I ""TELL" YOU, I REALLY DON'T CARE

We often throw our words around as carelessly as we change socks. We talk about loving those out there in the proverbial "lost and dying world" and we say that we really, really care about its denizens. It's the acceptable thing to say in church circles and we feel good when we do. But most times the phrase rings like a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, because, although we say we really, really care, we don't and it shows.

THE BRAIN TRUST

I was in a meeting of the brain trust of a local church, otherwise known as a deacons' meeting. One of the men who had never, for the long, long time I'd known him, witnessed to anyone at any time concerning Christ. Never ever, although he was in church every Sunday, did he venture out across the moat to tell a non-Christian about Christ. As a matter of fact, he didn't cotton to missions conferences and once said, reflecting his own opinion, "Nobody's interested in them."

Yet, at this meeting of the distinguished gentry, he said, "There's lost and dying world out there," as if he really, really cared. He didn't; it was just another cliche he'd picked up from all the years he'd stamped his DNA on the pew.

THE TELL 

The non-Christian is perceptive; he knows that although most say they really, really care about him, they really, really don't. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to sense when someone doesn't care. One needs no special insight to do that. There are little "tells" that give our attitude away. (A tell in poker--so I'm told-- is a change in a player's behavior or demeanor that gives clues to that player's assessment of their hand. The gambler doesn't any more know that he's inadvertently communicating to others through a tell than the believer realizes his tells are communicating his true attitude to the non-Christian.

THE TELL SPECIFICALLY

There are various tells the non-Christian can spot, easily, quickly, no matter what you're saying. I recently was talking to a salesman and I was in the store because I had a list of three questions I needed answered and I'd had made a special trip to the store to ask them. Every time I asked a question, he answered it, but there was this tell was in his tone--he was abrupt, curt, blunt, and dismissive. Since I wasn't there to buy anything, but only to ask questions about a product, there was no commission for him in our interaction. His tone was indicating his true attitude: "Let's move on and get this over with." It was so bad, I wanted to move on and get this over with too.

Another tell that you don't care is to talk down to the unbeliever as if he's stupid. He picks up on this tell quickly. I once heard a pastor say to his radio audience, "Now get your little pea-sized brain working and listen to me." I turned turned the radio off immediately. Or when a speaker habitually says, "Now listen . . . now listen , , , listen," as if he were talking to a first grade class. Or when the preacher yells his sermon, he's showing that he doesn't care about the listener; he'd rather be falsely dramatic. Lecturing is yet one more tell. People, more often than not, are open to having an intelligent conversation (what the N. Testament calls a "dialogue"), but lecturing is condescending.

The tells continue when we dismiss their story, their hopes, their dreams, acting and speaking as if they're of no consequence. They may not be important to us; they may as temporal as all get-out, but they are important to the other person and he needs to see that we value him by listening, not thinking of our next clever response to put him down so we can brag at the next church service about how we put him in his place.

HE CARED

Jesus sat at the well of the Samaritan woman, gave her the courtesy of an extended conversation. With Nicodemus, there was a nighttime appointment with honesty and clarity. Jesus went to people; He sought them; He invited people to come to Him, children too. An overlooked aspect of evangelism is doing what Jesus did with the Samaritan woman; He sat by her well.