Hello, I\u00edm an agnostic and I\u00edve decided to give your church a try tomorrow. Here are some of the things I\u00edm going to be looking for:<\/p>\n
1. Is there a genuine joy?<\/span> Is there something different about these people who have gathered together that attracts me? Or is it the same old sad thing that I\u00edve seen in churches in the past? People together alone.<\/p>\n 2. I\u00edm an agnostic, which is not to say I\u00edm an atheist<\/span>, which is also to say I\u00edm NOT hostile. But it does say I\u00edm thinking and I\u00edm looking for reasons to believe. I\u00edll listen if you have some that don\u00edt insult my intelligence.<\/p>\n 3. When I say I\u00edm an agnostic, what I\u00edm saying is, I don\u00edt have enough proof yet<\/span>. I\u00edm on the hunt and I\u00edm open. But understand, from my point of view, you have to convince me.<\/p>\n 4. I\u00edm an agnostic and I\u00edm listening closely to the words you use<\/span>. Are you making \u201cfun\u201d<\/em> of people like me? Do you insult our intelligence? Do you say things like, \u00ecYou\u00edd have to be stupid to be an atheist,<\/em><\/strong>\u00ee or \u00ecYou\u00edd have to be crazy to be an agnostic?<\/em><\/strong>\u00ee Insulting me will not convince me.<\/p>\n 5. Are you the kind of person who wants to carry on a dialogue or conversation?<\/span> Or are you just a person who wants to scream your points of view so loud that I can\u00edt be heard.<\/p>\n 6. I\u00edm an agnostic, but I am looking for someone secure in their faith<\/span>. Do you need me to believe it in order for you to believe? Are you confident enough to honestly sharing what\u00eds worked for you as well as what is not working?<\/p>\n 7. I\u00edm an agnostic and want to know why<\/span> religious people can be, on the one hand, so merciful and on the other hand, so mean.<\/p>\n 8. I\u00edm an agnostic and convince me I can be a part of your group<\/span> without believing everything you do and that you\u00edre open to my questions and doubts.<\/p>\n 9. I\u00edm an agnostic and I don\u00edt carry a Bible<\/span> and I don\u00edt read it. I take pretty much for granted what other people have told me. So what are you going to do today to help me get into the Bible, not just listen to your words about it?<\/p>\n 10. I\u00edm an agnostic and I\u00edve been wounded in the past by religion<\/span>. That wound is deep and festered. How are you going to honor that and yet confront my assumptions?<\/p>\n 11. I\u00edm an agnostic and like you, I\u00edve believed in a lot of things<\/span> I\u00edve been told. Help me honestly rethink some of the things that I\u00edve just accepted by faith.<\/p>\n 12. I\u00edm an agnostic and I\u00edm looking for a reason<\/span> to have faith again. If you talk about obscure passages and ideas, theological constructs that have nothing to do with my life, I\u00edm probably not going to be back.<\/p>\n These are some of the things agnostics are looking for. What are they finding when they come and see you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello, I\u00edm an agnostic and I\u00edve decided to give your church a try tomorrow. Here are some of the things I\u00edm going to be looking for: 1. Is there a genuine joy? Is there something different about these people who have gathered together that attracts me? Or is it the same old sad thing that … Continue reading “Hello, I’m Agnostic Guy, I’m Coming to Your Church Tomorrow”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}