Disagreeing isn’t the problem

Dear Christian,

Please do this 1 thing this week:

Consider how your words will help people know God’s love.

• Will your critique of politicians or people on the other side help them to know the love of God?
• Will ridiculing people help them to know the holy God of love?
• Will shouting louder than the other person lead them to Jesus?
• Will lashing out draw people into God’s kingdom?

I’m not saying to not disagree. Disagreeing is not the problem.

How will we disagree?

• Is the point of our words to express our frustration with their view point?
• Is the point of our words to “fix” or “correct” them?
• Is the point of our words to win the argument and make sure that some “truth” has been spoken?

Or is the point of our words to help people know God better?

If the entire point of our words is to help people know God better, we might need to choose to say things differently.

We don’t have to pretend there aren’t disagreements. We don’t have to try to homogenize everyone’s thoughts and beliefs and words. 

But we do need to try to speak in such a way that people will sense that you are a safe place, a safe person to speak to. 

We need to try to speak in such a way that people will sense that they matter to you beyond the immediate disagreement.

We need to try to speak in such a way that they might actually consider our words as an alternative to what they have previously believed.

So Christian, please, if we are going to ever help people to know God and live according to His ways, let’s drop the ways, language and posturing of this world and instead pick up the ways of Christ (accepting others, listening to others, including others, disagreeing without maligning, etc)

Let us be humble and gentle in our speech, actions and attitudes

Thank you for taking the time to read this. 

I hope that many Christians will hear these words, turn away from their angry outbursts, apologize as necessary and try to rebuild bridges of trust, acceptance and openness to everyone but especially those who are different than us, those we disagree with and those we hope to help lead to Jesus.