Salvation: Less Like a Contract; More Like Learning a Language

First of all I would like to say to everyone that was at the Net Rally last night that I did pay for my concert ticket, they just weren’t allowing more people into the specific building. Also, I am not encouraging ten year olds to persevere to having sex. If you weren’t there, well I’ll just let you use your imagination, it’s funnier that way.

Well today could probably go down in to one of the most informative/challenging/exciting days of my life, at least in the top ten of them. Right next to the day I got the sex talk from my dad, the day I realized that the weatherman was talking about the wind chill factor and not the windshield factor and also the day I realized that water baptism wasn’t a public bath. I went with Darryl and his older brother to see Brian McLaren do a five hour lecture series in Waterloo. It was phenomenal. First I just want to say that if you ever get a chance to hear him, take advantage of it. He is the most humble, relevant, intelligent, challenging, respectable, understanding and provoking teachers that I have been around. He talked about postmodern culture and how we were to engage those that were in it: a question that very few churches ask, or even realize that they need to ask.

Hopefully over time I can post different things that he talked about but there was one that I wanted to post about tonight. But first, let me set it up. Last night was exciting. A girl was there during my message and she talked to me about her longing for God. She wasn’t a Christian, she was just telling me how after a series of events she concluded that God was the answer to filling in the void that she felt. Her friend that was with her came up to me and said “Nathan, she wants to say the sinners prayer, and I don’t know it, will you do it for me, she wants to get saved!” Now this is what every pastor lives for right? You can add another name to the amount of people that you’ve lead to the Lord. It makes you feel all good inside. I somewhat froze in my tracks because I thought, I don’t even think I know what the sinner’s prayer is. Nevertheless, I and these two girls went into another room and we just started to have a conversation.

This is why I have a large problem with the idea of a sinner’s prayer or this specific conversion moment. I grew up in a Christian family and if you ask me when I got saved I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know. I couldn’t give you a date. Maybe trying to save myself of sheer embarrassment of not knowing when I was saved will tell you the story about when I was a young one my parents through me a pizza party and I became a Christian. Since I grew up Pentecostal though, I can assure you that I’ve had many ‘salvation experiences.’ I still could never tell you when I got saved.

What really gets us saved? And what is saved anyway? These questions bombarded my thinking. Is it physical words that say a thirty second prayer? Is it the coming to understanding of the four step gospel message? I didn’t really know. I still am having a hard time coming to grips with it especially because I don’t think that ‘saved’ means necessarily being saved from eternal punishment (i.e. hell). I think we are also being saved from a destructive life or a life void of purpose. With this being said, McLaren said this. “Maybe Christianity is not so much like signing a contract and more like learning a language?”

What does that mean to us? That means that it’s not about getting people to say a thirty second prayer and get them to sign a salvation card that signs them up for free fire insurance. It means that no matter where they are in life, they can always improve. They can always become more like Christ. In learning a language, you always have to practice it, and speak it. He stated all these things, but what he never mentioned that helped me the most. When can you say you know a language? When you pass a term exam? Or how about when you can successfully converse with someone in the language? There is an obvious difference between me not knowing anything about Spanish and someone who speaks it fluently. You would even say that they know the language and I don’t. If I started studying the language though, when would you tell me that I know the language? Is it when I learn the verbs or I can count to ten? In the same way, when can you officially say that someone is ‘saved?’ When can you say someone is a Christian? Why do we have this desire to label people saved and unsaved. I find that when we do that we end up developing a sense of superiority over the unsaved anyway. Also, this shows us that it’s not up to us to save people anyway (or even know if they are saved). Instead it’s up to us to make disciples.

I never did say the sinners prayer with this girl. I simply encouraged her to take the next step with God, whatever that may be, and I told her I didn’t know what it was for her. McLaren actually recommended the same thing of that which I did. Hopefully I will have a part in helping her move closer and closer to Christ and help develop her into a disciple of the only one who can give her hope and life to its fullest.