{"id":441,"date":"2013-05-29T09:21:12","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T07:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parowvallei-oos.co.za\/?p=441"},"modified":"2014-11-25T12:36:31","modified_gmt":"2014-11-25T10:36:31","slug":"10-ways-to-stop-feeling-guilty-your-friend-is-going-to-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parowvallei-oos.co.za\/?p=441","title":{"rendered":"10 WAYS TO STOP FEELING GUILTY YOUR FRIEND IS GOING TO HELL"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nby Brian Jones<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you’re tired of feeling guilty for not sharing your faith in Christ, this list might be for you.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Editor’s Note:<\/strong> This poignant satire by Brian Jones points out some of the ways we put evangelism in the backseat. We hope you’ll read it with the tongue-in-cheek voice that Brian intended. We also hope it will serve as a bold reminder to share the good news today. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Here\u2019s the easiest one: Stop being a part of a church that truly teaches the Bible.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Especially the parts that make you feel bad for the low number of times you have personally shared your faith. After all, the purpose of going to church is\u00a0just to make you feel good<\/em>. Right?<\/span><\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Find a church that makes you\u00a0feel like<\/em> you\u2019re doing evangelism, but never actually encourages you to do it.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Usually this falls under the heading of \u201cgetting involved in giving back to the community.\u201d Because that\u2019s why Jesus died on the cross. So we could \u201cgive back to the community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Never, under any circumstances,\u00a0pray for your non-Christian friends to accept Christ.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

At least not more than once. That would be creepy and fanatical.<\/span><\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Stop reading the gospels in your daily time with God.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jesus constantly talked about the afterlife, especially hell. Let\u2019s be honest: It\u2019s pretty tiring to have to keep shielding your eyes from\u00a0those<\/em>verses while hunting for the gems that talk about how you can be happy and successful.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Lie to yourself when you feel a twinge of guilt for not sharing your faith by repeating this phrase:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEvangelism is God\u2019s (and my pastor\u2019s) job. My job is to be a good example.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

6. Justify your lack of evangelism by telling yourself that you\u2019re\u00a0not <\/em>trying to\u00a0be like the creepy fundamentalists who come on too strong.<\/span><\/h2>\n

Like the nuts on Facebook or that crazy church who sent people to your door recently. Because in every other area of your life, of course, you stop doing important things because other people take things a little too far.<\/span><\/p>\n

7. Dabble in other religions.<\/span><\/h2>\n

Buddhists are cool. You don\u2019t have to believe in God and there are no hard demands made on your life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, keep your Christian \u201ccover\u201d (most of your friends are Christians, and, quite frankly, it\u2019s good for business contacts), but don\u2019t let the Christainity thing go to your head. It\u2019s all pretty much the same thing, right<\/em>?<\/span><\/p>\n

8. Stop being so deeply involved in your church.<\/span><\/h2>\n

And for the love of God,\u00a0stop giving<\/em> to your church. Let other people do that. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid.<\/span><\/p>\n

Money will eventually drop out of the sky to create and nurture ministries that build up believers and reach non-Christians. Other people will pay for the awesome stuff the church does for\u00a0your<\/em> kids.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let other people sacrifice. You spend that hard-earned money on yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

9. Every time the topic of hell comes up, mention the example of the poor, lonely native in a Third World country who’s never heard the gospel.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

And how it would be horrible if God sent that person to hell. Then make sure you add, \u201cThat\u2019s not the God I choose to believe in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Because as we all know, if there actually is a Creator, he\u2019s not intelligent enough to clearly communicate the way the world that he created\u00a0works. And he definitely won\u2019t mind if you \u201ccreate your own\u201d version of reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

10. Completely block out of your mind the scene of your friend standing before God on judgment day.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

And the fact that\u00a0when he or she looks back on all the time they spent with you, they\u2019ll wonder how in the world you justified\u00a0not doing everything within your power <\/em>to nudge them back toward God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, you talked about football, politics, golf and the Kardashian sisters. But talking about Jesus would have been out of line.<\/span><\/p>\n

I get it.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need that on your conscience. You have too much stress in your life as it is. Just block it all out. Turn\u00a0on some Jimmy Buffet. And stick to dreaming about your summer vacation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Know any other sure-fire ways to alleviate guilt for not evangelizing? Leave a comment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

1<\/strong><\/a> 2<\/strong><\/a> 3<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m the founding Senior Pastor of Christ\u2019s Church of the Valley in the suburbs of Philadelphia. In 13 years the church has grown from a small group in my home to over 2,000 incredible people. Before that I served in churches of 25 to 600 in attendance. I love church planters and pastors of smaller churches, and totally understand the difficult challenges they face as they try to help people find their way back to God.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

More from Brian Jones<\/a><\/em> or visit Brian at<\/em> brianjones.com<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.churchleaders.com\/outreach-missions\/outreach-missions-articles\/167788-brian-jones-stop-feeling-guilty-your-friend-is-going-to-hell.html?p=3<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Brian Jones \u00a0 If you’re tired of feeling guilty for not sharing your faith in Christ, this list might be for you. Editor’s Note: This poignant satire by Brian Jones points out some of the ways we put evangelism in the backseat. We hope you’ll read it with the tongue-in-cheek voice that Brian intended. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artikels"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/parowvallei-oos.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/parowvallei-oos.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/parowvallei-oos.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parowvallei-oos.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parowvallei-oos.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/parowvallei-oos.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parowvallei-oos.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parowvallei-oos.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parowvallei-oos.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}