I Once Was Lost

What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus

Don Everts,Doug Schaupp

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780830875665
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

How do people come to Jesus in today's postmodern culture? Not by a mechanical, linear process of cookie cutter conversions. Nor by a nebulous spiritual wandering that never culminates in decision and commitment. Over the last decade, Don Everts and Doug Schaupp have listened to the stories of two thousand postmodern people who have come to follow Jesus. While their stories are diverse and varied, certain common themes emerge. Postmodern evangelism is a mysterious and organic process that nevertheless goes through discernible phases, as people cross thresholds from distrust to trust, from complacency to curiosity and from meandering to seeking. Everts and Schaupp describe the factors that influence how people shift in their perspectives and become open to the Gospel. They provide practical tools to help people enter the kingdom, as well as guidelines for how new believers can live out their Christian faith.

Threshold One

Trusting a Christian

“I wasn’t the least bit interested in anything that came out of your mouth.”

It was impossible for me (Doug) to become Mark’s friend. He always avoided eye contact with me though I would smile and say hi as I passed him in the dorm. I had no idea what was going on in his heart and mind.

I was a senior and Mark was a freshman at Occidental College. He lived down the hall from me. But our paths were miles apart, because the guys on the water polo team had warned him, “Watch out for that Doug guy. He is the head of the ‘God Squad’ in the dorm.”

Sometimes God builds trust between people in the most unexpected way. I knew that guys like to bond over sports. So on Friday afternoons we would roll out these old wrestling mats I had discovered, and about twenty of us would take turns wrestling each other behind the dorm.

Since I was a varsity wrestler in high school, I had a distinct advantage over a bunch of guys who were giving wrestling a shot for the first time. Mark was one of these guys.

Though Mark was willing to wrestle with me, he would never have entered into a spiritual conversation with me. He distrusted me and he was not looking for religion.

Mark got on the mat and we bonded over sweat. And then a small miracle happened within him. He decided that I was just like him. I was sweaty, fun, normal. I was no longer someone to be feared; I could be a friend.

After that he began to hang out in my room. I would leave my door open, hoping people would stop by and chat. When Mark came by, I put my book down, and Mark slowly told me his story.

Only later did I find out what exactly had happened on the wrestling mat. I could not see the revolution that was erupting within him. While he lived on the far side of the great divide of distrust, I looked liked an ogre. Once he passed through the threshold of trust, I looked like someone he could talk to, share life with and befriend.

An Era of Distrust

Trust is sweet. It is better than gold. Trust is always a gift of the heart, and therefore it just may be the most precious thing in life, next to love. Trust between two people is so valuable and precious that it should never be taken for granted.

Once a friend told me (Doug) that she was giving me a special birthday present. On my birthday, she gave me a card that read, “I give you my trust.” Holding that card in my hand, I understood the weight and beauty of what was being offered. I was deeply grateful.

What most of our friends have told us is that the process of coming to faith really gained traction for them once they started to significantly trust a Christian. There is an invisible wall between distrust and trust—a threshold. It seems that people must move through this threshold into trust in order for them to continue on to Jesus.

But why is this our starting place? Shouldn’t we be talking about new ways of laying out the gospel? What about quoting verses for people? Can’t we just focus on Bible verses that better connect with the postmodern generation? No, we can’t. Relationships, genuine friendships are our currency.

Christa doesn’t trust Christians because she was once told she’s going straight to hell. A professor told Ryan that the Bible is full of mistakes. Bonnie read The Da Vinci Code and thinks the church is one big conspiracy. Julie was invited to a church outing but felt like an outsider the entire time.

In another day and age, God, religion and church enjoyed the general respect of the culture. Not today. Religion is suspect, church is weird, and Christians are hypocrites. Distrust has become the norm. People are tired of the “sales tactics” often employed by Christians and are offended by our bait-and-switch attempts at introducing them to Jesus. In the past, the occupation of evangelist was viewed as a respectable profession, even by secular society. Today evangelist has fallen to the very bottom of the pit, among the most distrusted occupations.

When people first find out we are Christians, we often literally see them shift from relaxed to rigid, from warm to suspicious. This is because when our friends first hear us call ourselves “Christian,” several negative things often immediately flash through their minds: “Christians are self-righteous, and they always think they’re better than me.” “I’m about to get judged, so I better get my defenses up.” “Christians are naive and narrow-minded, and they believe in fairy tales.” “Christians are always pressing politics, so watch out!”

