Escaping The Bubble

Adapting to the foreign culture is one of my main goals here in Australia. But for my ministry to be strong I must also adapt to (become involved in) the lives of the unsaved around me as well. This means I must actively seek out the unsaved and develop relationships with them. And then through those relationships I will be able to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the past I would call for unbelievers to attend a service or outreach at my church. This philosophy demanded that they come to me instead of my coming to them.


Recently I have been reading a book that chronicles the results of a three year study on how the unsaved view Believers.1 Throughout the book different views are shared that the unbelievers have concerning the church. The chapter I read from today described Christians as “sheltered”. On the first page of that chapter is a statement from an unsaved twenty-two year old young man that challenged me. “Christians enjoy being in their own community. The more they seclude themselves, the less they can function in the real world. So many Christians are caught in the Christian bubble.”2

What made that statement so amazing is that this morning I read the exact same thing in a totally different book written by the Pastor of a church. He points out that for many of us our goal is to, “build a stronger and thicker bubble around us protecting us from the outside while we create this very strange Christian subculture inside.”3

Both this pastor and unsaved young man make the same point using the same word (bubble). We tend to only spend time with other Believers, and have very little interaction with the unsaved. The more I thought about this the more it convicted me. I am called to be different from the world, but at the same time actively involved in it. It is a wonderful thing to spend time with other believers in fellowship and encouragement.
Yet I have a hard time naming one unsaved person who I am close friends with.

It is unhealthy for my social life to consist only of Believers. But that is still true for many of us. “We go to church on Wednesdays, Sundays, and sometimes on Saturdays. We attend small group on Tuesday night and serve on the Sunday School advisory board, the financial committee, and the welcoming committee. We go to barbecues with our Christian friends and plan to group outings. We are closed off from the world.” 4

I don’t believe that we are only spending time with Christian friends because of sin in our lives. The truth is that almost all of us are so busy we don’t have time to interact with our friends at church. And developing relationships with an unbeliever is a very slow process. But what I read today made me stop a few moments and think. In many ways I am currently living in the “Christian bubble”. But by God’s grace I will find a way to escape it.


1 David Kinnaman, Unchristian, Baker Books; Grand Rapids Michigan, Copyright 2007
2 David Kinnaman, Unchristian, pg.121, par.1
3 Dan Kimball, They like Jesus but not the church, pg.42, Par.1, ln.3
4 David Kinnaman, Unchristian, pg.130, par.3, ln.5