The ‘I’m not religious’ mind-set, (so common among non-churchgoers) is the direct result of the Christian ‘non-dimmer’ salvation understanding.

In past centuries the Christian church held powerful sway over governments and society in general (especially in western countries), indoctrinating even those who never darkened its doors. A major part of this societal indoctrination was the Church’s relentless message that God refuses to be in real relationship with anyone who is not attending a church and has not committed themselves knowingly to Jesus Christ according to prescribed Christian formulas. This message was so successfully engrafted into the mind-set of society that those outside the Church shrugged their shoulders and accepted what the experts on religion told them. Like the tax collectors and ‘sinners’ of Jesus’ day, most saw themselves as outside the grace and protection of God.

As a result, generations of non-churchgoing ‘publicans and sinners’, believing that God would not relate to them without their becoming ‘religious’ or ‘full-on churchgoers’, wrote over their lives the sad epitaph “I’m not religious”. They had no right, as they saw it, to be interested in the things of God. The tragic fact is that if anyone had ever bothered to ask them many would have told of events in their lives when they were strangely helped by a loving ‘greater power’. Yet most drew back from concluding that maybe God was with them. Hadn’t the Church told them that this was not possible?

Over the years, however, the Church’s influence in society has waned dramatically. Generations of people are now beginning to come through who have either not heard that they must be part of the Christian Church to have a relationship with God, or have simply dismissed such teaching as narrow bigotry. Ever since the rise of the counter-culture and New Age movements in the late sixties and seventies, huge numbers of people have been seeking a spiritual life outside of any religious ‘box’ - be that box Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or New Age. An increasing number of people are beginning to pursue a home grown and smorgasbord type of spirituality and are finding that God is more than willing to relate with them.

A warning to Christians: These people might look like a wonderful mission field ‘ripe for harvest’, but they are not.

In fact trying to get such people to accept the evangelical version of salvation is extraordinarily difficult, for the following reason. The normal evangelical approach requires that these individuals firstly be persuaded to believe that they do not have and never have had any authentic spirituality. Evangelicals require them to get to the point of labelling all their previous spiritual experience as basically satanic deception. However, the great problem for the would-be Christian evangelist is that these people already have what is tantamount to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit within, so they ‘know’ that this is just not true! Accordingly, and indeed fortunately, they simply won’t buy any evangelical condemnation of their existing spirituality. The only thing such condemnation does is to confirm to them, more surely than ever, that evangelical Christians are just a bunch of arrogant, condescending bigots. And in a sense who can blame them!

The good news is that there is a better way to awaken people to their need to actively seek the will of God.

This is a radical yet profoundly biblical way which has to be seriously considered. To explain how this ‘better way’ works I need to share how God broke through my lifelong evangelical mindset.

As has been explained elsewhere, I was for a number of years a Baptist minister. Prior to this I had been a voluntary worker with the ‘Open Air Campaigners’, a strongly evangelistic group of open air preachers. Once in the ministry I was very active in all sorts of evangelism, from pulpit preaching, to door knocking, to attending several Christian outreaches at the large New Age rock festivals common in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. I was widely read in all forms of Christian apologetics and gifted in the area of sharing with people about Christ.

In 1988 I was powerfully called out of the ministry and told to go back into ‘the market place’. Several years later I went though an amicable yet deeply painful marriage separation and divorce. At the onset of this most traumatic period I felt God tell me that I would undergo ‘crucifixion followed by resurrection’. Through the painful grieving of the months which followed I was to experience both the loving presence of God and the most amazing guidance of my entire life. It was during this time that I was clearly guided to attend a weekend workshop for those serious about doing the will of God. It was a weekend that would change my life.