It's no surprise that church people spend a lot of time doing church stuff. Some of it is to keep the church machine ticking over, some of it is called 'mission'. Sadly though, often a whole church of Christians can go a whole year without helping another adult become a follower of Jesus.So i was quite interested by Hayley's Challenge, which is essentially to ask a non-Christian "have you read the bible for yourself as an adult?" and offer an invite to read it with them. Hayley intends to complete the challenge 6 times by year's end (she seems to be a naturally ambitious person). I reckon once would be enough of a challenge for most of us.
Update 1: The people at Communicate Jesus designed a poster to advertise the giveaway of Luke's gospel.
Update 2: I've been thinking about this some more, and raised it with a couple of people. One person responded "i don't think there's anyone i could do that with". Fair enough, that might be the situation right now. But at some point it might be appropriate with someone you know now (or are yet to meet this year).
And i guess this is the challenge within the challenge. If you reckon it would never ever happen - why not? Don't we interact with people outside our faith-circle? Aren't we approachable people? Don't we live a life that (to some extent) reflects Jesus?
So the year might end before you find a reading buddy. No worries - that happens. But i reckon the point is to take a look at ourselves and discern whether we even allow the possibility to take place.
