While I was posting my series on Christian Nominalism in Europe, I ran across a post from Tim Keller about nominal Christians on his Redeemer City to City blog site. Dr. Keller founded and pastors Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, and is especially noted for his skill in helping skeptics understand faith in Jesus Christ.
Here’s the link to his blog post – it would be great to read the whole post: Questions for Sleepy and Nominal Christians. I’d like to share the end of his article here:
So how do you wake up sleepy Christians and convert nominal Christians? Let me give you what I would call my modernized American versions of the kinds of questions I would ask people if I was trying to get them to really think about whether or not they know Christ. These questions are adapted from The Experience Meeting by William Williams, based on the Welsh revivals during the Great Awakening. He would ask people to share about these types of questions in small group settings each week:
How real has God been to your heart this week? How clear and vivid is your assurance and certainty of God’s forgiveness and fatherly love? To what degree is that real to you right now?
Are you having any particular seasons of delight in God? Do you really sense his presence in your life, sense him giving you his love?
Have you been finding Scripture to be alive and active? Instead of just being a book, do you feel like Scripture is coming after you?
Are you finding certain biblical promises extremely precious and encouraging? Which ones?
Are you finding God’s challenging you or calling you to something through the Word? In what ways?
Are you finding God’s grace more glorious and moving now than you have in the past? Are you conscious of a growing sense of the evil of your heart, and in response, a growing dependence on and grasp of the preciousness of the mercy of God?
Put together, that is a growing understanding of grace.
I think these questions fit well with the strategy I outlined in my posts. They also fit with the idea that “God is carrying on a conversation with every person on the planet” – paradigm shifting words for me from one of my professors, Dr. Reggie McNeal.
What do you think? Do the questions fit with a strategy that revolves around the Word, life-on-life witness, obedience-based discipleship, relationship and community, in the power of the Holy Spirit? Do they speak to your heart?
Missions in Europe 