Don: On a recent airplane flight I got into a quite pleasant conversation with the person sitting next to me. He was a businessman from India. Even though I am quite introverted, I always love good, intelligent conversation—and this man was a great conversationalist. We spoke of some current events, ventured into politics, spoke of the regions and cultures we were from—and then he did it. He asked me what I did for a living. And I cringed.

I cringed because I am a campus pastor. And while I know that it is a blessing to have such spiritual matters brought up in the conversation, and while I am not in the least embarrassed about what I do, I knew that once he found out, that invisible but real shift would happen in our conversation. Sure enough, it did.

When he found out I was a Christian, he looked quite surprised. (I assumed he was surprised that he had actually been having an enjoyable conversation with a Christian.) Then he politely turned back to his magazine and kept his nose in it the rest of the flight.

I tried not to be frustrated. I knew that when it came to Christians this man was like many others—he was starting off with distrust. I wasn’t starting on level ground in our conversation, I was starting in a hole.

When trust has not yet been established, lostness feels like wise skepticism and right thinking. If Christians are fanatical and narrow-minded, keeping one’s distance seems like the smartest posture to take toward us. “There is something twisted about those smarmy Christians. And they want to fix me with that twisted agenda.” Until this framework of distrust is shifted, growth is nearly impossible.

The good news is that we are not the first generation to face a context whose default is distrust. The apostle Paul faced an inherently skeptical audience as he traveled from city to city in the Roman Empire. Those who espoused a Hellenistic worldview were not impressed with his declaration of the resurrection. They did not begin with a posture of respect. In fact they looked down on this poser, mocking him as a “babbler” (Acts 17:18).

Paul was not offended or intimidated by their insults. Instead he found a way to press on and declare the good news. Let us learn like Paul to not only survive but thrive in our current context of distrust. Let us learn to be like Jesus, who “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6 ESV).

God decided to incarnate himself, to come right alongside people. The Word didn’t have to become flesh and “pitch a tent” right in our neighborhood. But he did (John 1:14). This is the incarnational way of God, his chosen way to bring people to himself. And it points the way for us, his children, to get along in this world as well. We aren’t to preach at people from on high but to come alongside, to shake hands and befriend. To build trust.

And, as it turns out, this is exactly what people need these days to begin their journey to faith. In fact, the irony is that the more we listen to Scripture and history, the more we see the five thresholds as not merely for our current generation.

Our Five Knee-Jerk Reactions to Distrust

When the frigid air of distrust blows over us through a glance or comment, it is normal to react. Distrust hurts. It is unpleasant. After all, who wants to be rejected? If we are honest with ourselves, each of us has to admit that we are not eager to interact with people who are suspicious of us.

Often we react in ways that are less than loving, and sometimes we end up doing more to destroy trust than we do to build it. Awareness of these common destructive reactions within ourselves can help us identify our own temptations and keep us from just reacting blindly when someone starts off distrusting us. Here are five of the most common knee-jerk reactions to distrust that we have observed—and experienced.

1. Defend. Often when someone assumes negative things about us, we get defensive. What’s your problem? I am perfectly cool. We know (or assume) there’s nothing we personally have done wrong, and so we want to defend our reputation. Hey, I’m not one of those televangelist types! Sometimes we even want to defend whatever it is about Christianity that has caused distrust in them. Look, if you really understood the Crusades . . . While these defensive instincts are natural and instinctive, they are a pretty sure sign that we are starting to close our heart to the person who mistrusts us.

2. Bruise. Sometimes when we are not trusted, we feel personally offended. We become indignant. Why would you not trust me? I can’t believe I’m being treated this way, lumped stereotypically, unfairly, with other Christians. We get offended that the other person feels offended, and no one really takes time to listen. Our ego is so bruised that we become reluctant to put our heart on the line again. Frequently, even though we wouldn’t admit it, we allow disdain to grow in our heart. We see ourselves as the one who is persecuted, as the victim in the situation. (Don: On that airplane flight I must admit I felt a bit “persecuted,” feeling as if I was being wrongly maligned.)

3. Avoid. Often our knee-jerk reaction to the neighbor who gets stiff and weird when they find out we are a Christian is to just avoid that neighbor ever after. We distance ourselves. If they don’t like me, then why bother? Who wants to wade through their baggage with past Christians? It’s easier to just avoid the awkwardness and gravitate toward those who “get me”—other Christians. We become numb and indifferent. We stop caring.

