Why Am I a Christian?

My husband does the bulletin for church each week. We are trying to emphasize evangelism a lot. He put a section in the bulletin for people to "Testify" and tell others why they are a Christian. He asked me to write the first one.

There are a lot of things that go into the fact that I am a Christian. And I change and grow all of the time, especially since I began my degree in Bible. But I was thinking about it, and trying to put my finger on the reason I am a Christian. And that, I can do. I can put my finger on one person who, if it had not been for her, I would most likely not know Christ, much less be a Christ-follower. Here is the article that I wrote:


"Why am I a Christian? For me, it began when I was just three weeks old. My parents were not (and still are not) faithful Christians. They live a lifestyle that is contrary to Christianity in nearly every way. But for me, it was a grandmother. A grandmother who loved me, and saw the need for me to have God in my life. When I was just three weeks old, she began to keep me on Saturday nights, and she brought me to church every week. She allowed the influence of God and Christianity to come into my life. Even if I only saw the influence from Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon. Even if every other influence in my life was completely contrary to that weekly 24 hour period. And it made the difference. It made EVERY difference. Her influence led to the influence of some really great Spiritual giants. Friends, teachers, youth ministers, etc. I probably would not even know my husband if it had not all began when I was three weeks old. And I certainly would not know Christ.

Every Christian was influenced and led to Christ by someone. Who was it for you? And who will you influence and lead?"
-Hannah Burleson


One thing to think about is the fact that there are many other influences on my Christian walk aside from my grandmother. But the point is, she planted the seed and many others watered. And to God be the glory, He is helping me to stretch and grow all of the time. But I can put my finger on that one person who started the process in me. Each of us can be the one to start that process in someone else. Each Christian has the power of one. Don't underestimate your influence. Be empowered by it through God.

There is power in one.

1% of Churches in America are Growing

In one of the classes I am taking, I heard some statistics that shocked me. Did you know that of the churches in America (denominations included) only 15% are growing? And 14% of those 15% are only swelling? Swelling just means that the growth is from people who are “church-hopping” and from growth in numbers due to births, as opposed to growth due to actual evangelism and saving of lost souls. Only 1% of churches are TRULY growing. Not dying. Not swelling. But growing. Just 1%. I knew that it had to be pretty low. But I just didn’t realize that it was really THAT bad!

I don’t understand it. I am led to ask so many questions by these startling statistics. For one, I wonder, are we REALLY Christians? I mean, if we really were, wouldn’t we be UNABLE to keep from telling other people about Christ? Wouldn’t our lives be changed to such a degree that others wanted to know how they could get what we’ve got?

These statistics are very eye-opening. Christians have become entirely too comfortable. We’ve gotten so comfortable, in fact, that we have fallen into a very deep and dangerous sleep. One that, in too many cases, is becoming a permanent sleep. Christians are, without even realizing it, dying.

If we don’t wake up now, what is going to happen?

It looks to me like the only thing that will wake up Christians in America is going to have to be total loss of religious freedom and is going to require real persecution. Because think about it. Christians have already begun to lose some freedoms. Prayers are not allowed in schools. It’s no longer “politically correct” to say “Merry Christmas,” but instead we should say “Happy Holidays.” And these are only the tip of the iceberg.

Still, Christians are asleep.

What will it take?

When I referred to real persecution a minute ago, I didn't mean that your friends point fingers and laugh. I didn't mean that you don't get invited to a party because you are a Christian. What I meant was torturing and killing of Christians. Will it take the literal killing of Christians? I’m afraid if we don’t wake up soon, that’s exactly where America is heading. And at first, it’s scary. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if that’s not EXACTLY what we need to happen. Maybe then Christianity won’t just be a fad or a social scene anymore. Maybe then, the “nominal Christians” will finally stop destroying the name of Christ and doing more damage than they are good, and the true Christians will finally step up. Maybe persecution is what we need to finally wake us up. And I’m becoming convinced that the church is going to be able to do more at that point than it could even begin to do in the situation we are in now. Because right now, only 1% is actually growing. And while I haven’t done the research to know this for sure, my guess would be that the majority of that 1% probably doesn’t have a “Church of Christ” sign out front. In fact, my guess is that the majority of those are probably community churches.

