The Tragic Pattern of Christian Life v The Biblical Pattern

Bill Hybels in his book 'Just walk across the Room' plots a graph which in his experience chartsthe declining contact the believer has with non-believers as they go on in their faith. I've included my adapted version from my own experiences and conversations with Christians.

It takes into account the difference between a friend - someone you choose to spend your spare time with - and a colleague or acquaintance - someone you are forced to sit next to or work in the same office with.

There are a number of reasons for the decline in contact with non-believers. For some it is that they see friends come to faith, for most it is that they become too involved in church things and therefore have no time for those outside the church. For some it is simply a lack of effort, they are neither particularly serving or the church or involved in the world. (Kind of makes you wonder how effective the church would be if TV had never been invented!!!) For others this decline is a result of poor teaching or understanding of the Bible which leads them to separate themselves and isolate themselves from the unbelieving world.

Last night we were looking at a more Biblical Christian Life Experience. As we grow in maturity
and in our faith we should increasingly love people, both those in the church and those outside the church. This should arrest the decline in our contact with non-believers, in fact it should compel us to seek the lost, just as Christ did. As you read the gospels, especially Luke you cannot but be struck by the way Jesus goes out of his way to engage with people and build friendships. And they are not evangelistic projects they are people he loves.

The chart recognises that there will be fluctuations in the number of friends we have (remember the definition of a friend above) due to seasons within our life. When you have young children mums in particularly have a great opportunity to build friendships and spend time with other young mums. Its one reason why I'd encourage believing mums to think carefully about going back to work full time - you will never have the opportunity such 'play dates' brings again. When you move to a new area you need to start again building friendships, there will be times when friends move away -last year we saw two families we were friends with emigrate. The challenge is to start building new friendships.

But building friendships isn't enough we also need to be introducing our non-believing friends to our believing friends. Why not hold a 50:50 meal and invite friends from both together, make introductions and see what happens. Too often we segregate our lives, its as if we move from work pod to neighbourhood pod to church pod, and the pods never converge. The gospel again challenges that what is Levi's first reaction when called to follow Jesus, he gets his new friends to meet his old friends. Because the gospel community is the best argument for the gospel there is.