:: in.a.mirror.dimly :: A theology and culture blog with the Bible in one tab and a news feed in the other.

I used to live next to a nine hole, par three golf course. The golf course was next to a river. Guess where most of my shots ended up.

What I knew about golf I gleaned from my summers working for a house painter and dear friend of mine, Jimmy. Jimmy was hosting a Spanish exchange student named Felix who also worked with us. We’d typically finish around 3:00, wash the brushes until 3:30, and then grab our clubs to putter around in Jimmy’s back yard. Jimmy sort of knew what he was doing, I knew how to putt, and Felix just hit the ball really hard. Felix had a saying that went like this, “Jimmy is stra-tee-gee. I am force.”

Jimmy’s favorite stunt was chipping golf balls off his roof to the hole dug out on the other end of the yard. Felix and I just waited until he came down.

With this kind of expertise as my guide, I’d sometimes drag my clubs over to the nine hole course and play a few holes. I rarely made it through all nine. I typically ran out of balls, patience, or both. Sometimes I managed to drive the ball clear down the tiny fairway, and even manage to plunk the ball in on four shots. This was a rarity at best. Suffice it say, sometimes my methods worked, but more often than not I ended up whacking brush back in the woods or fending off mud and crayfish in the river.

The mud almost ate my sandal once.

While there was no reason why I couldn’t keep playing golf and having a good time, it would be foolish to say that I didn’t need lessons or a training video. A bad golfer is a bad golfer, even if he sometimes lucks out.

While I don’t want to stretch this analogy too far, I think that the ways we share the Gospel are often left unevaluated because we occasionally enjoy success. If it works on some occasions, then we have nothing to evaluate, lest we undermine the well-meaning people who are just “trying to do God’s work.”

This is sticky business, however I think it’s key that we honor good intentions, while turning a critical eye to the way we live out and share the good news that God loves us and wants to know us. For example, we typically think of the Gospel as a message to be shared. Yes, we sometimes quote the line from Saint Francis about preaching the gospel by how we live, but I don’t think Evangelicals on the whole really understand just how radical a living witness to the Gospel can be. When we meet gossip with blessing, dishonor with honor, and harsh words with kind words, we are living out the reality of God’s Kingdom, living beyond the limits of this world. Suddenly these doctrines we profess have profound power over our daily lives.

While I don’t think we necessarily need to develop a “stra-tee-gee” for sharing the good news of God’s love, I think it helps to hold ourselves up to scrutiny from time to time. Are we watering down the message? Are we failing to live out the message? Are we being pushy and offensive? These are normal, healthy questions we should be asking. We can’t guarantee a birdie or an eagle every time we love our enemies or do good to those who persecute us, but in doing such things we are training ourselves to follow in the steps of Jesus. This makes it all the more likely that we’ll one day figure out that balance of living and speaking the Gospel in the right ways and at the right times.