How should I tell others?

So leading up to the next session things have been fairly
similar to last week with little changes. I have been still not reading the
bible or any other Christian based text for that matter. I am still just
recovering from the incident 10 days earlier. It really did me a lot of harm
and I guess it shocked me so much that it has taken me a long time to get back
onto an even keel. However i have started picking up my guitar and am now
playing again which is really good. I have done a few songs and now maybe have
a few that I can play. It is great to be getting better. To be fair I probably
couldn’t be much worse than I was but I have really got sore fingers now from
playing.

The thing that I keep thinking about is with all of the
choices of music that are around that I could play I spend the majority of my
time playing Christian music which is strange. Especially as i haven’t given my
life to God. I continually get this nagging feeling that I am going to discover
at some point that the reality is that I am going to look back and go when did
that happen.

For the time being though I am going to look forward at what
I am going to do next and see what the next week hold. So the next one in the
series continues with How and why should I tell others?

My initial thoughts on this was How and why should I tell others what? That I
am attending an Alpha course? Or that I have become a Christian. Well I haven’t
done the latter so I guess I would have to stick with the first of these. Well
for me it was easy, I just said to people I am going to have an explore and go
and find out more than I knew at the moment. I said I was just curious and
people have gone good on you, go see what you can find out. I am really pleased
with the response that I have had.

I have had people ask me about it and what it is like, which
I think is interesting. I didn’t tell them with that intent I was just saying
what I was doing.

At 5:15 in the evening I am at Edinburgh Airport late to
take off on a flight to Gatwick. By 7:45 I am sat in the Alpha room watching
the video, 1 hour from Gatwick. How is that for commitment, don’t ask me how I
did it, but I did not break the speed limit at all. Petrol is too expensive to
do that. I just pretty much jumped on the bus and ran.

So to the evening now. Again it is focusing on the fact that
you have already made the leap into being a Christian which if you haven’t got
there makes it a bit of a strange topic. I guess this is a topic that I am
surprised is within the boundaries of the Alpha course as to me this doesn’t
seem to be a topic that will empower you to find out what the whole thing is
about. I think the course as a whole gets little benefit from this section and
I was watching the video trying to understand its relevance to the course as it
talks about persuading people and things like that. I felt it was too early in
the journey to be discussing that and that maybe it would be better if it
followed on at a much later time in development.

If you are already a Christian I can certainly see however
that it is a really good topic to discuss as I imagine that a lot of people
struggle to tell the people around them what they are doing and about this part
of their lives. Nicky sums it up well when he refers to swinging from
insensitivity to fear! I can understand that as a possibility.

We then had a good discussion about how we would tell people
or how we would want to be told. My opinion on this was quite simple. It is
straightforward, well at least I think it is. If I was to talk about it the
best I can do is talk about my experiences rather than trying to persuade
someone my way is best. If I leave the option open to them to ask more
questions in their time if they are ready and I make myself available I can
talk to people in a way that matters to them at a time that is right for them.
I’m not sure I could ever go to someone and say to them, you should turn to God
now your life is not very good as he will cleanse your sins and provide you new
life. Or words to that effect because I know that isn’t going to work.

I think the reality is that different people have different
skills, abilities and talents, some people are good listeners, some people good
talkers, some people inspirational, others sit in the background. There are
opportunities for all people to communicate their beliefs in a way that is
comfortable to them at their own time and in their own way because people
receiving are all different and if they weren’t different we’d all be very
boring.

Anyway there were baptisms on Sunday. They are next J