of conversion of life in our life. The gentleman who shared his story with me we will call Ted and that is his real name. Ted told me about a coworker that he didn't know well who became suddenly ill with terminal cancer. He discussed how he had felt the nudge from God to talk with this coworker. He initially resisted until he could not resist any longer. The coworker was known to most of the staff as a humanist and didn't believe in God. Some coworkers, no doubt well intentioned in their own minds, had tried to convert this person to Christianity using the age old methods of threatening - our religion's very own version of 'shock and awe' - with hellfire and brimstone, eternal damnation, etc. None of these approaches worked, as they rarely ever do.

Instead, Ted tried a different approach; he simply went to talk with the coworker without an agenda. He said he walked into the office, closed the door, sighed, and was surprised by what came out of his mouth. He said, "I wish you knew Christ like I do." Ted said that the words didn't come from him, that they were, in a sense, given to him to speak.

I wish I could say that this resulted in an instantaneous conversion for the sick coworker, but it did not. Ted isn't even sure if this man ever changed his mind. What he did do is open himself up to Ted to talk about religion and Christ. It started a close friendship that lasted until the man finally passed away.

How amazingly powerful are these simple words! Ted didn't try to convert anyone, he simply conveyed a wish. He didn't resort to beating anyone over the head with scripture. He didn't argue or use any other tactics. In fact, Ted's approach could almost be considered the opposite of trying to convert a person. That's the way it needs to be.

You see, attempting to coerce someone to believe what you believe is never the pathway to getting them to see your viewpoint. It may work for the short term, but I will argue that it will be a shallow, tenuous, fragile belief that will never last. It is, for lack of a better word, worthless.

Perhaps you wonder why I say that.

God has given us free will. God will not coerce us to love him. He will not force us into relationship with him. He will let us push him away as far as we can and never turn to him again if we so desire. He will not strong-arm us. He will not use threats.

This is because if we are forced to choose something then we have not really made a choice. It is worthless, utterly without value. When we speak of slavery we talk of those who were "forced into" slavery. You don't hear about people choosing slavery. God will not make slaves of us by forcing us to love him.

And you know what? Neither should we.

If we are going to bring people to the love of God then we must use the same techniques as God. We must show love and respect to everybody around us, believers and non-believers alike. We have no right to force our opinions or viewpoints on others, we have no right to use threats that even our Lord would not use. Our only right is to use love.

We should love people to God. We should so live and model our lives that people want to be like us. That is true evangelization. Nothing is more damaging, more inspiring of hatred towards Christianity than fear mongering. No amount of biblical quotations or hitting people over the head with fear is going to do any good. Love is the answer. A person must choose to love God and come to those terms on their own.

God wants us to choose to love him on our own.

We plant the seed, God does the watering.