Lead:

What is the best way to be interesting? And what’s the opportunity that every one of us has in front of us?

Intro:

I remember coming home from church one day and asking my kids how Sunday School was. The unison chorus: “BO-ring.” Some of you know that professionally and as a ministry I teach communications, so that caught my attention. And we’ll get to more of that in today’s All Our Minds segment.

Oh, and one bit of keepin’-it-real housekeeping and disclosure, I have a gig coming up next week so if some of the programming here leans a bit in that direction, you know why. But I won’t be sharing stuff here that doesn’t relate to how we relate to people in the context of the truth claims of Christianity, like today’s topic, “unboringness.”

In our Bible segment today we’re going to catch a mixed bag. Where we pick up will have some stuff that seems odd to our contemporary sensibilities, but I’m hoping you’ll zoom out a bit with me…today and tomorrow constitutes another angle on Paul calling out the church in Corinth on their divisiveness. Oddly enough, in addition to addressing the weird stuff we’ll hear at the beginning of today, this flows into talking about spiritual gifts and then an interesting twist tomorrow.

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Bible:

Passage: 1 Corinthians 11-12
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 65
Words: ~1379

All Our Minds:

So back to the kid story.

Their complaint was that the topic and passage was something they’d been through before multiple times. But I’ve never forgotten that I remember thinking that if God’s word is alive with God’s very life (it is!), it should never be boring. Challenging, stimulating, convicting, pissing you off, whatever…it might be a lot of things, but when engaged with an honest heart, it will never leave you dry. So let me connect the kid story to another experience.

Many years later I’m teaching communications, and I do a lot of work training trainers, and one question that I’ve been asked many times is, “How do you engage people when the topic is boring?”

And what I say isn’t always what I’m thinking. What I think is, “There are no boring subjects, there are only boring teachers.” What I say is, “Tell me more?”

I remember once someone’s response was, “I work for a scaffolding company, and I train employees on regulations and safety stuff. It’s dry and boring.”

What I shared with her is what I’m going to share with you. The premise again, is that there are no boring topics, there are only boring teachers. My response to her was, “Who has a stake in the success of what you do?” She went “Huh?,” so I just started asking a bunch of rhetorical questions.

“Who stands to make money if they better know what you’re teaching? Who stands to lose something? Who gets sued if there’s an accident? Who loses a spouse if there’s an accident?” I went on and on until closing with, “Do any of these people find regulations and safety stuff interesting?”

The failure — and I was gentle on her — was that she knew a bunch of stuff, but she didn’t connect it to them and what was important to them.

When we talk about God stuff, there is a time to share information, and there’s a time to share our personal stories about what God has done in our lives. And the good news is The Good News — we’re working with killer material.

But I think you’re also right here, right now, in this place in history for a reason. You may know who you interact with a little or a lot, but unlike safety regs for a scaffolding company, Jesus is relevant to every human you will ever meet.

And part of loving Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, is growing in excellence in how you love others.

The big takeaway: You are most interesting when you are most interested.

Ask questions. Find out what makes them tick. Anybody can do it. And pray, literally, during the conversation.

The bottom line

Just in the last month I’ve had the Holy Spirit guide conversations so that the right thing at the right time was so right that I couldn’t have planned it. Both times the person said, “I’ve just been turned off by Christians, but you’re different.”

This also goes for when not to talk — particularly hard for me. Also in the last month I was visiting a friend’s parents… and papa’s open to talking about stuff and searching, but mom is really steeped in New Age stuff, and her heart is reeeally hard. And the Holy Spirit told me to just be quiet and love her by listening and nodding.

Please don’t take what my genius. Take it as my submission…and I could also tell you stories about my many failures. But I share precisely because it is not my genius, and you can do it, too. You are most interesting when you are most interested.

Oh, and here’s a teaser for tomorrow…we’re going to tackle specifically the context of connecting and communicating online.

Wisdom:

Passage: Proverbs 11:14-31
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 18
Words: ~286

Love you!

-R

ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.

Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.

Sources and resources:

Thank you for supporting this ministry should you choose to use the Amazon affiliate links below.

Not used today, but stuff I like:

J. P. Moreland, “God and the Argument from Mind,” in Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources, ed. Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V. Meister (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 403. (link)

J. P. Moreland, Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), Kindle location 656-657. (link)

The Story of Reality, Greg Koukl — Love this book. A killer intro to the Christian worldview that is philosophically and theologically sound while being accessible to all readers.

How to Read the Bible Book by Book, Fee & Stuart — Just bought this myself (and haven’t read it), but Fee’s book on how to read the Bible for all it’s worth is a mega-best-selling classic.

#930: 1 Corinthians 11-12 | Unboringness | Proverbs 11:14-31