Dale Cresap's blog

Would you send a first grader to high school? You understand that such a child doesn’t have the background and isn’t prepared for instruction at this level. Yet do you begin evangelism with a presentation of the propositional truth claims of Christianity in general or your church in particular? Perhaps there was a time when the cultural background was strong enough to support such an approach, but that is no longer so.

Are you familiar with the problem of evil? Skeptics offer this as a challenge to believers, saying that if I am benevolent and all powerful, why is there pain and suffering in the world? This is a tricky question, but it can be answered with the problem of good in this manner: if I don’t exist and the world drifts according to random events, why is the world so favorable to life, and why has life flourished, with people replenishing and subduing the earth successfully? In the beginning I said that the world was good, and it still is.

Do you like stories? Everyone does, especially children. Parents discover quickly that their children like to hear the same stories over and over again. Do you have favorite stories of your own? Can you see that your own life plays out according to the stories you tell your self to make sense of your life and give it meaning and purpose? Are your stories true? Could another story be a better or more gracious interpretation of your situation, including the intentions and character of other people in your life?

 You live in a commercial culture and you have material needs. So you seek to find something useful to do that has an income attached. This is normal and expected whether you find satisfaction doing this or not. Hopefully you have some time and energy to devote to things you enjoy, but there is a third category as well. What do you do for others for which you do not require payment? This is beyond necessity, so it is a truer expression of your own identity. These are things that add meaning and purpose to your life. Freely you have received, freely give.

Do you see yourself as spiritual? Do you think everyone is? Not all are believers, but all are made in my image, and are spiritual on that basis. For this reason all have the basic concerns for a sense of identity, a need to belong to a community, and to lead a life of meaning and purpose. These are unavoidable questions that everyone faces, although some find better answers than others. Can you find answers in all three of these areas in one place? You can answer all of them in a church.

How do you describe the most powerful spiritual experiences of your life? Do you say that they are mountaintop experiences? When everyday experiences are wearing you down, how do you describe these experiences to others? Do you say that you are going through a valley? These are common expressions, but even a casual examination will reveal that people live in valleys and they don’t live on top of mountains. What is the conclusion to take away from this? If your faith is real it has to work in the everyday life you actually live. This is possible if you have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Do you love me? Do you love life? You live in a wonderful world I created for you and you experience my favor and blessing continually. What is the obvious and appropriate response? And yet you know Christians who are grumpy and sour. Haven’t I created the conditions for you to lead a life of joy and passion? If it is true that he who loves God should love his brother also, then it is also true that he who loves God should love life itself. It is okay to let your enthusiasm for life be visible and demonstrative.

Have you heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder? This implies that beauty is subjective. What about ugliness? Is that also in the eye of the beholder? There is more universal agreement on beauty than ugliness, for the tendency is to impute ugliness to those who are not like you, who are outside of your group, who hold different values and customs and manners. By this definition more people are ugly or not, but this is entirely subjective and context driven, and perhaps they feel the same way about you.

Where do you begin your spiritual journey? If you are raised in a church you may accept its doctrines as valid premises without question, but if you try to share your faith with others they may find that you are starting too far down the road for them to relate. You could start with the premise that everyone is spiritual because they are made in my image, whether they attend any church or profess any creed or not. People are basically constituted to live in relationship to the transcendent.

Have you ever looked for me? Where would you look? You know where your friends live by their addresses. Do I have an address? Jacob was surprised to find that I was in a random place where he spent the night. Will you find me in church? You can, but you can also hide from me there. Will you find me in the wilderness? If you look for me in the vast woods or plains or mountains you will find me there too. So what is the common theme here? I promised that the Kingdom of God was within you.