I’ve been to a lot of weddings over the years and from time to time I get placed at the difficult relatives table presumably because ministers are thought to have special powers in dealing with the rude uncle Albert’s of this world (we don’t). After a few hours of conversation with rude Uncle Albert, who was sitting on my left and Aunty Edith the Genghis Kahn of hardened atheists who was sitting on my right (names have been changed to protect the innocent), I was beginning to wonder about my career choices when I discovered something quite liberating. There were nine other tables at this wedding and as soon as the desert was finished I was free to leave the difficult relatives table and discover that most of the people at the wedding were pretty open to having a chat about almost anything.
Jesus has a name for the other people at the wedding, they are the “people of peace” (Matthew 10:11; Luke 10:6), the kind of people Jesus told his followers to make relationships with because they would be open to the gospel. The good news is that in sharing our faith we are not doomed to fruitless conversations with people at the difficult relatives table. In fact Jesus quite clearly instructed his followers not to persist with conversations that are clearly going no-where but to wipe the dust off our feet and move on to another table. (Matthew 10:14 and check out Matthew 7:6).
It is helpful to know that in life the percentage of people who are closed to all opinions but their own are about the same as the difficult relatives table at a wedding, about 10%. Most people are “people of peace” and if you approach them in the right way they are happy to chat about deep things of meaning and purpose and in fact are keen to have those conversations because they, like you, are still trying to figure out how to have more meaning and purpose in their lives and are happy to hear your take on things. That being said I want to suggest a few guidelines that I find helpful.
Trust in the Holy Spirt (John 15:26-27)
Jesus is very clear that we are both to trust in the Holy Spirit and at the same time to testify about Jesus, or in the words of Peter, to be prepared to give an account in the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15). To trust in the Holy Spirit is to know that God’s Spirit is about the business of connecting and directing people to the presence and purposes of God and that God is already at work in many of the people we will meet. This means that it is not solely up to us to introduce people to God because God’s Spirit shares in that process with us. This realisation should stop us feeling totally responsible and burdened about sharing our faith and point us in the direction of the God connections that already exist in people’s lives.
Let your manner be in sync with your message (1 Peter 3:15)
“A gentle answer turns away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1). Firstly, while some people are angry about church, sometimes for good reasons, a gentle Christ-like demeanour is more often than not disarming and will allow you to move past peoples hurt. Secondly, to treat people with respect is to accept people without judgement which is both a command of Jesus (Matthew 7:1-5), an instruction of Paul (Romans 2:1-3) and good relationship wisdom because respect opens the door to relationship while disrespect swiftly closes it.
Listen (James 1:19)
Listening attentively is respect in practice. Now, while you would think listening is fairly simple there are good and bad ways of listening. Fake listening, where we simply wait for someone to say their piece so we can tell them what we want to say, is relatively easy to spot. Instead be an active listener, feedback what you have heard to your conversation partner, “so what you believe is such and such? In the same way listening with an agenda is also relatively easy to spot. This is when people see that you are only in the conversation to achieve some outcome of your own, instead ask God’s Holy Spirit to help you genuinely care for this person and respect what they believe. I find this simple attitude shift really helps in building relationships of depth.
Rev. Steve Everist, Minister of the Word, Gerringong Uniting Church
This article appears in the latest edition of Ruminations and is used with permission.
