Relationship Building

This British guy gave a sermon at my church the other day…forget his name, but his accent alone gave him far more authority than almost anyone who has occupied that pulpit on a given Sunday.  I don’t know why, but all you need to be able to sell a manure sandwich is a British accent.  In that event, I’ll buy it off you, no questions asked.

All kidding aside, it really was a wonderful sermon, for the most part.  The whole thing was an encouragement to get us to take better advantage of the opportunities we get to share Christ more with non-Christians.  That subject is very near and dear to my heart, for a lot of what we get from secular society, and sadly, other pastors and other Christians, amounts to an excuse to keep the light under a bushel.  Seems like we rarely talk about sharing Christ these days, preferring to focus on more popular and sexier subjects, like…well…sex. 

Not that the latter subject shouldn’t be talked about, not that we are past that–our culture makes it necessary that such a subject be addressed aggressively and often–it’s just that if you were to go by the amount of time a particular topic gets addressed, you’d think that having great sex is a more central Bible message than sharing Christ’s salvation with the lost.  This particular sermon, therefore, was quite welcome.

His points were great, two of which I especially remember: most of the best opportunities (to share one’s faith) come as unwelcome interruptions, and most of the best opportunities come once you’ve won the right to be heard.  Yes.  I’ve let quite a few opportunities slip by myself because they were “unwelcome interruptions” to my agenda.  The opportunity didn’t fit my feelings and desires (ie, I didn’t feel like sharing at the time), so I let it slip by.  And: if you don’t walk the walk, as they say, you will get zero opportunities, and make great effort to really “get into people’s lives,” taking a genuine interest in them, rather than just keeping to yourself all the time…that was the jist of the second point.

At this point, however, I do need to interject a bit.  The problem with that last point isn’t that it’s somehow unbiblical or false…it’s that many soft American churchgoers will subtly turn it against the first point, making it into an excuse to let many opportunities pass them by. 

I see this happen all the time, and I hear people recommend this way of thinking a lot: when an opportunity arises, many folks let it pass by in the name of “building a relationship first” with that person.  Many more also fail to create opportunities themselves (that *is* a biblical thing to do, by the way…read Acts.  Many of those episodes were at the disciples’ initiative.), thinking they always have to get to know somebody extensively first.

When has enough “relationship building” taken place, anyway?  A few months?  A year?  Five, ten years?  I’ve seen instances before where the “needed” amount is always and forever on the horizon, just a little ways away.  “Not wise to share with my friend just yet.  Yes, I’ve known him since childhood, but I still need to ‘build a relationship’ with him so I can ‘win the right to be heard.’”

I’ve seen other instances where a person is building a relationship with a friend/coworker/whatever, and said friend/coworker moves out of the Christian’s life, without the Christian ever taking a step to share.  He was so focused on building the relationship in order to avoid rejection, that he never actually got around to sharing.  The “relationship building” got in the way of a great opportunity.

I just gotta call it: this whole “building relationship first” thing is, too many times, an excuse.  Our agenda is to avoid rejection, so when an opportunity arises to share that might potentially get in the way of that agenda (notice I said “potentially.”  Many times it is an unfounded fear), we baptize our agenda in spiritual language and biblical concepts in order to avoid exposing ourselves to risk.  A legitimate principle, that of living in such a way so as to not damage your witness, gets turned into an excuse.

So I’ll just say it: you don’t always have to “build relationship” for some vague, undefined time first before speaking of Christ.  If you get the opportunity, just take it.  And don’t be afraid to take the initiative and broach the subject yourself either.  Yes, here and there you might need to be quiet…but, I dare say that those instances are far fewer in number than we make them out to be.

Once, when someone asked him about building relationships with non-believers first, I heard a fellow evangelist say “oh yes, I’m all about building relationship.  Sometimes, when I’m in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, I build a relationship for up to a *full minute* before sharing with someone.”

I think he’s got the right idea.