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KingdomBuilder wrote: With all of these verses in mind, how can we practically, meaningfully interact with those who we fear are backsliding? How to deal with them in gentleness and love?

Some things I did might help.

-Simple low key friendship. I would get to know them.

-I would invite them for a meal or a coffee and get them to talk about themselves, their joys, their sorrows. I was genuinely happy to see them.

-Call them up and ask how they are doing. If they need help with a repair or other task I would try to help.

-I kept the conversation light. No heavy preaching or teaching: sometimes I'd share how I was blessed that day.

-If they seemed ready I'd invite them to church. I'd let the pulpit do the heavy preaching so I could maintain a lighter conversation.

To sum up, I placed friendship front and center in my interactions and prayed for their hearts to hear the prompting of the Holy Spirit. It takes a great deal of time and effort but helping the Lord win another soul is worth it.

MaxPC wrote:

KingdomBuilder wrote: With all of these verses in mind, how can we practically, meaningfully interact with those who we fear are backsliding? How to deal with them in gentleness and love?

Some things I did might help.

-Simple low key friendship. I would get to know them.

-I would invite them for a meal or a coffee and get them to talk about themselves, their joys, their sorrows. I was genuinely happy to see them.

-Call them up and ask how they are doing. If they need help with a repair or other task I would try to help.

-I kept the conversation light. No heavy preaching or teaching: sometimes I'd share how I was blessed that day.

-If they seemed ready I'd invite them to church. I'd let the pulpit do the heavy preaching so I could maintain a lighter conversation.

To sum up, I placed friendship front and center in my interactions and prayed for their hearts to hear the prompting of the Holy Spirit. It takes a great deal of time and effort but helping the Lord win another soul is worth it.

i’ve been thinking along these lines, too.
important, too, if ways can be found to get THEM talking about themselves, sometimes, in the process of articulation, our faults become clear in unexpected ways .. self-scrutiny can be key. trust is a requirement to getting doors to open. defensiveness closes doors.

temporal1 wrote:

MaxPC wrote:

KingdomBuilder wrote: With all of these verses in mind, how can we practically, meaningfully interact with those who we fear are backsliding? How to deal with them in gentleness and love?

Some things I did might help.

-Simple low key friendship. I would get to know them.

-I would invite them for a meal or a coffee and get them to talk about themselves, their joys, their sorrows. I was genuinely happy to see them.

-Call them up and ask how they are doing. If they need help with a repair or other task I would try to help.

-I kept the conversation light. No heavy preaching or teaching: sometimes I'd share how I was blessed that day.

-If they seemed ready I'd invite them to church. I'd let the pulpit do the heavy preaching so I could maintain a lighter conversation.

To sum up, I placed friendship front and center in my interactions and prayed for their hearts to hear the prompting of the Holy Spirit. It takes a great deal of time and effort but helping the Lord win another soul is worth it.

i’ve been thinking along these lines, too.
important, too, if ways can be found to get THEM talking about themselves, sometimes, in the process of articulation, our faults become clear in unexpected ways .. self-scrutiny can be key. trust is a requirement to getting doors to open. defensiveness closes doors.

Exactly!!!

I think Max left some excellent advice here and I'm going to add one thing to it. Be willing to make yourself vulnerable and share your own difficulties, challenges, etc. You maybe don't need to share everything and some things might be totally improper to share depending on the setting, but love is vulnerability in my opinion. If you hide behind a screen of religious and spiritual perfection you'll likely be alienated from the people you're trying to reach.

It's easy to think that showing your weakness will make the other person feel negative towards you, your church, your faith, etc. I'd argue that the opposite is true, if it's done in proper humility and without any attempt to smooth over unrepented sin or make excuse for it.

CADude wrote:I think Max left some excellent advice here and I'm going to add one thing to it. Be willing to make yourself vulnerable and share your own difficulties, challenges, etc. You maybe don't need to share everything and some things might be totally improper to share depending on the setting, but love is vulnerability in my opinion. If you hide behind a screen of religious and spiritual perfection you'll likely be alienated from the people you're trying to reach.

It's easy to think that showing your weakness will make the other person feel negative towards you, your church, your faith, etc. I'd argue that the opposite is true, if it's done in proper humility and without any attempt to smooth over unrepented sin or make excuse for it.

Amen and amen