BitterSweetLife

First day back on the subbing beat. After an easy hour spent "teaching math," I'm taking my planning period in the library. At the computer next to me is a dude hunched over his keyboard, eyes six inches from the monitor, wearing headphones and humming tunelessly. I stuck myself with an IV this morning to get the coffee into my bloodstream fast enough, so I'm slightly strung out on caffeine. With the tone deaf dude, my coffee buzz, and the frigid AC in the library, this seems like a good moment to think about interesting, slightly surreal ideas.

In the class he's teaching on emerging church, Mark DeVine recently made the comment that God is so thrilled when believers make any kind of attempt to communicate the gospel to people that he overlooks outlandish and silly techniques, and sometimes even uses them to point people to Jesus. In one sense, this is an idea without a lot of application, because we're not going to start wearing sandwich boards, FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME, and yelling verses at people, hoping that God will use our stupidity--because he can. It does help, however, to remind us that God wants compassionate hearts like the one beating in Jesus' chest, and the next killer ap evangelism technique will not be the defining factor in the world's salvation.

Hypothetically, I could turn to the guy next to me, who is now chuckling at a private joke while he hums, and interrupt his funky solo to ask, "Hey,if you were to die tonight...?" I'm not going to do it. But suppose I was moved by compassion, and that kind of evangelism was the only kind I knew. Would God shake his head in frustration? Probably not. So we should also hope that humans who are better versed in communicating biblical truth in today's context will not sneer at people who are still devoted to the tools of the previous decades.

We can try and bring them around, and demonstrate better ways to share and disciple, but God uses silliness of all kinds, even our particular brand--so we should distinguish between criticism and contempt.