Sometimes, it gets complicated.

I was over at a friend’s home in our neighborhood recently for a small social gathering. This family, over the past year, has actually become some of our closest friends in the community. Our kids play together. We eat meals together. We attend local events and concerts together. We just enjoy being together. It is actually kind of a unique deal in that I am a pastor and this family does not attend our church. This family actually does not attend any church.

Part of my role, my calling in my job here at Oak Mountain is to encourage and to help people think through aspects of our calling as believers, as followers of Jesus Christ to build relationships with non-Christians for the sake of the gospel. Honestly, I love this part of my job. I get totally fired up by watching people catch a vision for their neighborhoods or their communities and coming up with creative ways to integrate the gospel into their everyday lives and interactions. I “heart” non-Christians.

I was reminded, however, at this recent friendly gathering of neighbors, the majority of whom would likely feel more than a bit uncomfortable walking into any church, of at least one of the reasons why so few us who claim to follow Christ do this “relationship with nonbelievers” thing well. It is simply so much easier at times to surround oneself with others who look, feel, act and think just like we do. It just gets plain awkward at times. And we don’t do awkward very well. It offends our illusion that we are in full control of what is going on around us. Our twin idols of comfort and safety are rocked from their place on the altar, and that makes us really nervous.

Allow me to display exhibit A.

We arrived at our friend’s home and waded in. Good food, music, kids playing together. It was awesome. Eventually the fella’s ended up congregating outside while many of the wives remained inside with the younger children. The expected subjects were all covered, sports, weather, etc. And then suddenly the conversation took a turn. It all started with, “Hey, I heard this joke.” And we went downhill from there.

And there I was, Mr. reformed pastor dude who loves non-Christians, backed into the corner of a crowded deck, with no way to discreetly evacuate myself from the situation. A flood of thoughts ran through my mind. Everything from “Wow, the way that guy just put together all of those assorted words in a colorful and illustrative word portrait was actually rather linguistically impressive.” to “Okay, do I make a scene and leave, running the risk of injuring this relationship I have worked so hard to foster?” to “Is my presence here condoning to topic of conversation?” and “Am I completely ruining Christ’s reputation for being here?”

In truth this whole scene only lasted a few moments. Fortunately one of the small children wandered outside and, to everyone’s credit, the conversation quickly righted itself. Whew! Later on, as my cold sweats and I were replaying the evening, I was struck with how awkward it can be at times to relate with those who operate from a different foundational basis for life. And yet we simply cannot expect those who have not been made new in Christ to live their lives as if they had, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

So should I have left immediately? Did I “ruin my witness” in those few moments? First of all, I thankfully serve a sovereign God who is able to expand his kingdom quite in spite of my fledgling efforts fumbling around at how to do this whole “love people well in the gospel” thing. And secondly, I’m not so sure there is a hard and fast rule that is going to apply in every one of these situations. Loving people, pursuing relationships with people is messy. Yes, our goal is that they will see and hear the gospel and be drawn to the beauty that is Christ, our Savior. But this assumes that there is an actual relational context upon which to frame this gospel truth.

So dive in, expect the awkward and experience the inadequacy. If you are anything like me, these will become some of the all too rare times where our veneer of self sufficiency is adequately deconstructed to such a degree that we begin to depend upon God as we should have been doing all along.