Talking about talking to others with friends...

People who know me will be nodding in a smug acknowledgement to the statement that I can blag my way out of some of the tightest discussion points. Many times have I been given a topic to discuss without prior warning and blagged my way out of a difficult conversation, in my own head believing I have come out on top of the debate, although in reality most likely not. I've encountered times when a lack of preparation or communication has led to me having to come up with a preach /talk on the spot and survived with my 'reputation' seemingly improved. One time at college, during my history A level course, I was asked to be the person to defend the position of the 2nd World War Nazi's in a mock trial, something which obviously is impossible but something I almost blagged, before quite rightly failing at. The point is simple, I like to talk and hear the sound of my own voice. The picture of many of my friends nodding, whilst rolling their eyes at the truth that I like to talk, is a sobering, yet accurate, judgement.

We've got some wonderful new friends in Norwich who came round for food a few weeks back. And over the late night dessert and tea we got chatting about how we talk to others about faith, church and all things Jesus. We got talking about how inept we often are at it, how the strategies we use often fail and whether it was all good deed , or all preaching the word. Conversations developed into whether our relationships with those outside the church are agenda driven and manipulated to 'convert' them and what an authentic relationship looks like. Then my friend Pete delivered a line I think I'll remember for a while, "do you realise we are talking about talking to other people...". The absurdity of what we were doing hit us and left us laughing whilst also in sober reflection. This statement led to us asking what would people think in our communities if they could hear this conversation....

What if all of our book reading, evangelism strategies, seeker friendly services, manipulated programmes and relationally driven techniques are not what Jesus was trying to highlight when he uttered the words 'go and make disciples' (Matt 28:19) ? What if Jesus was moving the conversation on from the earlier statements of the second greatest commandment being loving our neighbours as we love ourselves (Matt 22:39). What if the loving our neighbours, which requires us to talk to them, leads to the opening up of lives and reveals the Christ in us the hope of glory (Col 1:27)? Does this lead to the making of Disciples? I would argue it inevitably will.

As we talked about talking to others I was struck that so many times in the church we talk about loving people, yet often we don't. We don't invite our neighbours and communities into our lives to eat, share and find out about each other. We don't know what the families in our road need prayer for. We don't let people see Christ in us, the honest rawness of a Saviour who lifts us up. If I talked as much to my neighbours and those in my community as much as I talk about getting them into church then maybe there would be a few more disciples, maybe we would love each other a little more and maybe there will be that little bit more of God in our world than if I just keep talking about church.

As hard as it is for me to say, I sometimes need to shut up and get on with this loving others stuff. I think I'll ask our neighbours round for dinner in the next week. Maybe then the conversation won't be about talking about talking to others and simply be a conversation.