Comments on: The Problem With Getting “Saved”

By: Gretchen Carlson

Gretchen Carlson — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:11:41 +0000

Randy,
Thanks for your thoughts. All I know is that the more I read and converse about evangelism and conversion, the more questions I have! (It felt easier when I had all the answers with black and white thinking.) I so appreciate your thoughts and these conversations. Gretchen

By: Randy Siever

Randy Siever — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:03:26 +0000

Gretchen,
I love your question regarding whether we need a specific “turning point” when it comes to a decision to follow Jesus. This is a really important and sticky question, and your reference to the AA model is a really good one I hadn’t thought of before.

A couple of thoughts (and I’m thinking about this all the time, so my thoughts are constantly in the state of transition). One is that if it is true that every person who comes to faith in Christ makes a decision to do so, then it must necessarily be a conscious decision. I suppose we do make unconscious decisions about things, and perhaps this could be done in regards to a decision to surrender your life and destiny to the leadership and authority of Christ. But I suspect that this kind of unconscious decision would have to take time to work itself out so that it would become part of our conscious reality, at least enough to where we would probably self-identify as a Christian.

And this is, statistically, what 86% of Christians actually end up doing. They do not have a “turning point” nailed down. Their conversion took months and even years to become part of their conscious reality and awareness. They cannot identify a date when this happened.

The minority of self-identified Christians (14%) report a conversion that was like a turning point, a single moment in time when they stepped from darkness into light. This is similar to the Apostle Paul’s experience. Most of these people (and I am one of them) tend to be very evangelistic, and most of our current evangelism models were developed by people like us. We think everyone must have OUR experience of conversion or it’s just too darn fuzzy to count. EVERY form of evangelism we have taught over the past 100 years or so simply ASSUMES this moment in time conversion experience is the “norm”. It is not.

It IS the norm for AA, however. People in AA do not stop drinking gradually. They stop suddenly and count the days from that point forward. I suspect this model depends on STOPPING something, rather than starting something (sobriety starts, but only as a result of stopping drinking). And I’d point out that some people (probably a small minority) who are alcoholics do stop drinking slowly, and some never stop completely but they reduce enough to recover their lives. This is a very small percentage, though.

Keep talking…this is really interesting and important stuff.

By: Gretchen Carlson

Gretchen Carlson — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:01:19 +0000

Yes! I need to read this book. Forgiveness is the beginning of a new life – transformation – following Jesus.
We all know of people who have said a prayer, walked forward for an altar call (or whatever) but whose lives haven’t changed or shown any fruit of the Holy Spirit. And in these cases we quietly question the person’s salvation because we wonder if the person was only doing something to ensure their salvation, rather than truly embrace (and follow) Jesus as Savior.
I want to nudge people to Jesus and encourage them to embrace and follow Him fully in this life. Do you think people need to “nail” down their decision to follow/accept Jesus? (which usually ends up being a prayer, walking the aisle or something) The idea of having a specific “turning point” seems important for most alcohol and drug addiction groups; they want members to be able to state when they made a decision.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:30:38 +0000

Thought-provoking; thank you!