Leading People To Christ

[sithprincess]

I led some kids, but that was it. I doubt they stuck with it. I was always so shy (still am) that I didn't want to talk to people. So witnessing was a peak time of social anxiety for me. I always felt soooo guilty about it. I REALLY hated the few times the youth group did a door-to-door ministry. Thankfully that didn't last long. Ugh. There are really no words to express how much I hated that.

[Rosa Mystica]

I have an ex-best friend whose Catholic faith grew stronger as a result of being exposed to me. I wonder what he'd think of me three years later, being the type of person I used to denounce frequently in my conversations with him/ I'm not upset about having strengthened someone's Christian beliefs, though- at least it made him happy.

 

In the early stages of my relationship with atheist fh, I had hoped to convert him (didn't really have a chance to try, though). He made it clear to me that conversion attempts wouldn't work on him, so the idea was put out of my mind within less than a month. Kind of ironic that *I* was the one who ended up changing her worldview.

[blueheron]

DH and I grew up in xian homes. I was usually very involved in it, but it caused me lots of torment. I guess that was an early sign that even my child's logical brain couldn't make sense of a lot of that crap.

 

Happily, I am not directly responsible for the conversion of anyone, except I figure I did play a role in my husband's conversion. But I had thought he was xian all that time. And then when I caught the creation evangelism bug and started talking about it all the time, how there was "solid evidence to back up our faith", kind of crap, I guess it caused him to get serious about it. Then he came home from work one day and said he'd become a christian. I was pretty surprised.

 

Anyhoo, it was always embarassing to me as an xian that I didn't have "any stars in my crown". It wasn't that I didn't have a "burden for the lost" because boy did I ever! I am the type that if something is true, I'm going to go after it with gusto. And when I thought that crap was true about millions being lost to a fiery hell forever, it just broke me apart. I left those nasty Chick tracts everywhere and supported missions. I was jealous of those who seemed to lead people to kryast so easily.

 

Now I wish people would leave others alone. Missionaries go into other cultures and try to destroy their myths to replace them with the jebus myth. It's good to help the poor, but there's always that goal in the background, to convert. Leave people the fuck alone!

[sparkyone]

I'm glad I found this topic, because this is one of the things that led me out of the fundamentalist mindset. I've always been shy and not very good at making conversation with people, but I also took the message of our responsibility to the lost very seriously. I remember one incident very vividly around age 11 or 12 when I rode my bike to the bank drive-through to cash a check or something and offered a tract to the teller. She declined it in an unfriendly (at least it seeemed to me) way and I was so totally humilliated by it. It's as clear as if I were watching myself there right now. That was about 20 years ago. It continued with giving out tracts (including the Chick ones), or going visiting on Saturday morning. I really didn't like it but felt obligated.

I lived in Mexico for 5 years and for awhile didn't want to ride the public buses because I felt guilty for not handing out tracts to people on them. [some people from the Baptist church I attended would board buses just to hand tracts to all the passengers] I went through a few years of relative peace after I got married because we started attending a church after my second son was born where the emphasis was not on evangelizing. After we moved to a different state mainly because of the church here, it went well for awhile, but then I started feeling very guilty about not handing out enough tracts and scared to go to the grocery store, and a few other places. It was worse when a visiting evangelist would come for a week of "revival" meetings. The emphasis would be on inviting people to the meetings and I would feel "led" to call some of my cousins that I barely know to invite, and they never did come. Hardly anyone I invited came. I know of one person that I "led to the Lord" when we were about 5 and 6. We're still friends, but her parents took her out of the fundy church school we were in about 5 years later, and she never became a devoted fundy like I did. I'm ashamed to admit that a few years ago I considered ending our correspondence (it's long-distance) because of hearing teaching at church about having non-fundy friends being a bad thing. Back to how this helped lead me into a different mindset, I just couldn't stand it anymore, being so anxious and depressed and fearful, and started reading stuff online and rethinking the whole thing about hell and so on. I finally reclaimed my mental health (am still in the process) by rejecting the teachings of hell and other things. Occasionally I still wonder if it could be true, but I just am so sick of living with the guilt and false sense of responsibility. I still am not good at making friends or new acquaintances, but I'm taking college courses now and looking at getting a part-time job and I don't have the baggage of worrying if I can find a chance to witness to whoever it is I'm in contact with. Was mine a selfish motive? Perhaps, but I'm finding peace this way that I never had in the old way of thinking.

 

sparkyone

[Vigile]

Hi sparkyone,

 

Yep, nothing so freeing as being free from the one who promised to set you free.

 

Glad you can go through life without that bag of guilt anymore.

[LostOrFound]

Yes, unfortunately, I was involved in the conversion of many people including quite a few in middle school and high school. I run into some of them occassionally - they are very involved in church and are dumb-founded that I am now an atheist.

 

Even ran into a woman who was an agnostic (attended the local Unitarian church) when we were in school. She is now a devout believer and said that she remembers all the times I witnessed to her going all the way back to 7th grade. She apologized, saying that she had been quite cruel to me and disrespectful. I didn't remember that as I just saw her as a poor lost soul heading for hell. She said that she is now a believer and that I was the one that pointed her in the "right" direction - groan!

 

For some reason I didn't feel like getting into it with her so I just smiled and said, "I'm so happy for you" and went on my way. She did look very happy... oh well.