Becoming a Contagious Christian (eBook)

Bill Hybels, Mark Mittelberg (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
197 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-0-00-109510-6 (ISBN)

Infos

What is it about verbalizing our faith that leaves our knees knocking and our tongues tied? We know it's the most significant thing we can do and that sharing it is the most important gift we could ever give to a friend. Yet evangelism remains one of the most frustrating parts of the Christian life. Until now. Bill Hybels and Mark Mittelberg believe that it doesn't have to be that way; effectively communicating our faith in Jesus Christ should be the most natural thing in the world. What we need, however, is encouragement and direction. In Becoming a Contagious Christian Hybels and Mittelberg offer a practical plan of action for touching the lives of friends, family members, and others, illustrated with powerful, real-life stories. Their emphasis is clear: be yourself in Christ, find a style that works for you. Hybels and Mittelberg use simple, straightforward language and diverse biblical characters such as Paul, Dorcas, and the Samaritan woman to encourage us with the good news that God knew what he was doing when he made each of us. As a result, all of us can impact our world for Christ. It is an approach the authors have seen work again and again at Willow Creek Community Church. They articulate the important principles that have helped the believers at Willow Creek become a church of 'contagious Christians,' a church known around the world for its outstanding and effective outreach to the unchurched. Becoming a Contagious Christian may well be one of the most important contributions to relational evangelism in decades. It presents a blueprint for starting a spiritual epidemic of hope and enthusiasm for spreading the Gospel of Christ.

Textauszug

CHAPTER ONE

PEOPLE MATTER TO GOD

 

Not long after Tom stepped onto the sailboat, it became clear that he was a first-class sailor, a fierce competitor, and someone who thrived on living at the edge of adventure.

Beyond that, this latest member of our racing crew had an infectious personality. He wanted the music turned up loud, lots of friends around, and plenty of excitement after the race. He wanted to win, but he wanted to have a good time doing it.

I hardly knew Tom when I asked him to join us. As our friendship developed, I found out that he was an all-or-nothing kind of individual. When he believed in something and was excited about it, there was no stopping him. But if he wasn’t interested, there was almost no way to get him started.

And therein was the challenge. You see, Tom had little time for spiritual matters of any kind.

Then one night Tom showed up for our regatta with his arm in a sling. When I asked him what had happened, he explained that he had been out racing go-carts the night before, had imbibed too much alcohol, had gotten a bit out of control, and ended up getting into a fight.

By this time he knew I was a minister, so he half-kiddingly asked if I could help him out by praying over him.

“Maybe sometime,” I replied, “but right now I have a Scripture verse for you.”

“All right,” he said, “what is it?”

I said, “The Bible says in Galatians 6:7 that ‘a man reaps what he sows.’ ” To my surprise, Tom seemed stunned. “It doesn’t really say that, does it?” he asked.

“It absolutely does,” I told him. “It says that if you want to sow the kind of seed you were sowing last night, you’re going to reap the kind of sling you’re wearing today.”

“You’re putting me on!” he shot back.

“I’m not kidding you,” I assured him, “and I think maybe you ought to commit that verse to memory!”

Over the next few days, I’d chide him a little by asking if he’d learned it yet. Before long, he’d just look me in the eye and quote it.

In fact, that whole incident became somewhat of a standing joke between us that summer, and it opened up the door to some conversations about spiritual matters. The following season Tom showed a few more signs that he was willing to take it a bit further.

One night when we were having dinner in a restaurant he asked me, “How does a person go about getting a Bible? I’ve thought about trying to read one, but I didn’t know if regular stores sell them.”

“Well, I could probably fix you up with one,” I told him, trying to be nonchalant about the fact that finally, after two years of prayer and relationship-building, he was starting to display some genuine interest.

Later that fall, Tom actually drove a couple of hundred miles from Michigan to Chicago in order to visit our church and to spend some time hanging out at my house and talking together.

After he got back home, he called me and said, “I feel different on the inside. It seems like I’m starting to fit some puzzle pieces together. I don’t know how it’s all going to turn out, but I really like what’s happening to me, even if I don’t completely understand it.”

One evening after a two-hour talk about what it means to be a Christian, I told him, “Tommy, you’re going to make a great Christian someday. You’re honest to the core, flat-out dedicated to whatever you commit yourself to, and more concerned about what’s true than about what other people think.”

He conceded that I might be right. But he wasn’t ready. He was in the process and moving in the right direction, but he wasn’t about to sign on any dotted lines. Not yet. . . .

