Study: Churchgoers Say Sharing Faith Essential, Many Never Do

 

A study shows that believers aren’t sharing their belief with others?

Back when I was “on fire for Christ,” I shared the message and successfully prayed the sinners prayer with two different people, a girlfriend and a drug-addict friend.

The drug addict has passed away and the girlfriend took faith to oingo boingo land.

But if I had contact with either one of them, I would apologize for pushing silly beliefs in things unseen on them. If there’s one thing I regret, it’s listening to those who told me that Jesus was a good thing.

Hey guys, Jesus isn’t such a great guy after all. I mean, some of his actions were, but the all around gospel message … not so much.

I don’t mind seeing that believers aren’t sharing their faith. Faith should be personal. And it shouldn’t be a high-pressure event like sales. The dynamic of hell is excruciatingly silly.

People don’t need Christ. They need a friend. A real friend they can touch and feel. One who listens, cries with and laughs with them.

About the study:

A majority of churchgoers in the U.S. believe that it’s essential to share their faith with non-believers, but a large number of those are not doing so, according to a recent study of American Protestants conducted by LifeWay Research.

“When it comes to discipleship, churchgoers struggle most with sharing Christ with non-Christians,” says LifeWay spokesperson Jon D. Wilke.

The study found that 80 percent of those who attend church one or more times a month believe they have a personal responsibility to share their faith, but 61 percent have not told another person about how to become a Christian in the previous six months.

The research project focused on measuring spiritual maturity in individuals and revealed eight biblical attributes consistently evident in the lives of maturing believers. Of those eight, “Sharing Christ” has the lowest average score among Protestant church attendees, according to LifeWay.

Three-quarters of churchgoers say they feel comfortable in their ability to effectively communicate the Gospel, while 12 percent say they don’t feel comfortable telling others about their faith.
Read on

 

Tina and the Passion Story

Tina is passionate about the Passion Story … you know, the Passion of the Christ, made hugely famous by Mel Gibson and no one else.

I was flipping channels last night waiting for the commercial break to end on the famous Family Guy episode when Peter turns gay during an experiment for science.

I flipped on the Christian Broadcast Network, which was showing Mel Gibson’s version of that brutal love story. Jesus was getting the shit kicked out of him — albeit quite passionately — just as he was handing over the cross to be carried by Simon the Cyrene.

“Look!” I said. “Jesus is showing you how much he loves you.”

“I’d rather have you fart on my face than watch this,” said Tina.

I laughed harder than when I watched this video of collected Family Guy flatulence seen below.

Facts, dear friends, are irrelevant

Image via: bentobjects (click image to visit site, really cool!)

Yesterday, my friend Daniel wrote a post about how, now that Vladimir Putin is president of Russia, there are passages of scripture that predict the end of the world will be issued in by a relationship between Russia and Iran.

He wrote, “Knowing this I want to keep my eyes on Christ because biblical prophecy is being fulfilled right at this moment. He is the “ONLY WAY” to the Father in heaven! All our peace and hope is in Christ Jesus!”

He recommended that everyone read Ezekiel 38 and 39 for the facts of the end times. Because in Ezekiel 38 and 39, there’s a word Rosh, which he explained means “Russia.”

Now I’m not Jewish, but I know that the Hebrew word for Rosh means something other than Russia.

I mean, do Jewish people celebrate “Russia Year” at Rosh Hashanah or “Russia Month” at Rosh Chodesh?

I don’t think so.

Rosh means “Head” or chief. When Jewish people celebrate Rosh Hashanah, they are celebrating the head of the year. Or new year.

So I wrote back to Daniel explaining that.

Well, shit got ugly. Daniel’s fiancée Molly jumped into defend him, and she explained that the crux of Daniel’s message was that people should follow Jesus.

And I questioned, quite facetiously, doesn’t the crux of the message lose credence if facts are not used in the entire message?

She told me to go fly a kite.

I told her to read a book and do some research.

Maybe not that succinctly.

I screen cap’d a lot of the conversation, and I’ll put it below the fold for your reading pleasure. The problem is I failed to grab the last bit, which was her response to telling her she needed to learn more about Judaism.

She said something like, “I don’t need to learn more. All I know is Jesus is LORD, and that’s all I need.”

But wouldn’t you know it, the post has been removed.

The delete button has been engaged.

A new, improved post has replaced it. It’s been slightly revised with new information. I’ll put that one down there, too.

I honestly thought this ignorance was going extinct.

Between Charles Worley and people who repeat the writings of Tim LaHaye as if fact, I’m not sure believers care anymore. Can’t more be done on the part of the rest of you to help these fledgling, ignorance-loving, psycho-babblers out?

I’m not impressed.

The stupid … it burns so bright, I gotta wear shades.

Remember the parable of the ultimatum … I love that one

I have a “friend” named Brian on Facebook who posted this graphic that reads, “I support helping the needy. I oppose funding the lazy.”

You can see the resulting flame war declaration from me and our conversation.

In Brian’s defense, he posts just about anything from hardly reputable sources that supports his hate and disgust for the Obama-lead presidency. So this post isn’t a stretch.

There’s an unwritten ultimatum there, though. There is a cast of judgement. There is an understanding of Jesus’ message, but with a huge caveat that basically excuses Brian, and those who think like him, from actually sticking their necks out for the needy.

Just like you gotta believe in Christ or else you’re hellbound. It’s right up the Christian alley. You gotta do something before I do something for you.

Before I decided on atheism, this was not the way I read the Bible or understood the theology. It was not what I was taught. And for all the weird stuff, the things that made the most sense were living in a way that promoted human decency, compassion and benevolence.

