How to Change the World in 1 Simple Step

From Irresistible Faith: Becoming the Kind of Christian The World Can’t Resist by Scott Sauls…

One practical way we can hear the Father’s voice more clearly is to practice what Scripture calls “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) with each other.  We must, as writer Ann Voskamp once said, “only speak words that make souls stronger.”  As the beloved, blood-bought daughters and sons of God, we must use our words to call out the best in each other versus punishing each other for the worst.  To speak the truth in love is to offer encouragement, to put courage into a soul.  One of our primary resources for doing so consists in the carefully chosen, life-giving words that God has already declared over us all.

If all of our Christian communities and churches were sold out to this one simple practice – to only speak words that make souls stronger – I wonder how many spiritually disengaged people would start wanting to engage.  I wonder how many religious skeptics would want to start investigating Christianity instead of keeping their distance from its claims and its followers.  Do you wonder the same?

It has been said that the best “outreach” we can offer is to become the kind of community that we would want to be part of and the kind of community that is difficult to find anywhere else.  This might actually be Christians’ best opportunity in the current cultural moment, where everyone seems to be on a hair trigger, always looking for something or someone to be offended by.  I wonder if this simple, age-old, cost-free, compelling initiative is the key to turning a regular faith into an irresistible one.  What if all it took for us to become the “light of the world” and the “salt of the earth” and the “city on a hill” to our friends, neighbors, and colleagues was to choose kindness over criticism toward one another, giving the benefit of the doubt over assuming the worst in one another, building each other up instead of tearing each other down.  What kind of difference – if we committed ourselves to this – do you think it would make?