Tip #88 Take a Break
Nov. 3rd, 2017 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastA recent article came out explaining why Christians should feel good about celebrating Halloween in the modern traditions. It involved the opportunity to get to know your neighbors as a means of finding an opening to use to talk to them about your faith. This is in the same vein as a number of messages, including a "letter from Hell", which is a letter to Christian teens from a fictional teen friend now in Hell. It's meant to be moral and good and motivating you to do what you, the target demographic of this series, believe is your duty.
Seen from a less generous perspective, this comes out a lot like a scene from Glengarry Glen Ross. It's the famous scene. Even if you've never seen the movie, you've probably heard of the scene and the famous line about the ABCs of Closing.
"A. Always B. Be C. Closing."
Movies, apologetics texts, feel-good stories, there seems to be an entire cottage industry built around telling you that Jesus gave you a Great Commission and you should A. Always B. Be C. great Commissioning.
I want to tell you that you shouldn't be. Some reasons I've already gone over. Sometimes, doing so doesn't safeguard their right to refuse consent to the conversation. Sometimes, it's just too ghoulish. Most times, anything you have to say is something they've already heard.
But, for your own sake, there's also the point that you just can't live that way. People need a break. People need to not always be on. People need to be able to relate to other people without having to struggle to put on a show. It's not only okay not to always be selling your faith to everybody around you, it's a necessity for your own mental well-being.
There's another reason, though, and perhaps one you might take more to heart.
When your only reason for connecting to people is in order to, to put it perhaps uncharitably, sell them your faith, you make it less possible to actually connect. If I know that every conversation with you is, at earliest convenience, a prelude to an attempt to convince me to join your faith, I have less trust in any ability to connect with you on any level.
In that situation, I can't confide in you, because I know that anything I tell you can and will be used against me. I can't relax with you, because I know that, every time I do, you're about to use an unaware moment. I can't even have the conversation with you that you want to have, because you're too busy looking for that opening to convert me to honestly process what I say.
It seems counter-intuitive. But, your ability to be in position to have the credibility and connection needed to have this conversation on a personal level, one friend to another, depends on you deprioritizing the conversation and the idealized end thereof. You can't achieve your objective until you (mostly) forget your objective.
You'll notice I put "mostly" there, in parentheses. It's okay to be open about your readiness to have the conversation. Previous tips still apply. Don't be predatory. Be careful of their right to choose not to have the conversation or to stop the conversation in the middle. Don't sacrifice the friendship in the name of making them become Christian. But, yes, do be open about the fact that you'd like to have the conversation when they would like to have the conversation.
Beyond that, there's only so much the hard sell (for lack of a better term) will get you. So, ease off. Relax. Instead of getting to know people in order to convince them, just get to know people for its own sake. Make friends with your neighbor because said neighbor's a good person and it might be nice to be freinds with that person.
Closing (again for lack of a better term) needs to wait for the right time. It's okay to sometimes just be.
Seen from a less generous perspective, this comes out a lot like a scene from Glengarry Glen Ross. It's the famous scene. Even if you've never seen the movie, you've probably heard of the scene and the famous line about the ABCs of Closing.
"A. Always B. Be C. Closing."
Movies, apologetics texts, feel-good stories, there seems to be an entire cottage industry built around telling you that Jesus gave you a Great Commission and you should A. Always B. Be C. great Commissioning.
I want to tell you that you shouldn't be. Some reasons I've already gone over. Sometimes, doing so doesn't safeguard their right to refuse consent to the conversation. Sometimes, it's just too ghoulish. Most times, anything you have to say is something they've already heard.
But, for your own sake, there's also the point that you just can't live that way. People need a break. People need to not always be on. People need to be able to relate to other people without having to struggle to put on a show. It's not only okay not to always be selling your faith to everybody around you, it's a necessity for your own mental well-being.
There's another reason, though, and perhaps one you might take more to heart.
When your only reason for connecting to people is in order to, to put it perhaps uncharitably, sell them your faith, you make it less possible to actually connect. If I know that every conversation with you is, at earliest convenience, a prelude to an attempt to convince me to join your faith, I have less trust in any ability to connect with you on any level.
In that situation, I can't confide in you, because I know that anything I tell you can and will be used against me. I can't relax with you, because I know that, every time I do, you're about to use an unaware moment. I can't even have the conversation with you that you want to have, because you're too busy looking for that opening to convert me to honestly process what I say.
It seems counter-intuitive. But, your ability to be in position to have the credibility and connection needed to have this conversation on a personal level, one friend to another, depends on you deprioritizing the conversation and the idealized end thereof. You can't achieve your objective until you (mostly) forget your objective.
You'll notice I put "mostly" there, in parentheses. It's okay to be open about your readiness to have the conversation. Previous tips still apply. Don't be predatory. Be careful of their right to choose not to have the conversation or to stop the conversation in the middle. Don't sacrifice the friendship in the name of making them become Christian. But, yes, do be open about the fact that you'd like to have the conversation when they would like to have the conversation.
Beyond that, there's only so much the hard sell (for lack of a better term) will get you. So, ease off. Relax. Instead of getting to know people in order to convince them, just get to know people for its own sake. Make friends with your neighbor because said neighbor's a good person and it might be nice to be freinds with that person.
Closing (again for lack of a better term) needs to wait for the right time. It's okay to sometimes just be.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-04 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-11-04 11:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-24 08:34 pm (UTC)I wrote back and told him I was not speaking to him any more, as he was an oathbreaker.
He got in touch with me 5-10 years later, and I reminded him that I was not speaking to him any more, as he remains an oathbreaker.
As a means of influencing me this was an utter failure.