Barriers to the Gospel?

If you're not going to yell at me, John, I'm going to share the barriers I have here in Western New York.
Yes, I do share the gospel when an opportunity to do arises, so don't fall off your chair.
It's just that I share it and view it differently than you do.
This part of Western New York where I'm at being much more predominantly white than DC, as soon as I start talking, whoever it is I am talking to starts to go into that facial expression that tells me they're thinking: Oh, goodness, he's not American, therefore, he probably does not understand and speak English all that well, and how in the Lord's name am I gonna talk to him ?

Some faces light up as soon as they hear me speak their precious English language, with an accent, yes, but, understandable, and continue talking to me.
Many, especially when they hear the accent, act like your Japanese woman, and the conversation just fades away.

Yesterday I was at a clinic for my physical as required by my job, and the doctor walks in, sees my face and skin color, and immediately puts on that 'oh, my, not American' kind of face.

I've seen more subtle racism here than I've seen in the deep South.
But I guess they're more used to Latino looking guys down there than they are up North.

 

The greatest barriers in my part of the South are empty religiosity, legalism, and combination of the two.

According to conventional wisdom, the residents of my county consider themselves to be 80% "churched." There are a few hundred Muslims and a few thousand Jews. The rest of that 80% would claim to be "Christian." The culture is very religious and remains proud of its traditionalism. Many people assume that religiosity and traditionalism are the same thing as "Christianity." Which, of course, they aren't. It is difficult to witness to people to think they're "saved" because of the environment in which they grew up.

We also have our share of legalists. Vocal, at that. It seems that they unwittingly confuse justification with sanctification, because they add their rules to the beautiful simplicity of the gospel, rather than allowing the Spirit of Christ in a person transform their lifestyle by first transforming their life. These folks make the task for the rest of us more difficult.

The most frustrating phenomenon I observe is what happens when hollow religiosity gets mixed with legalism. Can anything quench the Spirit more than that person who is at the church any time the doors are open, who insists on a particular style of dress, a particular style of music, a particular English translation--and will make sure you know it--but whose life, words, and actions reflect little of the love of Christ to the very people we've been commissioned to reach.

When people either think they're already "Christians" or have been so turned off by the behavior of certain "Christians"...gaining a hearing for the gospel becomes quite difficult.

 

How about ... not hearing?

I do not mean not wanting to hear. I mean just plain cannot hear. As in DEAF. Like me.

Multitudes worldwide will never hear the Gospel story, unless someone tells them in their own sign language.

The saddest thing is, the majority of the time when a deaf person surrenders to go to the mission field, he faces an uphill climb in raising support. For me, fortunately, it was not as hard. Although I am stone deaf without my hearing aid, I can hear enough to get by and can talk just fine since I am a 'late-deafened' person. But I have several deaf friends who have struggled for years to get meetings and raise full support.

Not that it cannot be done, praise God that He ultimately supplies our needs. But I have often said, "If everyone in the world experience deafness for just one day, it would open some ears." Not to mention hearts.

John, I have had the language thing happen to me also. I can go into a store and ask for something in perfect Spanish and get the 'eye' and 'No entiendo ingles'. Of course, I have done the same in reverse when a Mexican walks up to me and starts speaking English, it takes a few seconds to switch gears.

 

I am originally from Central NY, grew up along Seneca Lake. Sad to say I know what you are talking about. Down South the ignorant are more up front about it, the Northerners do it in more of a condencending way.

I remember once I took my friend to church with me, hapenned to be black, did not give it a second thought. After all these were the people I grew up with. O my did I learn a thing or two at a young age. I was agast, trying to be polite on the BB :smilewinkgrin:

My mother's father was of Native American decent, she got my grandmother's looks and you can not tell. Any ways, when her and my father married back in '58 that 'charming country town' was polite when her father and brother would visit but we saw the looks. Her foster parents even called my fathers parents and said "Do you know your son is marrying a *&^&* half $%^&%.

I really did not know any different because I was used to my Grandpa and all I knew what the he loved us, differences was never brought up. In some ways it was good, another maybe they sheltered me too much.

My mother still does not like to talk about it, she says to leave the past in the past. I do not know how hard it must have been for her, but probably not as hard if she had gotten Grandpa's complexion, darn pigment :laugh:

I was always jealous of my cousins, I have to lay in the sun for hours and they just are :tongue3:

I never heard that story until I was older. A couple a months ago someone said one of my friends was black, I honestly never noticed. Call me strange LOL

I pray for you and everyone who goes through this.raying:

 

Sorry about getting off topic

The barriers I face is people tell me all the time "I know what I believe and I don't want to hear it"

How do you overcome that?

 

Prayer and fasting.

 

mmm ... should

 

mmm ... should I ask, or should I pray for ya'?

 

PS

The thought of being placed in a Korean hospital scared the 'devil' out of me so to speak . . .

I really couldn't get over the smell . . . I could handle it elswhere, but in a hospital was just too much.

 

Can't change the color of my skin, John, unless somebody donates boxes of Glutathione to me.

My grandparents were pure Spanish, grandma from Barcelona, gramps from Avila, except that he is descended from Moors, and has dark skin, and I took from him, because all my aunts and uncles were fair skinned.

So, I just try to speak as clearly as I can, with my natural accent. And multi-task by praying in my mind.

So far, I've met one family who views salvation and the gospel the way I do, and we plan to come together, sing, pray, and worship every Saturday night, and let the Lord add to us as He sees fit.

 

I don't know that cultural is how I would define that smell . . .

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

 

Culturally: the Christian Century in Japan; the close of the Christian Century with massive martyrdom for the faith; the Revival of the late 1800's; the reduction of Emporer worship after the 'A-bombs'; the massive Revival after WW2; and the rise of Science & the prosperity that came from scientific industrialization have all worked together (for Satan and his purpose) to bring the average Japanese to a point of spiritual numbness.

Unlike America, the Christian Century in Japan was a very brief heritage. Unlike America, the Japanese still view the carnage of the a-bombs as both a curse from God and as a curse upon Christianity as a whole. 25 - 50% of the victims were Christians.

The conservative buddhist sect are descended from the buddhists that conducted the torture campaign starting around the time of Hideyoshi (sp - this is from memorex) - and they will still hold to an almost militant anti-Christian theology.

 

And then you have the real cultural barrier of the length of time it takes Japanese to open up and trust some one (even from Japan) before they will consider the Gospel.

Relationships over time is one way to bridge the barriers.

 

I guess it's a holdover attitude from old feudal Japan.
When I was still active in Shorin-ryu Karate a hundred years ago, the first thing my sensei, a Japanese, Yuri Sazaki, drilled into my head was, "do not take your eyes off your opponent's knees and shoulders when you bow".