Monday’s thoughts
“Take Your Faith and Share It”
How do we share our faith with other people? How do we convey the things that are important to us so that other people can see it and can have it for themselves?
Some would say we shouldn’t share our faith. They believe it’s a personal matter and we should keep it to ourselves. To a large extent I think that’s true. And yet, if it is important to us it seems to me we cannot hide it. It is a part of us and, no matter how secretive we are about it, it will come out. The most effective kind of share comes as we live our faith. People are watching us and will pay more attention to what we do than what we say we believe. Our actions will speak louder than our words.
D.T. Niles defined evangelism as “one begger telling another beggar where to get bread.” Sermons that are preached are not as effective as sermons that are seen and lived.
I would like to explore how it is people of faith have given us a sense of their belief as we have observed them, and then I would like to explore the way in which we find ourselves living out our faith and what other observe as we live it.
Being faithful to our faith is most difficult. Life usually presents us with challenges that are confusing. What we do with what we believe must begin with what we intend. How we live out our faith should come from a strong desire to live congruently. Sometimes we miss the mark (Tillich called that sin). Sometimes we are right on target and we become proud of our exemplary faith (religion calls that hubris). We just want to do the best we can do and hope that we live what we believe and that others will realize it. We seek not to live to impress others, but we seek to be faithful to the God we worship.
How do you take your faith and share it? How do you feel about people who knock on your door trying to evangelize you into their belief? Would you ever do anything like that? Why not? Why would you?
If you have ideas about sharing your faith write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net. If you are willing to have others read your thoughts on this “Build a Sermon” part of the web click on the ‘comments’ box below.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Charles
