What’s in it for me?

This is a question I often hear surrounding God, Jesus, the Bible, religion, church. There is a perfectly understandable answer for everyone, but to get to it, I find it easier to grasp if I apply some reasoning an electronics teacher once shared. When searching for answers it is sometimes good to exaggerate any possible answer to its limits, adding contrast for clearer visualization.

To see the extremes of what’s in it for anybody, let’s compare what we know at birth to what we know at our 50th birthday. We know nothing at birth compared with what we know at the age of 50. We knew nothing and trusted nothing at birth. Obviously we have learned to trust everything we know how to do; math, music, money…everything we do with confidence. Also, if we look at the process of how we trusted our parents and teachers in everything, it will be obvious that trust truly was the beginning of everything we now know…except God and His Word.

Why? The reasoning, in extreme, is people can be seen in two distinct groups, those with a Christian upbringing and those without. Children learn to trust God and His Word while growing up in a Christian home, while those growing up in non Christian homes do not. This distinction remains througout life unless the non Christian learns to trust God and His Word. This can be a challenge. Churches are developed and attended by Christians, for Christians. Christians and non Christians coming to a new church are all welcomed with the same assumption; they already trust God and His Word. They already believe and have faith in God. This assumption is extreme if we compare the same two groups entering a new school or college, or a new job.

So where can we go to learn to trust God and His Word if we are non Christian? Churches assume we already trust Him and His Word and don’t really know how to duplicate the trust they developed themselves in their own Christain homes. They just trust.

KOOTENAY UNCHURCH (KU) is the place to ‘learn to trust’ God and His Word for non Christians.

KOOTENAY PRECHURCH (KP) is the place to learn about the different viewpoints and understandings between Christian and non Christian upbringings.

These two, on line sources of information, can help any church develop programs for trusting His Word. Recognizing the need for such programs is key to providing and developing them. We all need to trust His Word to begin having faith in it, regardless of our upgringing.

If we want to know what’s in it for ourself, we need only to look at what’s in it for everything else we have learned to trust and have faith in.