Come on Christians. Where are you? WAKE UP! Don’t you realize what is happening? Do you even care? Do you really love Christ like you claim to? Going to church 3 hours a week and hearing the Bible doesn’t make you a Christian. And it doesn’t make you an evangelist. It makes you nothing more than a hearer. And James 1:22—25 says “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing."

Stop deceiving yourself into thinking that if you go to a church building for 3 hours a week and listen to someone talk about spiritual things makes you a Christian. And stop deceiving yourself into thinking that inviting someone else to do that same thing is evangelism. If that’s what you think, you are in for a rude awakening.

Just some food for thought. Only 1% of Churches in America are actually growing. Chew on it, and if you are serious about Christianity, maybe you’ll actually begin to do something about it.


(DISCLAIMER: I think I sounded “preachy” at times here. I am not talking only to “you.” I am pointing the finger at myself just as much. Because I absolutely have been guilty of these things as well.)

Expectations.

We all have them. Sometimes they are completely legitimate. Sometimes they are completely realistic. Unfortunately, there are a lot of times where they are completely unrealistic. And it's unrealistic expectations that, if not recognized, can cause a lot of problems.

I don't know as much about psychology as I would like to. But I do know that we all enter into situations and scenarios with certain expectations of how things should go, and how we should be treated.

A prime example that I can't help but use here is marriage. Two people enter into marriage with different expectations. And a lot of different variables go into creating those expectations. It may be the person's past/background. It may be the religious environment the person was raised in. But one huge factor that I think often goes unrecognized is the media and culture we live in.

Think about it. A lot (if not all) of the problems in a marriage come from unmet expectations. Some of which are not even fair expectations because they may actually be impossible to meet. Because they are unrealistic.

A really good example of this is the way that our culture and the media treats sex. Think about it. It's all over the place. Commercials, movies, television shows, billboards, food advertisements, drug and alcohol advertisements. Our media makes sexual references with nearly everything. And the false expectations our media creates about sex has the same effect that, I dare to say, pornography creates.

Consider a husband who is suffering with an addiction to pornography. He is feeding his mind with images that are not realistic. The average American woman weighs between 145 and 160, and wears a size 12. But you never see the "average" woman in media. You only see the small percentage of women who have the "perfect" body. And a lot of the time, these women's features are fake; they've been manipulated using computers and other technology. And so, the women these men are seeing are not even real. They are fake. And when the man is intimate with his wife, she will never meet his expectations. Because they are not realistic.

The media has a very similar effect to the one pornography has. Sex and sexuality is put on such a high pedestal in this society that young Christians who have remained pure enter into marriage expecting something completely unreal. And what happens? Someone in that marriage relationship is disappointed. And someone in that relationship is left wondering if something is missing here. And Satan has a breeding ground for temptation. He can try and deceive the couple of so many lies. He can try and get one partner to believe his/her expectations would be met with a different partner. He can lead the other partner to believe he/she is ugly or undesirable or does not have the ability to meet the partner's needs.

But nothing is missing. The expectations were never realistic in the first place. And this seems to be the root of a lot of problems. A husband expects his wife to cook all of the meals and do all of the dishes. She doesn't. Disappointment. And wife expects her husband to bring home flowers spontaneously. He doesn't. Disappointment. It goes on and on.

I think one way to improve this problem is for people to just recognize expectations for what they are. If a couple expects marriage to be a certain way and it's not, they need to evaluate their expectations. And decide why these were the expectations. And figure out if they were even fair and realistic or not. Once we can realize this, we can finally be on our we to resolving the whole problem and living the fulfilling life we hoped we would have.

So think about your life right now. What problems are you experiencing? Can you trace those problems back to unmet expectations? I hope that reading this will help you be on your way to resolving some of your problems.

