Two days on one UE chapter. Throwed ya' for a curve ball today, didn't I?
If you remember from yesterday's entry, the point was that we don't have to be a William Graham to be an effective witness. If we love God first, others second, God will reward our witnessing attempts. When I was reading Mittelberg's story I thought he was going to bring out a different point. I guess he left that up to me. :-)
The story he relates is about his being a part of a college-aged group of zealous Christians called Monday Night Bible Study and their awkward, but effective, attempts at witnessing for Christ. The main story line revolved around one young lady, Peggy, who was a song-singing, cliche-spouting, discussion-participating member of the group. Mittelberg tells how his spiritual radar told him something was not quite right in Peggy's life. The end result was that over coffee, he asked Peggy if she had ever personally accepted Christ. Her reply was, "No I haven't and nobody has told me I needed to." (p. 81)
That leads me to what I think is an important lesson of Chapter 11--not everyone in church, in Sunday School or in small group Bible study has made a personal decision to accept Christ as Lord and Savior. We need to be sensitive to the spiritual needs of our fellow church members as well. We do a pretty good job of praying for each other's job-related, health-related, kid-related needs, but if the Master is not on the throne of our hearts, all else is folly.
Take a minute to pray for those who sit beside you in a church pew.
An additional entry into the lack of awareness, and possibly concern, among Christians.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first joined my Faith Family about two years ago, each Sunday morning an envelope would be passed around and each of us was to blindly choose a slip from the envelope that had the name of another member on it. We were supposed to then pray for that person during the week.
I suggested to the group that each of us call that person on Monday or Tuesday and say "I drew your name from the prayer envelope. How can I pray for you this week?" The person receiving the call, after tellling of any prayer requests, was to the ask in return "And how can I pray for you?" This would have had several obvious positive results.
But the group never did adopt the idea. In face, they no longer even have the envelope available. Why are we so hesitant to let each other know that we pray, how we pray, when we pray and what we pray for?
Dad