On Saturday, I sat on stage at my church and spoke to a small audience and online viewers about my new book, Come with me to Kathmandu. Since I was talking from a church, and my book is about Christians, I frequently dropped in expressions about how God had spoken to me and how he had performed miracles to rescue the women in the book. Sat directly in front of me as I shared about the book were some friends whose faith I’m not sure about. They don’t attend church, so did my crazy talk about God interacting with humans shock, intrigue, or amuse them?
You can watch the launch video here; the main action begins at 15:50.
Of course, much of my motivation for wondering what people think of my God-talk is driven by pride. I don’t want people to think I’m stupid, and I don’t want them to laugh at me. They may think I was duped and am caught up in some bizarre cult.
I’m sure I need to get over my pride, but this is a dilemma for any DislocatedChristian. We’re in the world but no longer of the world, and we want to talk about God, how great He is and what He has done for us, but we probably don’t want to appear ridiculous in front of our non-Christian friends. So what should we do?
For me, it helps to remember that I’m not the only one who describes God as interacting personally with them. Many others have experienced Him speaking to them and seeing Him work for good in their lives. There is integrity across all our stories, and God appears to have the same character and traits even when testimonies arise from entirely different parts of the world. This can’t be an accident. If we are consistent in how we talk about God, that has to be more convincing than the testimony of one crazy loon.
So, in short, I need you! If we all talk about our personal relationship with God (when it’s safe to do so), then either we’ll all be declared insane, or we’ll sound cohesive and rational as our stories point to the same loving God. My book is out there, it’s too late for me to be quiet, but I invite you to join me in telling the world what God is like. Let’s go crazy about God together.
My book is available on Amazon and Eden; I’d love for you to use it with your friends to encourage conversations about God.
DislocatedChristians exists to create and support a community of like-minded people. I’ve described myself as Dislocated because I sometimes struggle to understand how God wants me to be in the world, but not of the world. I also move house a lot!
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Just as we are each a work in progress, so too is DislocatedChristians. Sometimes I’ll get things wrong, and I hope you’ll forgive me and continue to stick around when that happens.
Dislocated Christians 