Are We Guilty of "Quenching the Spirit"?

The Holy Spirit has been all but forgotten in the churches of America. At least, this is the bold statement that Brother Francis Chan makes in his book, Forgotten God. Not to say that there is no one in America who walks by the Spirit. I think there certainly are some who do. But I think it is safe to say that we have not always given Him the credit He is due. That we have been guilty of “quenching the Spirit,” which is actually a sin. 1 Thessalonians 5:19 says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” If you’re looking for a direct command, there it is. Have we been guilty? I think we have.

There are probably several reasons we have “quenched the Spirit.” I think one would have to be that we are afraid to say much on the subject because of how debated it has been in the past. Another reason would have to be because of the human tendency to go the extreme opposite. When people begin to kill their babies in microwaves and claim “the Spirit led me,” there is definitely something terribly wrong. And we don't want to be accused of being crazy like those people. So we ignore the existence of the Spirit. While we certainly don’t want to be that extreme, we are not to deny the existence and the power and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus told His apostles that it would be better to have the Holy Spirit than to have Him there in the flesh. John 16:7, “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper (Holy Spirit) will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you.” The passage goes on to tell what the Helper will do. He will: 1) Convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment, 2) Guide the apostles into all truth.

I do not claim to know much about the working of the Holy Spirit. And I want to be so careful about what I do say. And I don’t claim that what I do say the Holy Spirit does are the ONLY things He does, because I don’t have a comprehensive knowledge of the Spirit. I only write now to share a few thoughts that I have. I think it is absolutely Scriptural to say that the Holy Spirit dwells in Christians, that he pricks hearts about things regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment, and that he guides us into living out the will of the Lord in our lives. Exactly how He does all of these things, I cannot explain. But somehow, I know that He does. Sometimes, when I am making an important decision, I will pray a lot about it. And there are times when I feel like my heart is tugged or nudged toward a certain decision. Whether this is the Spirit or not, I like to believe that is has to be. And when this happens, I have to follow it, because I have to trust that I am walking by the Spirit and that God is in control.

When considering these things, I began to think about the generation before me. The generation who was all about the Scientific Method, forms, formulas, patterns, lists, etc. That generation liked to wrap everything up in a nice, neat package. While this is useful at times, I think that it has, at least in some ways, been destructive. Maybe this is why so many today do not give credit to the Spirit, much less walk by the Spirit. Because the Spirit cannot be reduced to a simple formula.

Think about it. We have “5 Acts of Worship”. If we check each one off of our list, we have officially “worshiped.” We have “5 Steps to Salvation.” If we check each one off of our list, we are officially “saved.” (Personally, I don’t care to use these teaching methods. But I was certainly taught them growing up.) With formulas, a + b = c. And nothing changes it. No exceptions. You always know that if you do this and this, you get this. You always know what your outcome will be.

While cute little formulas and lists can be helpful for head-knowledge, I think it is wrong to try and reduce Christianity and faith as a whole down to a simple formula. It is dangerous to think we can take God-things and make simple formulas and packages and boxes. God is too vast to be approached in such a manner.

A big part of having faith is not always being able to see the outcome, but trusting that God is in control of it. There is no formula for walking by the Spirit. Not one that we could ever figure out, anyway. Only God knows the outcome! But I think in our attempts to simplify everything into a little package have caused people to fear walking by the Spirit, in faith. Because we can’t put our finger on the outcome. And we like our comfort zones more than we like to admit. It’s not comfortable to make a move without knowing for sure that it will turn out the way we hope. But real, hard-core faith will REQUIRE us to get out of our comfort zones.

When it comes to walking by the Spirit, there isn’t a certain way to do it. There is no a + b = c. But that doesn’t mean we can’t trust God and do it. That’s just a part of faith.

So be real in your faith. Walk by the Spirit, even if it isn’t comfortable. It’s too dangerous to reduce God to the easy, simple things.