Don't Be In the Bubble

Excerpt from Dan Kimball's post An Hour Long Sermon

"I then brought up 23 year old Orion. He told the story of how he was raised entirely outside of the church and had stereotypes of Christianity which was primarily very negative. He also was a history major in college and heard all the bad things about Christians and the crusades etc. But when he moved to Santa Cruz, he moved in with a Christian - another young guy in our church who did not post an ad for a "Christian roommate" but instead ended up having Orion become his roommate. Orion shared if the ad said "Christian roommate", of course he never would have been interested. But through this roommate, and as trust was built - he eventually invited Orion to an actual church gathering on a Sunday and ended up putting faith in Jesus. My hope in this example, was to show how it took the Christian roommate to not be in a "bubble" but befriending and building trust with Orion. Orion has taken our "Intro to Christianity" class and is in process but excited about his new faith in Jesus.

I got into my usual "who are you friends with that is not a Christian?" and could you be in the "bubble" talk - and asked the question about prayer. Prayer shows our heart, so I asked the test of who are the names of those who do not know Jesus that you are regularly praying for? If we aren't regular praying for specific people - bluntly, it probably means we don't care about them and their salvation or we would at least take some time to pray. Or we may not take time in our lives to build friendships with people. I shared that I believe in heaven (yes, the Kingdom of heaven in this life and after this life) and I also said that I believe in a hell. Which means people will be spending eternity with God or without Him. We are going to be giving a sermon on hell in about a month. But I know I cannot sometimes sleep at night, thinking about people I care about and ponder their eternity. When we don't have relationships with people outside the church - real relationships - it is easy to sleep at night and get caught in our Christian bubble and not pray for them or take time with them. I fully know it is the Spirit who draws people to a conviction of sin and repentance, and I am not talking about having a Messiah complex. I am just talking about caring for people and praying for them."

See link for rest of the post .. especially the video clip at the beginning.