4. Judge. Out of feelings of hurt, and out of pride, some of us lash back with a condescending attitude. It seems so ridiculous that our non-Christian friends would look down on us that we point the finger right back. (Or at least want to.) I can’t believe this immoral, pot-smoking New Ager is actually looking down their nose at me! Whenever we feel under the gun, it’s natural to want to turn the situation and point the gun at someone else.

5. Argue. Some of us are good at debating, and when others react to the fact that we are “one of those Christians,” we receive their distrust as a challenge. We rev up to unleash some potent logic on them. Look out for my apologetics. Hear this and weep! We get into a competitive mindset and don’t want to lose the point. As we argue, we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are actually serving them, helping them along toward Jesus, but often this reactionary posture actually works to derail their journey of faith. Sure, arguing is a natural reaction; it’s just not always a helpful reaction.

Don: When I am honest with myself I have to admit that my most common reaction to people who have issues with Christians is just to avoid them. Maybe I just don’t sit near them. Or maybe I sit by them but do everything I can to make sure the fact that I am “one of those Christians” doesn’t come up.

When I got a job at a county recreational facility back in Tacoma, Washington, one summer, I joined a crew of wonderfully interesting, dynamic men who were pretty jaded about most things. I even heard a couple of disparaging remarks about Christians early on that summer.

How did I respond to this “hostile” environment? I did everything I could to avoid getting their jadedness and mistrust pointed my way. I steered clear of certain topics and even (I am being honest here) answered a few questions of theirs a little less than accurately! I didn’t purposefully do any of this. It’s not as if I developed a strategy of avoidance as I entered the situation. Rather, this was how I naturally reacted to their distrust. It was a sort of knee-jerk response of my heart.

Knowing this about myself is clarifying. And helpful. It helps me pray for help. It helps me notice sooner in the process that I am actually avoiding. My guess is we all deal with avoidance at some level and could all use a call to courage and a reminder that Jesus promised us (it was a promise) that we would not be treated well by everyone.

Knowing this about my heart also helps me know which kingdom habits I need to purposefully practice in order to build trust.

Five Kingdom Habits to Build Trust

In any friendship, trust develops over time. It could take anywhere from one day to years, depending on how much distrust the non-Christian is carrying or whether they have any at all. And trust in any friendship is a dynamic thing. There’s no guarantee that once we have crossed the “trust line” with a non-Christian they will magically trust us forever.

There is, however, a basic threshold of trust that they will need to cross before evangelism can effectively happen. Though some people are naturally much better than others at building trust, we can all practice the five trust-building habits in this chapter—and the bond will grow.

We need to learn to be unfazed by distrust. We are in an age of distrust, so instead of being surprised and reactionary when our coworkers or neighbors don’t trust us, we need to learn how to respond kindly and quickly begin the normal, basic and foundational investment of trust-building.

These kingdom postures of building trust aren’t just a necessity in times of great distrust: they are always the kingdom call. This is the call of love. It is the way of Jesus. Jesus leaned in toward people, asked them to “come and see” his life, went to their weddings and parties. He took on flesh and pitched a tent among people. He incarnated.

One of the more obvious results of this was that people were comfortable with him, were drawn to him—especially (and this is an important point) those who were lost, far away from God. Those who tried to keep their distance from such needy, dirty lost people were furious at Jesus for this. Eating with all the wrong people he was. But as the author of Hebrews points out, the fact that Jesus was “made like his brothers and sisters in every way” means he is able to sympathize with our weaknesses; folks feel free to draw near to him with confidence (Hebrews 2:17; 4:14-16). And that’s just what people did. They came to Jesus; they came close to him with confidence.

Jesus wasn’t content to presume upon whatever modicum of honor rabbis naturally received; he was always trying to build trust, to make connections, intimate connections, between himself and those he met on the road. He could have healed lepers from a distance, but instead he touched them. He could have been fed by angels, but instead he accepted invitations into the kitchens of those he met along his way.

While this is always the call for us, it is an especially wise and blessed route to take in the type of distrustful age we’re swimming in these days. Here are a few simple, practical ways we can purposefully build trust rather than give in to our knee-jerk reactions to distrust.

1. Pray. When we feel the temptation to defend, we can instead choose to stop and pray. As we catch ourselves getting defensive, we can silently ask God to soften our heart. We can admit that we are hurt or irritated by the other’s distrust. We can be honest with God about our struggles. By bringing our defensiveness to God, we are letting him do a deeper work in us. “Jesus, you love this person enough to give your life for them. Please...