There’s this Scientology promo video circulating around the net. It has Tom Cruise rambling on about a higher beings, aliens, finding purpose, and a bunch of other wacky stuff. And yes, like a car crash, it’s hard not to watch.

But think of this from the perspective of a follower of Christ. Listen to Cruise, most of his ramblings are so vague he could almost be a Christian talking about their faith. Am I saying Cruise is a Christian? No way.

I want us to watch that and think about how we articulate the gospel and who Jesus is to us. Do we ramble on using vague terms or do we speak from the depths of our souls? Can we explain our faith in biblical and personal context? Sometimes we resort to being vague and end up sounding not much different than Cruise. Or we go on the other end of the spectrum and are a walking tract. Our relationship with Christ is a personal one driven by experience and grounded in the Bible.

So my challenge for you is this. Know who you are in Christ. Practice what you’d tell someone alone at first, then try it out on a friend. This needs to be something we’re constantly work on and hone. It’s so simple, but we so easily botch it. If being a follower of Christ is so important to our lives… why can’t we articulate it?

Watch the Cruise video here.

[This is a ramble continued from here...]

Are we, as Christians, connecting people with Christ?

Some of us can become worshipers of the Word (i.e. the Bible) and suck the life right out of it. I believe the Bible is the divine inspired word of God. But I also believe that without God the pursuit and reading of the Bible is boiled down to mere words on paper. Many may argue this, but it isn’t as if they words put in a correct order that make up the book create a mystical union of spirituality. God illuminates scripture, God breathes life into it. Think about the Trinity. Is the Bible part of the Trinity? It’s not the Father, Son and Holy Bible.

There are those who are unwilling to leave the safety of the church and walk amongst the sinners. They would rather pour over the Bible, but never live it. What have you gained if you know the words, but are unwilling to walk it out? If your love of the Bible and fear of “sinners” keeps you hidden away from the world, you’ve missed the point of why Christ came in the first place. You’ve forgotten that he didn’t just die for you.

Evangelism isn’t about being right when others are wrong. It’s not about proving a point. It’s about investment and a relationship. It’s about us showing the love of Christ to an unbelieving world. It isn’t easy, but it’s what we are called to do.

If we don’t mirror Christ, nothing we preach will matter.