A Christian No 1

How many times have you been invited to be a fan of the facebook group, 'Christian Music Topping the UK Charts'?

I think this campaign shows either that our motives are very wrong, or we're just completely out of touch. Is having a praise song at no 1 going to help anyone get to know Jesus? (If a Muslim song went no 1, would you suddenly think, 'I'd like to become a Muslim?') I wonder if it would have the same effect as shouty soap box preachers - making people think, 'I wish those Christians would mind their own business'. Is the real reason we want 'our' no 1 much more for our own validation than anyone else's salvation? If our motives are right, like probably a lot of 'street preachers', then it's so sad that we're wasting our effort on hopeless campaigns like this. Am I right in thinking it's because we feel so strongly that God wants to reach people with his love, and just don't know what else to do?

If that's how you're feeling, I want to encourage you. Our culture is not closed. So many people really don't mind you asking their opinion and therefore moving any conversation onto the ultimate questions. It's not weird to ask someone what they think of Jesus, or the church. They'll often be really pleased to get a chance to think and talk about the big issues of life, because our culture shies away from it. And everyone's aware of the issues- if they're avoiding them, it must be because the best answers they've heard so far make them depressed.

Like Jesus did, time and time again, bring up the conversation – ask people stuff, straight out. That communicates that you value them and are interested in their well being – which is surely the point of sharing Jesus' good news. And no doubt you'll get an opportunity to explain what you believe, or to challenge something they're heard, or to share your discoveries of truth. But just don't start there, or you'll come across as judgmental, arrogant, and not interested in the person at all. In fact, you probably won't be able to do this with anyone you care about. A friend of mine told me he finds it much easier to preach to people he doesn't know than his friends – on reflection now, it's probably because the only approach he knew was to blurt stuff out at people without getting any sense of where they're at.

And where people are at determines what is most helpful for them to move closer to Jesus: if you're profoundly cynical of all religious belief (and who can blame anyone for that?), someone trying to tell you another is only going to reinforce your cynicism. They need to see their expectations challenged – need to see the humility and altruism that knowing Jesus and believing the gospel leads to – before they might consider there is anything different and trustworthy about our beliefs. On the other hand, if you're talking to someone who is spiritually seeking and interested in what Christianity has to say, it's extremely selfish to not take a whole load of time to outline God's story and its implications for them. So again, conversation/asking questions is crucial, because how else will you discover where someone is at?

If you're keen for delirious to get a number one because you think it will make people see that 'you can be cool and be a Christian', and therefore be more open to Jesus, I want to encourage you again. There were a series of posters on the wall of my maths classroom at school, all with the heading, 'Maths is cool' (with pictures of icebergs etc). Apart from coming across as desperate (which definitely isn't cool), the posters don't work because everyone is aware that the relative 'cool-ness' of maths is unimportant. It's either positive to participate in, or not. Even if you really like maths, you'd probably never say it was cool. It doesn't have to be. I think the same is true for Christianity: no one seriously writes it off because it's uncool. If people thought it intellectually held water, improved your quality of life, and didn't mess the world up, they might be interested; but not just if we wore low slung jeans, listened to r'n'b, and said 'dude' a lot. I think we'll struggle to make Christianity seem cool (c.f. www.cool-christian-apparel.com/); and I think that doesn't matter.

I've spent so long struggling to follow Jesus in his constant, consistent, bold sharing of 'the good news of the kingdom of God'. It's such a relief to feel able to do it lots these days. And so rich an experience. Understanding that you are actually allowed to bring the subject up, not just wait until it comes round (i.e. pretty rarely, except in Uni halls at 2 in the morning) has been a big part of that. But equally important has been God healing my fears about people not liking me – you will get some negative responses, but mostly you've really got nothing to worry about. People don't treat each other like they did when they were 13 anymore. Also, Jesus really loves you, and thinks you're great. He made you; are you thinking he did a bad job? If relating to people is hard work for you full stop, get some help. It doesn't have to stay that way. And it'll help you share Jesus no end.