Evotional.com - Mark Batterson

Had a fascinating conversation about church with my dentist yesterday. She has been dechurched for many years, but she must have alot of NCC patients because I walked in and she told me that lots of patients have been telling her about NCC.

I have to admit, it's hard to carry on a conversation when your mouth has been anesthetized, you're drooling out of one corner of your mouth, and the dentist is working on your teeth. Not the ideal conversation setting. But dentists are amazing linguists. They can interpret very garbled speech.

I found her perceptions of church fascinating in light of next weekend's message. We continue the Neos series and I'm talking about new wineskins. A couple of observations from a pretty straight up conversation about church.

First of all, everybody's perception of church is based on their past experience with church. If they had a negative experience with one church then they tend to generalize about all churches. If they had one bad pastor they tend to distrust all pastors. For what it's worth, she did ask me what kind of car I drove :) Almost seemed like a litmus test. For the record, I have two Hummers. One black and one yellow. I wish :) We drive a Dodge mini-van and a 1995 Ford Taurus that is one its last tire.

My dentist grew up in a fear-based church. She called it an "Old Testament" church. I found that to be a fascinating description. Then she jumped over into a hyper-legalistic church that was very controlling.

What I find interesting is that she was naturally suspicious of NCC. She was very forthright about her concerns. Here are some of the concerns she voiced over the course of our conversation.

She was suspicious because her NCC patients seemed so happy and so nice. She was suspicious because we seemed so relevant. She referenced the fact that we had a coffeehouse and met in movie theaters. She actually asked if we were a cult :) I assured her that we are absolutely orthodox in belief just a little unorthodox in practice. And we're totally focused on helping people develop a relationship with Christ.

Isn't that somewhat sad? It was almost as if our being joyful or relevant didn't jive with her perception of church. It's like, "How can you guys be preaching the truth if you're innovative and joyful? Church should be out-dated and depressing!" Have we fallen that far? The very things that should distinguish us cause suspicion. I think she was so used to church being a depressing and controlling environment that she couldn't imagine anything different.

I was pretty straight up with her because one of the greatest mistakes people make is generalizing based on one bad experience. We have a few negative experiences with a church and we write off all churches! I said to her, "If someone has a bad experience with one dentist, does that mean they should stop going to dentists all together." I think that rung a bell :) I'm hoping and praying that she accepts my invitation to visit NCC. I told her that 50% of NCCers were dechurched at some point. They got burned or burned out. But they found NCC on the rebound.

A few other observations.

She wanted anonymity. She was afraid of coming and feeling awkward or uncomfortable. I told her the movie theater was a perfect environment for her to lay low as long as she wanted to. I told her we dress casual because that is one of the first things people wonder when they are about to attend a new event. What should I wear? Is it formal? Casual? Dress Casual? Jean Casual? Khaki Casual? I told her I usually wear jeans.

I honestly think negativity was the biggest hang-up for her. Christianity was all about do's and don'ts. It was controlling and fear-based. I told her that Jesus took the Pharisaical list of 613 laws and condensed them into one Great Commandment: Love God and Love people. That seemed to make sense to her.