Digging to China

When I was a boy, I thought that I could dig to China.  It was something that I had learned from some book or hearing someone explain that the earth was round and that it was daylight over there when it was dark over here.  They said that if we bored a hole straight down from America, we would end up in China.  I don't really know if that is true or not, but I do remember the digging.  I approached my backyard, little shovel in hand, and attempted the geological enterprise of "digging to China".  Frustrated with my results, I went in to see my dad.  (Back then he was still pretty smart.  He knew everything then.)  "Dad, I haven't gotten there yet! Help me!"  "Well son, maybe you need to dig a little longer."  "Longer?  I've been digging for a whole 15 minutes! (Please understand that to a six year old, 15 minutes is like 10 years to most of us adults.)  Anyway, Dad was right.  I needed to dig deeper.  All of this brings me to the point of this article:  DIG DEEPER and DIG LONGER.  That is the next stage in our plan to reach the unchurched for Jesus Christ.

Let me remind you of our first two steps:

1.  Identify someone who is unchurched (by unchurched we mean someone not attending any church with regularity-say 20 times a year.)

2.  Take that person to lunch, or some variation.  Spend a little time and money investing in a relationship with that person by showing that you care.

(At this point, if you are behind, you need to catch up.  A detailed description of the lunch date is described in last month's article which can be found on refrigerators around the Wiregrass or on the web at www.hartfordfumc.org.)

Now, it is time to DIG DEEPER and DIG LONGER.  My attempt to dig to China failed because I expected immediate results.  You might have such naive visions of growing the church with a plastic shovel full of 15 minutes, but the truth is that it took Jesus three years to get his disciples to follow him to the cross, and it will likely take us that long to make more disciples.  IN this regard though, we should realize that quality is better than quantity.  We would do better to spend more time with a few people than a little time with many people.

This month I want you to ask your new friend about his joys, her fears, his hopes, and her dreams.  Find out what scares the devil out of them.  (We'll use that later...just kidding.)  Really spend some time deepening your relationship with your new friend.  Take your friendship from the surface to a place of deep bonding.  How do you do that?  Dig deeper and dig...longer.