Gospel for the Middle

Frank Viola has raised an interesting question this week on his blog in a post called “The Gospel for the Middle.”

He writes about a man named Fielding who lives with his wife and two children in a remote part of Maine. There are no decent churches within a one-hour drive, and while Fielding is interested in the things of God, he is not a reader. He doesn’t use the Web either. He’s a man who works with his hands, both for his career and for recreation. He’s an “outdoorsman.” He hunts, he builds, he does manual labor, etc. In his spare time, he helps his elderly parents with various building projects.

He sent this email to Frank Viola:

When I’m with my cousin once a year, I want to learn more about God. But when I come back home, and I’m around everyone else, my mind is off of God, and I am back to working, raising my kids, and helping my parents. Someone needs to come up with a solution for people like me . . . people who are in the middle. (By “in the middle,” Fielding means someone who believes in Jesus, but who isn’t fully absorbed in the faith yet either. They simply don’t know enough nor do they have any spiritual support system around them.)

Fielding and his wife don’t personally know any Christians. None of their extended family or coworkers are believers either. And the nearest churches (which are an hour away) are not recommended.

Question: What advice would you give to Fielding and his wife?

I actually know dozens of people who are exactly like Fielding. Over the past three years, some of them asked me very similar questions. The conversations always differ in length and direction, but in general, here is what I always try to impress upon them:

1. The Call of God

As simply and as casually as I know how, I tell them that if they are interested in the things of God, this is a good thing, and it means that God is inviting them to join His family, which they can do by simply believing in Jesus for eternal life. If they have questions about this because of some sort of legalistic gospel they might have heard in the past, I will expand on this idea further and take them to some Scriptures like John 3:16; 5;24; 6;47, etc.

Usually there are few questions about this idea, and I don’t press it. The conversations are usually brief, and I want to actually answer their question so that maybe they will be willing to come back to me in the future with more questions. If I waste the entire time answering a question they did not ask, this will be our last conversation. My primary goal in these conversations is to win another conversation.

So, I first affirm their desire to connect with God, and tell them that this is God’s desire also.

2. Relief from Religion

After this, I do what I can to relieve them of religion. Most people in the world today believe that God expects them to perform a wide variety of religious practices, such as going to church, attending mass, tithing, going to confession, giving up tobacco and alcohol, and a list of other rules that are variously taught in churches and on television.

I usually listen to the concerns the person has, and then ask them why they think they have to do that “thing” (whatever it is) to please God. If they say, “I really want to go to church, but I just don’t have time,” I respond with, “Why do you want to go to church?” If they say, “I feel like I should read my Bible more, but I just don’t understand it,” I say, “Why do you want to read the Bible?”

Usually, these sorts of questions to their religious concerns leads to conversations about what God actually wants.

Then I tell them something that shocks them (and might shock you as well). I say, “I don’t think God is that concerned about you going to church, reading the Bible, attending mass, tithing, going to confession, or giving up smoking and drinking. These are rules you learned from somewhere else, and are feeling guilty about them because you believe that God will not love you unless you do them.”

Certainly, many of these things are “good things” to do, but I want the person to understand that such behaviors do not make us more (or less) pleasing to God.

3. Freedom to Live

Finally, I try to impress upon them that all God really desires is that they live life fully with Him. That means they can do whatever they normally do, but with the recognition that God is joining them in it. Someone like Fielding should continue to go hunting, fishing, and spending time with his parents, but do so with the recognition that God is doing these things with him.

Such a suggestion is easier said than done, but this is true of all spiritual practices. I believe this practice, however, is the most basic and fundamental spiritual practice, and when a person learns to live life with God, this allows God to speak into their mind, and work in their life in ways that lead to other spiritual practices.

Do I tell them to stop sinning? Nope. That will come, if and when they learn to live life with God.

Do I tell them to start praying? Nope. I find that as people learn to live life with God, they naturally learn to start communicating with him.

Do I tell them to to read the Bible every day, and start listening to sermons online, and reading Christian books, and find a group to study the Bible with? Nope. First of all, I believe that people naturally start to do this also as they come to the place where they want to learn more about this God they are spending their days with. True Bible reading and Scripture study naturally rises from questions about the person and nature of God.

So what would I tell Fielding? The same thing I try to tell others with similar questions. I invite them to believe in Jesus for eternal life, I try to liberate them from religion, and I try to get them to recognize God’s presence in their life every minute of every day. By sharing these three things, I also hope to make myself available to God and to this person for more such conversations in the future.

There are millions of people in the United States and around the world who find themselves in exactly the same situation as Fielding. You may be one of them. I firmly believe that people like Fielding are the future of the church. 

So what would you tell Fielding?