CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Hi everyone, I have something to share. If you have any similar experiences and insights, I would love to hear from you as well. Thanks!

So... I have some atheist friends, but I don't know them very well.

I realised that a main factor was that when they were free (e.g. weekends), I would be either at church or doing church related activities.

I felt that to reach out effectively to those around us, sometimes we need to take a "pilgrim" mentality (in the world, but not of the world - as opposed to outside of the world and not of the world).

So I decided at the beginning of this year to spend more time with my atheist friends. I wanted to build better relationships with them, because I know people's hearts are usually not won over by the force of intellectual arguments.

As a result, I attempted to participate in a little more of their activities. Just last week, I went to a collectables fair, where action figures, comics, etc. are sold (because they are into those kinds of things as well).

To do this, I had to skip church (as the fair occurs once every three months, always on a sunday). I was wondering if I should have done this, but in the end I felt it was the right thing to do, because although I was unable to have any deep conversations with them, they did welcome me as a fellow "fan" of action figures, etc. Knowing that they were atheists, a few of them being pretty anti-religious and anti-Christian, and yet still accepting me despite knowing that I was a Christian, I felt I was being given an opportunity by God.

I also discovered that one of them was a fellow Christian who went to another church, so we had some good conversations.

Interestingly, at the fair I also bumped into a few guys that I used to draw comics with, and I was glad because they were my other atheist friends. Again, I was reminded that one of them was a fellow Christian, so I felt God was telling me that I wasn't alone.

I really hope that in the days to come I can get to know them better, and that they can see something of Christ through our friendship.

In my opinion, this is a great story. Thank you for sharing.

Back in college, we used to do 'contact evangelism', that is, going up to complete strangers and trying to engage them in conversations about God. While this approach has ways of building conversational skills and your own personal faith, it never seemed to me to be as effective or encouraging as building a true relationship with a person over a period of time -- and being really friendly and a friend, not just "you're my evangelism project this month".

It is great to hear you are reaching out.

That's a great story ^__^

Keep being there for them as a friend ^__^ I'm sure they appreciate it ^__^

Good luck ^_^

I think this is terrific. A much better idea than the whole Here-is-a-tract-be-amazed type of evangelism. If more people thought like you the world would be a better place.

Thanks for the responses and encouragement folks.

ClosetOtaku - I did that kind of evangelism in my university student days too. I imagine it didn't work well because:

- We live in an age where many people dislike religion. In the past, it was normal for everyone to have some kind of religious belief, most societies would consider religion as one of the building blocks.

- Going up to someone we don't know and then telling them about gospel can seem too much like trying to "sell" something to them.

Something else I've also realised is that sometime at the church I go to we spent so much time organising various events in order to bring people into our church, and then many who were invited do not come. After thinking about it, I believe one reason for the ineffectiveness is that we sought to "connect" to people only when there was an event that we wanted them to attend, instead of just hanging out with them and trying to know them as people.

I'm glad you're reaching out. I too have a few atheist/non believer friends whom I want to witness too, but like you said intelectual arguements don't seem to work. I really don't like arguing also. Mostly I try to live as an example. This is also hard to do, but I think it's pretty effective. My problem is coming up with situations where I can freely talk about God to them with out being judged.