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A relationship with God is a relationship with God,not a relationship with your theology about God.
A church member asked his Pastor, “Pastor, why don’t you go witnessing with us, for we know we are to share the Gospel?” Replied the Pastor, “Because you folk are trying to share the Gospel without sharing yourself.”
The principle means of sharing Christ is sharing your own self. Evangelism means sharing a relationship, not a “plan of salvation.”
A church member approached the Pastor, “Pastor, why don’t you seem impressed with our witnessing to persons?” The Pastor replied, “Because you are not ready to witness to anyone until you are ready to learn something from the one you are witnessing to.”
Much evangelism is egocentric; basically, one person who thinks God and he are good buddies and thinking he is better than that poor damned soul being witnessed to. Possibly, from God’s perspective, the pride of many evangelicals witnesses to the truth that many of them are the ones that most need witnessing to.
A great Spiritual Master was to give a lecture on the Mystery of God. The throng sat in anticipation, enthused, as the Master approached the lectern. He held up a rose. He spoke, “I can no more explain the Mystery of God than I can tell someone who has never smelled the scent of a rose what a rose smells like. Experience the Mystery of God, and you will know, otherwise, anything I say will only be used by you to substitute for the real Thing.” The Master walked off stage and left, retiring to the desert, and he never accepted another invitation to speak.
The Buddha never denied the existence of God, he never claimed to be God, and he never claimed to have started a religion; he did not requests to be worshipped by anyone. Maybe he had witnessed enough of how the very word “God” becomes an excuse for the most prideful ignorance and the worst types of violence. What good is the word “God” when those who claim to be “godly” use “God” to reduce the Mystery to their own religiously and politically insulated group?
A church member approached her Pastor saying, “Several of us are upset by your being critical of our striving to be godly!” The Pastor replied, “To be more godly, become more human.”
Fr Demitru Staniloae, an author in the Eastern Church, said, “The glory to which humans are called is that they should grow more godlike by growing ever more human.”—“Orthodoxy, Life in the Resurrection,” Eastern Churches Review 2:4
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A church member asked her Pastor, “Why are not our prayers changing the world?” To the question, came this reply, “It is not prayers that are most likely to change the world; rather, it is becoming prayer that is most likely to change the world.”
If a few persons become prayer—prayer that is "pure" and to all appearances quite useless—they transform the universe by the sole fact of their presence, by their very existence.” —Olivier Clčment, Byzance et le christianisme
The Pastor spoke, in a sermon, “We need to quit trying to be good Christians.” Someone, after the sermon, said, “Pastor, that seems a radical statement, that we should quit trying to be good Christians.” Replied the Pastor, “Does the Sun try to shine? If you are good, you will be good, for you are good. If you are trying to be good, then, what you will end up with is just an odd deformation of being good, one we call self-righteousness.”
As long as you are trying to be good, you are trying to be good. And, trying to be good is not being good. If you want to be good, become good. Becoming good is not doing good. If you want to be good, get the you who is trying to be good out of the way.
The Pastor was asked, “Why have you not preached against other religions?” Said the Pastor, “My friend, you claim to have chosen Christ?” “Yes,” said the man. “Now,” asked the Pastor, “if you were born in Palestine, what religion would you likely be in? If you were born in India, what religion would you likely be in? If you were born in China, what religion would you likely be in? When you can tell me that you are sure that you would be a Christian and demonstrate your certainty, if born in any of these places, I will know that where we are born is not largely determinate in what religion we choose and, then, and only then, will I preach against other religions.”
I have learned much from Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, and Hinduism. I am quite sure that if I had been born in any number of places in the world, rather than in Georgia of the USA, I would most likely have worshipped and served God through another religion. Now, what about you?
The Pastor was asked by a church member, “Pastor, why did you say that God did not create the world in the beginning?” “Because the beginning, with God, always is. So, most accurately, God is not the Creator, rather God is Creating.”
We should say, not, “God made the world, and me in it,” but “God is making the world, and me in it, here and now, at this moment and always.” Creation is not an event in the past, but a relationship in the present. —Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way
OneLife Ministries is a pastoral outreach and nurture ministry of the First United Methodist Church, Fort Meade, FL. For Spiritual Direction, Pastoral Counseling, spiritual formation workshops, Christian meditation retreats, or more information about OneLife, write Rev. Dr. Brian K. Wilcox at briankwilcox@comcast.net.
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