For some reason, any time an evangelical gets in front of a television camera, he/she feels the need to preach a sermon (or a political speech, but that’s another post). The problem is that television evangelists have been around for a long time. Their crazy theology, bad hair, and pleas for money have inoculated the world against any bit of truth that they might present. Most end up on the Tonight Show punch line end of a scandal. All that telling and so little showing has left people with spiritually debilitating assumptions about the gospel and it’s relevance to real life. Now, here comes Jay Bakker, who is honest about the messy side of his life in Christ, and millions of people (many for the first time in their lives) see someone who calls himself a Christian but doesn’t presume to have all of the answers.

Again, my point here is not Bakker’s show. There’s been lots of talk in the blogosphere about his theology, and some are concerned that he’s not a good representative of the faith. I say we need to present more “real live” Christians (good examples or not) and fewer talking heads on the “O’Reilly Factor.” To me, this is the incarnation that’s been lacking for some time now.

So why don’t we see more documentaries like this one, or like Morgan Spurlock’s “30 Days” series, done by believers? It’s not like we don’t have the equipment- how many of our churches have crack A/V teams?

This summer, we’re bringing in a team of media students to do just this sort of thing. I’ve got some really creative, interesting, and articulate team members who will be the subject of this short series we’re going to do. I don’t want them to preach, and we’ll edit out any prepared remarks. We’re looking for authentic Christianity as it’s lived out in real life. The goods and the bads, the highs and the lows.

I think that’s what’s been missing from our “witness.”

We’ve known for a long time now that people don’t like to feel like targets. We’re not to comfortable with targeting people anyway. So here’s a counter intuitive lesson we’ve learned: if you want to meet people, stop trying to meet people.

Just like the hard-to-love loners in high school that were nice enough, but so annoying no one could stand them for very long, we were trying too hard. Our focus on wanting to befriend the people around us was freaking them out. It wasn’t until we stopped trying that God brought us some significant relationships.

Of course, it isn’t enough to stop trying; we had to focus our efforts and energies somewhere else. We were a team of fairly creative and semi-artistic people anyway, so we poured ourselves into our art. Painting, writing, and photography are usually pretty solitary endeavors; but they don’t have to be. We started visiting galleries and studios, just as we had done before, but now as mostly-serious artists, not as outsiders trolling for “contacts.” We started taking art classes to improve our technique, not to try to find a captive audience to evangelize. We joined clubs and creative groups, we made arrangements to show our art and publish our work.

Guess what happened? We started meeting people. We’re making friends.

We’re moving beyond, “This is my friend from the fish stand at the market” to something more real. We’re beginning to move in circles with people with whom we have a lot in common, and our work is opening doors for spiritual conversations and open presentation of Good News. We’re being invited in to creative groups whose existence until now we only suspected. Art both shapes and reflects the culture. It’s exciting to come into contact with the people involved, and for them to welcome our participation.

Who would have guessed that the best way to meet people would be to stop trying to meet people?