The message of Christ was one of incredible, undeserving grace. The idea that I was so rotten and awful, but Christ loved me anyway, without question. And that is how we are to love others.

That is, of course, in theory.

In reality, Christianity places a shitload of requisites on recipients of grace. You have to fit a mold. You can only be filthy to a point for Christians (Christ’s literal followers) before you can receive support.

So if you’re lazy, drugged up, and an alcoholic, that’s too filthy for me to help so keep searching asshole!

This is part of many reasons that I don’t believe anymore. I was tired of standing up for values that didn’t reflect the ideologies that we were taught.

Teach one thing, behave another way.

Not cool. Not cool at all.

 

 

Crossing the 13-year-old threshold

Can anyone of you women — who grew up in the Christian tradition — talk about the feeling you had when faced with the idea that God chose a 13 or 14-year-old middle eastern, pre-Muslim era girl to impregnate with himself and he didn’t choose you?

Did you secretly want this for yourself?

I don’t believe in miracles, but if that really happened, how was it that those back-woods, middle eastern, death-loving desert hicks didn’t take Mary out and stone her when they found out she was pregnant?

I guess if you believe in miracles, just shove that in the same box.

On that same note, the tradition teaches that God — born where livestock eats and poops — is supposed to devour your entire concept of majesty. Jesus lived around and taught mainly the common folk. The eye of the needle is a clear concept. And yet, the focus of so many churches throughout history is opulence and grandeur. See Soloman to medieval Catholic churches all the way to super-mega-Churches today.

The message is this: God says greatness and godliness is being poor, self-less, and miraculous to the needy are the most important things to him.

And his followers gather together and in beautiful unison, they sing out, “Fuck that.”

Whelp, it’s Easter. Happy Easter, everybody

Easter Dust Bunnies

There are more updates on Facebook celebrating the risen savior than I care to count this morning. I’m friends with lots of nonbelievers, too, so there are some snarky ones like,

Tomorrow we celebrate the holiday where this Jesus guy comes out of his tomb and if he sees his shadow we still have six more weeks of winter.

Joe My God published a couple Easter posts including a painting of Christ on the cross with the word “Faggot” over his head. The artist has been getting lovely death threats from lovely believers who lovingly write responses like this one:

Some say we should pray for such deviants. I say it would be refreshing to execute Ms. Cherry but, only after she has been forced to watch her entire family be tortured to death.

To which one of Joe My God’s evil, gay, hell bound readers posted this:

Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta has been posting some Easter related info too. I’m not going to link to all of them, but if you go there today or soon, you can check them all out.

This picture and story stood out:

The Rock, a community church in Conway, South Carolina, has a special treat for families this Easter weekend:

So whether you believe a virgin-born man-god came to Earth two thousand years ago and suffered death so that you could be saved from all the sins that other people think or normal, life experiences, or whether you don’t believe that … Happy Easter.

Might the season of spring, rebirth and rejuvenation bring you new perspectives, fresh ideas and much success.

 

 

Hmmph, that’ll be the day!

This Newsweek cover with a youth-paster looking Jesus reads, “Forget the church. Follow Jesus.” (by Andrew Sullivan).

Can someone please wake me up when people start doing that? It’d be fantastic.

And I’m not talking about the stuff that Christians complain are things they fall short for. I’m talking helping the poor and needy.

Don’t hesitate to disturb me when they make wine from water and multiply some fish. That’d be AWESOME.

Matthew 10:34 should read, I didn’t come to bring peace, but heavy artillery

On Saturday night, Tina and I shot a beautiful event packed with glamourous people eating gorgeous food and tasty drinks.

As I’m going through the film, I stopped on this image (click to enlarge image above) of a guy preparing plates of food. I noticed his forearm covered in ink. I looked closer and noticed it was a heavenly-looking Jesus icon holding some mega-life-altering artillery.

You could probably take out airplanes with that machine gun.

Steve P. could probably identify the exact kind of weapon it is. He might even told us he shot one yesterday with his friends.

Honk.

For those of you who don’t know Matthew 10:34 (through 37), here it is for your viewing pleasure taken way out of context by yours truly:

 ³⁴ “Do not think that I came to bring peace to the earth. I didn’t come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword. ³⁵ I have come to turn
” ‘sons against their fathers.
Daughters will refuse to obey their mothers.
Daughters-in-law will be against their mothers-in-law.

³⁶ A man’s enemies will be the members of his own family.’ —(Micah 7:6)

³⁷ “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸ And anyone who does not pick up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹If anyone finds his life, he will lose it. If anyone loses his life because of me, he will find it.

Put it like that, and I’m for biblical marriage, too!

I saw this marriage graphic getting all kinds of “likes’ on Facebook.

Stop me if you’ve seen it.

I’m personally drifting toward “Man + Wives + Concubines” myself. Wouldn’t sex with multiple hot partners be awesome!

And taking care them all … a flatulent breeze!

This is seriously what has always come to mind with yahoos say they fight for the biblical, traditional view of marriage.

No they don’t. They vote for the view of marriage that makes the least sense.

Speaking of sex, click to enlarge … the image to read it better.

Pat Robertson still hasn’t read the bible, but he loves him some Tebow

Despite Yeshua’s own words about public displays of faith, Pat Robertson defies his very stand, and pompously announces Tebow is a role model for believers.

Forget Yeshua, the Christ figure. His influence = hogwash.

Tebow is the real Christ. One we can touch and smell.

And boy, does Tebow stink!

Via