I’ll never forget those talks with Tom. They were unpredictable, they were risky, they were exhilarating, they were give-and-take, they were

up-and-down. And they reminded me of something I’d known for a long time: there’s nothing in life that’s as exciting as befriending, loving, and leading wayward people toward faith in Christ. Nothing.

In their heart of hearts, I think all true followers of Christ long to become contagious Christians. Though unsure about how to do so or the risks involved, deep down they sense that there isn’t anything as rewarding as opening a person up to God’s love and truth.

But though we might like the idea of having a spiritual impact on others, we won’t take decisive action unless we first raise our motivation level.

In their heart of hearts, I think all true followers of Christ long to become contagious Christians. Though unsure about how to do so or the risks involved, deep down they sense that there isn’t anything as rewarding as opening a person up to God’s love and truth.

And one of the best ways to do that is to get God’s perspective on the matter.

Let’s begin with two lessons, both from unexpected sources. One is from the realm of science, the other is from the world of business. The first describes the way things are. The second prescribes the way things ought to be.

 

A SURPRISING SOURCE

First, there is the Anthropic Principle. It’s creating a lot of controversy these days among intellectuals.

“Of course,” you say, “the Anthropic Principle. I was just reading about that last night before I went to bed!”

Simply stated, the Anthropic Principle implies that when we look at the world around us, it would seem, at least at first blush, that the universe was somehow designed to support and nourish human life.

This concept, which is very prevalent in the world of secular science and philosophy, didn’t originate with Christian scholars. But the evidence points so overwhelmingly toward this apparent design in the universe that it’s virtually undeniable by experts of every religious and nonreligious stripe. This has sent skeptics scurrying to find some sort of natural explanation for this apparently supernatural phenomenon.

Here are a few of the hard facts:

■ Raise or lower the universe’s rate of expansion by even one part in a million, and it would have ruled out the possibility of life.

■ If the average distance between stars were any greater, planets like earth would not have been formed; any smaller, the planetary orbits necessary for life would not have occurred.

■ If the ratio of carbon to oxygen had been slightly different than it is, none of us would have been here to breathe the air.

■ Change the tilt of the earth’s axis slightly in one direction, and we would freeze. Change it the other direction, and we’d burn up.

■ Suppose the earth had been a bit closer or further from the sun, or just a little larger or smaller, or if it rotated at a speed any different from the one we’re spinning at right now. Given any of these changes, the resulting temperature variations would be completely fatal.

So the lesson we can draw from the Anthropic Principle is this: someone must have gone to a lot of effort to make things just right so that you and I could be here to enjoy life. In short, modern science points to the fact that we must really matter to God!

Being the ever-obedient spiritual heavyweight that I am, I did what any serious-minded, devoted follower of Christ would do.

I called one of those internal time-outs and said to the Lord, “Hold on a minute! Let’s not get carried away!”

A LESSON FROM BUSINESS

Now let’s move from science to the world of business. Did you know there’s been a radical transformation in this arena during the last twenty years that provides an important lesson for Christians?

Management experts talk about these developments in grandiose terms. For example, in Thriving on Chaos, Tom Peters refers to this transformation as a “customer revolution.” Ken Blanchard, author of the enormously successful book The One-Minute Manager, enthusiastically describes what he calls “the upside-down pyramid.” What is this change that they feel has been so critical for all of corporate America?

Are you ready for this? Hold on to your wingtips: businesses, if they’re going to be successful for the long haul, must pull their attention off of themselves and refocus their energies on their only reason for existence —to serve their customers.

Now, before we chide them for going to great lengths to state the obvious, let’s note that this advice is sorely needed. How many times do you feel frustrated when you’re trying to get basic service in a gas station, restaurant, bank, bakery, or department store? The natural tendency for these organizations, both big and small, is to become ingrown. Employees begin burning up their energy on internal problems, petty policy disputes, and staff-related strife. And all too often this happens while the customer stands at the checkout counter patiently waiting to be served.

So along came experts like Peters and Blanchard with a challenge that was simple and profound: we must turn over the corporate pyramid and get back to serving the person “at the top”—and that’s the customer, not the boss. We must work to develop a “customer obsession.”

It’s not hard to see that both the problems and the solutions of the business world have close cousins within the Christian community. We can get so easily entangled and ensnared in the internal...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.11.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
• ISBN-10: 0-00-109510-2 / 0001095102
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-109510-6 / 9780001095106