I read this article on Yahoo News about a priest who skateboards to connect with the youth in his area.

He says:

“Many times I have felt that this is the way I can bring many people a bit closer to Jesus.”

So what do you think?

This is a guest post by Billy Gager. To check out his blog and learn more about him click here.

My wife, Nathalia, works part time at a scrapbooking store. Recently, when checking out a new customer at the register, she asked for their e-mail address so the store could send e-coupons and updates about the store’s upcoming events. The customer amazingly replied, “Oh! I don’t use a computer.”

Yes, you heard me right! She didn’t say, “I don’t use a smartphone … I don’t follow blogs … I don’t e-mail.” She doesn’t even use a computer. Immediately, that person is cut off from the major form of communication with the store. That may be a good thing when it comes to buying material possessions, but for my wife and I who had a laugh about it, it would be like not having the telephone 20 years ago.

This raises the question for leaders of the church in an increasingly technologically complex culture, “How do we engage people for Christ who are not ‘up with’ our preferred, or even standard, uses of technology?”

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I think the dilemma of the missionary is such: how far does the missionary go in becoming like the people he’s trying to reach, in order to reach them?

It’s a question that I’ve been asking myself for a long time.

I just read a powerful quote, in which the author, James K.A. Smith (Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism), addresses this exact issue with a great metaphor. I’ll share the extended quote here:

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I just read one of the best definitions of a missional church. I think. And guess what? It’s not from a pastor or theologian, and it doesn’t even have any Scripture quotations. Cue the scream: *scream*

Here it is. It’s from Jeff Bezos, founder and chairman of Amazon.com, and it’s in reference to their strategy for creating products and reaching customers:

“There are two ways that companies can extend what they’re doing. One is they can take an inventory of their skills and competencies, and then they can say, “OK, with this set of skills and competencies, what else can we do?” And that’s a very useful technique that all companies should use. But there’s a second method, which takes a longer-term orientation. It is to say, rather than ask what are we good at and what else can we do with that skill, you ask, who are our customers? What do they need? And then you say we’re going to give that to them regardless of whether we currently have the skills to do so, and we will learn those skills no matter how long it takes. Kindle is a great example of that. It’s been on the market for two years, but we worked on it for three years in earnest before that. We talked about it for a year before that. We had to go hire people to build a hardware–engineering team to build the device. We had to acquire new skills. There’s a tendency, I think, for executives to think that the right course of action is to stick to the knitting—stick with what you’re good at. That may be a generally good rule, but the problem is the world changes out from under you if you’re not constantly adding to your skill set.” (Click here to read the whole article).

This concept kind of turns some of the dialogue on spiritual gifts on its head. For example, much of the seminars on spiritual gifts focus on exactly what Bezos was talking about: what are my talents, gifts, personality, etc. But I think his concept is more Scriptural. It simply asks, “what does our community need, how can we reach them,” and then the church would go about learning those skills or doing what is necessary to reach the people. I think this is something the Holy Spirit can really work through: the Spirit blessing you with gifts as you seek to reach those far from Christ.

What do you think of this concept as related to spiritual gifts and reaching people?

[image by Jim Darling] *picture of a guy reading on an Amazon Kindle with a cover.

Pretty funny video about evangelism. It’s been out for a little bit, but I thought I’d share it here.