Monday, April 20, 2009 How to Avoid Social Encounters With Church People

We've been getting some search engine hits at encounterhelena.org from people trying to find out "How to Avoid Social Encounters With Church People."

I typed it into Google myself and the Encounter Helena blog came up second. Who would have thought?

I'm not surprised, really. One major obstacle to people encountering Jesus is Christians themselves (see They Like Jesus But Not The Church).

At Encounter, we want to free people to encounter Jesus instead of building walls and creating obstacles. We want to be a "burning bush" — something extraordinary that catches peoples' attention and draws them in — so that they can hear the voice of God.

We believe that in order to reach people that no one is reaching, you have to do something that no one is doing. Yes, it's dangerous. But Jesus didn't die to make us safe, He died to make us dangerous!

So just as we seek to engage our culture by developing real, authentic, and trusting friendships with others — I am pleased that when people are trying to "avoid social encounters with church people" they might find us.