The Key to Sharing Your Faith in a Post-Christian Culture

“And you’ve told him you want what he did to count for you—to have his forgiveness and leadership over your life?”

“Yep. I think I want you to baptize me before I move, but I really wanted Trina to do it with me, and I’m not sure she’s ready.”

The next month, I had one of the highlights of my life as I baptized David, Trina, Ryan, and his little sister, too, as followers of Jesus!

Over the ten years we coached, I figured out twenty adults and kids we met through soccer started following Christ as part of our church! Find ways to build relational momentum with neighbors, co-workers, or just with people doing what you love to do—coaching soccer, riding mountain bikes, jogging, golfing, watching football. But then you need to go beyond that to create loving community with Christians, inviting non-Christians to belong and experience life with Jesus.

Aware As You Work

We can join the Father in his work even as we work. After Jesus healed the mat-bound guy at the pool of Bethesda, the Pharisees accused him of breaking the Sabbath. Jesus responded by saying, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working. … The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing” (John 5:17, 19). We too were meant to work with an awareness of what the Father is doing, and join him in his work.

Paul understood this when he pointed out to idol worshipers in Lystra that “[God] has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy” (Acts 14:17). In other words, God got there first! God had been there at work, giving good gifts, filling their hearts with joy, drawing all people to himself even though they didn’t acknowledge him yet. As we go about our work, do we see where God is working in order to join him?

Paula came to faith in our church after years of atheism. The wounds from a father whose only attention came when he got her drunk and molested her as a teenager kept her alcohol dependent to numb the pain. She got sober through trusting a Higher Power who forgives, gives us second and third chances, and loves us enough to help us do what we can’t do ourselves as we surrender our will to doing his will only.

John Burke
John BurkeGatewaychurch.com

John Burke is the founding and lead pastor of Gateway Church in Austin, Texas; the president of the Emerging Leadership Initiative; and the author of multiple books, including “No Perfect People Allowed,” “Soul Revolution” and “Mud and the Masterpiece.”

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