[tcook4109]

I was an unbeliever for most of my life (I'm 53). Through out this time I was hit by christians who played the "you'll go to hell" card with me. All that did was make my belief that there is no hell stronger and push me further away from what I now consider the truth. I probably would of told anyone who said I was following satan, that I indeed was and was going to go home to send some demons after them. I know many, many people that feel that way when they are bombarded by christians who take that route. When I couple that with what I was seeing on the Christian television stations, it pushed me to the point of being anti-christian. Then I met this guy who was a youth leader and a guitar player in a christian band.
He invited me to sit in and play bass with him during one of the Wednesday
youth gatherings. When I saw all that energy and love coming out of 70 teenagers when we were playing, it really got me thinking that there must be something to this. I thought "these people are real and there must be something going on here that I should explore.

The point I'm trying to make is all the scare and pressure tacticsthat some well meaning christians use to try to share the word, just turn alot of people away. It takes understanding, nonjudgemental love and lifestyle examples.
The "I'm better than you because I'm a christian" never works.

[nbfan]

Well said. Pulling "you'll go to hell" on pretty much anyone also gives Christians a bad name.

[slappkid]

I think that it really takes love to minister, but it also takes faith. Faith that God really is the one changing the person, and that God's words, not ours is what really matters.

[Tmurrin]

So many people now dont believe in hell (or so they say) so coming from that side wouldnt work anyways. When we want to share the news of Jesus we have to be loving(as already said) and open to let Gods words flow through us. As it says in Isaiah 55:11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
We just plant the seed. But no the Your going to hell thing doesnt seem to work.

[Pauler]

Originally Posted by slappkid

I think that it really takes love to minister, but it also takes faith. Faith that God really is the one changing the person, and that God's words, not ours is what really matters.

good point

[live_it_live]

very few people(non christians) want to here anything about jesus until they see somone,something or feel something they like. a cool thing ive been seeing i that christian bands are pumping christian lyrics into non christians without them know! a positive message in a secular band(or so they think). kind of subliminal isnt it? what a great way to relate to somone to reach them a whole lot easyer.

[CTMusician91]

i agree with what some of you have said, becoming a christian is really scary, or just making a bigger comittment as a christian as well. i know it was for me. It was pretty much my best friend saying "do you have anything to do tonight, i want you to come to youth group with me" the next thing i knew i had gone on a retreat and it hit me fast that gods always going to be there and love me and everyone else as well. So my advice is to just let it go slow and not really just full out witness but small things like taking the person to events like youth groups and retreats, it makes a big difference.

[4stringaxeman]

Originally Posted by xxSparkOfLifexx

So today the chinese homegroup of our international church held an informal chinese new year celebration in one of the members' house. The main point of the whole event was to invite all unbeliever chinese to come and share the gospel with them. Since this was an informal event (i.e. you come, sit, have dinner and talk), I took my chinese classmate along. I was thinking to take her to this event as one of my ways showing her what christianity is, who Jesus is, how christians are like, etc, but didn't know what to say to her. Fortunately, she called me today just wondering how I was doing, so I did it. I invited her to come. She's enthusiastic about it since she had nothing to do that day (and there are free food). The only thing I said to her that time was that this event was organized by the chinese homegroup in our international church, so she knew that it's a "church" thing. So we came...

As you might have expected... everybody's curious about her since she's not a believer and started to talk to her about God and stuff, which is good by the way, but the impression she got was just... different. She didn't feel comfortable and wanted to leave as soon as we had dinner. I could sense that. I could sense that she's not comfortable and I was worried about her all the time. I worried about every single detail, about whether something they said to her would hurt her, whether something they said would be too difficult for her to understand as unbeliever. I remember someone said, "If you didn't believe in God, you're under the influence of satan" --> which would say that you're a satan follower, which were true ... because there're only two possibilities. If you're not with God then you're with satan. Things like that. You know the typical thing that a christian does to convince an unbeliever that God is real.. and that they often try too hard that it has exactly the opposite effect.

To make it short.. yes, we left early (she's my guest, so I left with her). On our way back home, I asked her whether she felt weird being there. She said yes. "Everybody wants to talk to me about God and I don't like it. They're scary in some way." Short, powerful and painful. I didn't try to talk her into the whole christian and God thing anymore after that. I thought to myself, "This has been a harsh day on you, I won't burden you anymore."

What's wrong with me? Shouldn't I suppose to clarify everything? But there's not much to clarify since everything's been said is true, only not quite wise (according to my human mind).

What's wrong with christians?

Why are we so scary to unbelievers?

when non believers are under conviction of the Holy spirit scares them. you just keep planting seeds and let God do the watering.