Just before she left she turned to me and said that she didn't want to offend me but that I needed to know a few things:
- God is real.
- I should read the Bible.
- I should respect other people.
- I should take care of the poor.
- God and she loved me.
- If I accept these things, God will reward me with a good husband, marriage and children.
I said, "I will keep that mind." She repeated a few of her points. I said, "I will keep that in mind." Satisfied, or perhaps simply done speaking, she went on to her next project.
Upon shutting the door behind her I felt neither offended nor converted (although I did wonder why, if God was speaking through her, my current relationship didn't nullify her last point. ;) )
I have no idea why she decided to witness to me that day. One of the benefits of growing up in the church, though, is that one becomes familiar with the cultural and religions reasons behind telling strangers what to believe.
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6 comments:
great post! you can just see it coming. we were in a restaurant a few weeks - a take out or sit down casual place. waiting on our order. and they were very busy so we waited for 10 minutes and i watched something unfold. a group of young church people were there, from out of town. there were at some conference. 2 guys walked in and ordered their food and sat down. i watched as the 3 young people at the same table started making small talk. the first 1-2 sentences were almost normal ... "so where are you guys from?" that sort of thing. problem is, the guys were from right here, and just looked at them funny and said "here". then the young people kept asking questions, but it was a lead in so they could try to witness. they didn't give a crap about where the guys were from or anything else about them. they were practicing the witnessing techniques that they learned at the conference. and i knew what sort of technique it was ... it was the "win them over with kindness and don't push them into a decision" technique. BUT it was still just a project, without a relationship. it still felt just as impolite and intrusive as any other technique.
it actually felt just like a poor sales pitch from anybody selling anything to a stranger in this old world.
nothing new.
And this goes on all the time! I find it so sad that these young people are just a product of what they've been taught. It's almost like they don't think for themselves. Were the tables turned, would they find that sort of conversation one that would lead them to make alife changing decision. Of course not.
I think you were much more polite, Lydia, than I would have been. Of all our years as active members and pastors I never saw the value of this kind of witnessing. What makes this any different from the Jehovah Witnesses that come to the door...doing their 'works' to keep themselves saved..and yet christians think they are so different from them...I don't think so! The message may be a bit different, but the results are pretty much the same.
WHAT A BUNCH OF BS RANDOM 'WITNESSING' IS! Of course that is just my opinion. I'm sure there has been good that has came of that sort of thing in the past. But then again I'm also sure that there has been some form of good that has came from a train wreck too. Like someone was able to scrap all the metal from the train wreck and get a hundred dollars from a train that was originally valued at tens of thousands.....ok I'm done for now. Now you know how I feel on that:)
Jesse
"they didn't give a crap about where the guys were from or anything else about them"
This is what infuriates me the most about witnessing (from any religious background.) I will talk about _anything_ with someone who honestly cares about me. I will discuss only the most shallow subjects with someone who has an agenda (and I won't say anything to them at all if I can help it.)
"these young people are just a product of what they've been taught"
Teresa, this is a big reason why I listened to her spiel. She was just doing what she had been taught to do and had no clue how poorly she came across (well, either that or she was mentally ill.)
I didn't want to provoke or engage her. It seemed like polite disinterest was the best way to go in that situation.
Jesse, I never thought about collecting scrap metal from a train wreck before. I can see how it would be useful, though. (And it's a very interesting analogy!)
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