Kevin Hendricks has some great thoughts on sharing our faith and beliefs with others. Sounds a lot like me…<\/p>\n
\nI used to think obnoxious but true statements were a great way to tell people about my faith. I’d buy T-shirts plastered with them, bumper stickers proclaiming them, even music centered around them. I was very proud of my boldness.<\/p>\n
But I didn’t realize how completely ineffective it was. I didn’t realize that instead of opening a door of conversation, I was kicking in the door and slapping the owner in the face–and expecting them to be grateful.<\/p>\n
It’s kind of embarrassing when I think back on it. I’ve since realized (and am continually reminded) that is no way to change minds.<\/p>\n
You Need a Connection
\nBumper stickers don’t convince anyone. They’re intended to be inspirational–a rallying cry for the troops–not conversional (can I make up that word?). At best they’re confrontational–and how effective is confrontation from a total stranger?<\/p>\nIf you really want to change someone’s mind, you need a relationship, a connection, a story. And if you really hope to change someone’s mind, you better be prepared to have your own mind changed. Perhaps not your core convictions changed, but your assumptions, your judgments, your impressions will be changed. It has to be a two-way street, otherwise you’re not listening. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kevin Hendricks has some great thoughts on sharing our faith and beliefs with others. Sounds a lot like me… I used to think obnoxious but true statements were a great way to tell people about my faith. I’d buy T-shirts plastered with them, bumper stickers proclaiming them, even music centered around them. I was very … Continue reading You’re not always right<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[790,788,789],"class_list":["post-3468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","tag-boldness","tag-evangelism","tag-humility"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-TW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}