What's Next?

Eventually, if you talk to enough people, and you pray and keep following God, you'll probably help someone else to come closer to the Lord, too. Even it takes you a while before you get someone who makes a new decision to follow Christ who wasn't previously a believer, you can still encourage other believers. And, you can overcome objections from non-believers. You can form relationships with those who are not followers of Christ and use that relationship to strengthen the impact of your witness. But, what will your journey look like as you are following Christ? What does growth in your relationship with Christ look like? That's the subject of a new book I recently finished reading by Bill Delvaux called, "Landmarks: Turning Points on Your Journey Toward God "

 

When I preach and witness to people, they ask me all sorts of questions such as, "If it is a sin to have sex outside of marriage, was I sinning when I was raped?" People frequently ask about suicide, homosexuality, drugs and alcohol, too. Many of these are hot button issues that a person can get used to talking to people about. The answers come easier with time, but I never know what the next question will be. So, by witnessing to others, I'm constantly being pushed forward in my pursuit of God. When I don't go out witnessing, I can become complacent. However, as long as I'm ministering to others, I have to keep moving forward myself, or I won't be able to keep helping other people. So, I can keep growing, even though I'm often pretty content (as far as I'm concerned) with where I'm at, because I need to keep learning more answers so that I can be ready when the next tough question comes.

So, you can imagine how excited I was to find Bill's book about Landmarks: it deals with a whole host of issues that were new to me. He gives perspectives on things I've never considered. Not only that, but he speaks from a vantage point further along in his journey that I am, and illustrates his material with easy to grasp comparisons to well known movies. His delivery is gentle, personal and authentic. He gives methods of explaining difficult concepts that will help me to speak to others about difficult subjects in a kind and gentle way. His nine landmarks (milestones of a Christian's development) are as follows: Story, Idols, Wounds, Sex, Identity, Battle, Bond, Mate and Quest. Now, when I first read those, I had no idea how those could be "milestones" in the development of anyone...but boy are they! Although this is a memoir, it is also a guidebook, and it has a lot of "story"...not that it is a novel, but rather you get to see the development of several characters through little vignettes about them and through comparisons (as stated before) to movies.

I might have to re-write this at some point, because I don't feel like my words are doing his book justice, but for now, trust me. Bill uses suspense and word pictures to draw the reader into the book. Some of his comparisons even have some humor. This is a great book and I intend to refer back to it multiple times. This book has lots of deep thoughts and I expect I'll really have to consider it over time to get everything out of it that I can. If you'd like to get a copy of it yourself, you can do so here.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, so I could make a few cents off it if you decide to buy through my links. If that bothers you, get it through Amazon without using my links. Either way is fine with me, as my goal is to see the kingdom of God advanced, and the more people who are looking for ways to do that the better off we’ll all be. God bless you in your efforts to do that! :-)

How Dracula Can Help your Preaching

Do you ever have to work at coming up with topics to preach on?  You may well not be a pastor, but you might still want to be able to share the gospel with people, (or maybe you just like vampires!) and if you have new ideas on how to do that, it will make it easier to keep engaging those around you. So, here’s a new idea for you: copy Dracula! (the book, not the villain) I know that sounds like an odd thing to recommend, but here’s what I mean. We all know that when we want to become better at something, one way to do that is to copy those who are the best at it. Bram Stoker’s book, Dracula, is one of the greatest horror stories we have.  On the one hand, the Bible tells us that “God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2Ti 1:7) So, I’m not trying to get you to be afraid. However, the Bible also tells us, “The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do [his commandments]…” (Psa 111:10)  The second part of Proverbs 1 is written as being from the voice of wisdom and ends with the words, “but whoever listens to me [wisdom] will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.” So, it will be of great use to our audiences if we can bring them the fear of the Lord. I’m not saying that all our time should be spent trying to make people afraid. Rom 2:4 says, “…the goodness of God leads to repentance.” So, our preaching has to be balanced. But, people love to read about villains they love to hate, otherwise, Dracula would not have been so successful (as a book). So, how can Dracula be useful to us in our efforts to teach people the fear of the Lord? First of all, he sticks in your mind, as your words to people about the Lord should. Another thing about Dracula that makes him a great villain is that he is obviously bad. One of the biggest hurdles we face when trying to evangelize is that people don’t actually see sin as being bad. The book, Dracula, shows us how to make things that are bad appear as being bad. Jonathan Harker, the main character aside from Dracula himself, doesn’t really understand what Dracula is for the first several chapters. And yet, he is still subject to mounting fear. One of the biggest things that bothers him about his situation is the isolation. He is all alone in a castle where his only companion is his captor. Why is he all alone? Although I didn’t get this part from the book, sin and evil isolate us. Sin breaks our relationships with those around us and with God. Thus, it is natural that Dracula must be largely alone. That’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed reading some ways that fiction can be used to strengthen our message about the most real subject there is: God.

Tell me what you think. I’d love to read your reactions to my ideas.