As an ex-atheist who’s now a Christian, I can speak from personal experience on this one. Over the years, many people came at me with many approaches, but one key thing was missing.
Hardly anyone was even willing to try to meet me where I was at, at the time. And where was I at? I saw the Bible as in contradiction to science. I saw the New Testament as a book of myths. I saw people of faith as weak, using it as a sort of crutch, and I didn’t like the look of it.
But hardly anyone tried to understand that…which is amazing, because I was also actually pretty willing to talk about Christianity with people if they wanted to. I was open to conversations about it…but to the casual observer, that wasn’t so obvious, because the reason I was open to conversations about it was largely because I thought it was fun to argue down people of faith and “prove” that they were idiots. That’s not nice…I know. But that’s how I was.
Praise God: I’m not that person anymore.
After enough arguing and debating, both online and off, it wasn’t any one person who convinced me. One night, when I was sitting in my apartment alone, all of the evidence for and against Christianity was dancing around in my thoughts, and the realization of the truth of it all hit me like a freight train.
“Oh, crap!” Or, possibly, a more vulgar version of that…that was my initial reaction, “God is real and He’s probably super mad at me.” So I got that straightened out as soon as I could!
Whether the people in your life are like me or not, I can guarantee they do have something in common with this story…they’re never going to even give Christianity a chance unless you, or someone in their life, meets them where they’re at.
What are their doubts?
What are their barriers to belief?
Are the things that stop them in their tracks more logical, or emotional? Or, both?
Whatever the reasons, don’t give up. Learn how to answer their tough questions. Understand how they might have arrived at their current perspectives…and how they generally come to accept or reject new information.
