LYDIA MCGREW: How to handle converts.

The person who has just converted or reconverted to Christianity is probably not the person who should be telling us all “what the church needs to be doing differently to be attractive to people like me.” It’s tempting of course to think that that is exactly what we should be asking, but I submit that to think so is to bring a market model into the church where it does not belong. Much as I love the free market, the church shouldn’t think of itself as selling a product. New converts or reconverts are not members of focus groups, and their job should be to learn and grow in grace, wisdom, and understanding of the truths of the Bible, not to tell us, “What did you like about our product? How can we sell it more effectively to others like you?” . . .

I think the problem runs deeper and really goes back to our approach to evangelization. I warned here about a bait and switch as regards homosexuality: The speaker there tells his audience not to say too much to self-professed homosexuals about the Bible’s position on their activities, because that might make them feel unwelcome. As I pointed out in that post, there is a great danger, then, that such people will really never get it, that they will assume, since they have been told “come as you are,” that the church welcomes their continuing in their lifestyle even after they have allegedly turned to Jesus. And it gets a little embarrassing to turn around at that point and say, “Well, yes, we did try to be a welcoming and gay-friendly church, but you have to stop that now. Didn’t you know?” Chances are good that it is they who will change the church rather than vice versa.