Faith Pyramid Strategy In Action (Example #2)

Before reading below, I recommend you read my post - What Is The Faith Pyramid?

The Faith Pyramid Strategy forces one to stay focused when sharing the truth of God with someone, as I experienced recently. I was confronted by a rather combative atheist, who began our conversation sarcastically asking, "What would you say if I told you that I ride a dinosaur to school everyday?" My response was, "I actually have good reasons to believe you don't ride a dinosaur to school everyday." This is pretty typical mantra from an atheist. Supposedly believing in God is the same as believing in Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. Of course, there are a couple of holes in this line of thinking. As I shared with my new atheist friend, there are good reasons to not believe in such nonsense. Furthermore, fairy tales are for children who aren't inclined to think logically and rationally, whereas statistics reveal that belief and faith in God tends to be higher (in devotion) among adults than among children and teenagers. Back to my new atheist friend...

At the beginning of our conversation, he had pretty standard questions that were all over the place, but I needed to know exactly where he fell in the FP, so using the Engage-Listen-Adjust methodology, I initially (and rather quickly) discovered that he was in fact "about as atheist as one could be." This of course meant that I must "adjust" completely to Level 1 ("My Belief in God") and keep the conversation focused on that discussion!

I found the Faith Pyramid Strategy to be very fruitful in our 45-minute discussion. As I stated earlier, he was all over the place. He wanted to discuss religion, why I believe Christianity is true instead of other religions, the Big Bang theory, etc. The most interesting part about the FP Strategy in the context of our conversation is that it forced me to refuse discussion in many places he wanted to go. Once again, this young man was not even a theist (Level 1), so many points of discussion would be absolutely ridiculous. I told him I would not talk to him about religion, because "it makes no sense to discuss what different religions believe about how God has revealed Himself, if you don't believe in God in the first place!" To help him understand my thinking, I asked him if he believed in miracles. He (of course) said no. I told him, "Good, you shouldn't. Believing in miracles would be stupid if you don't believe in a God who can interfere with nature." He understood my reasoning at this point, which allowed for valuable discussion focused specifically on the topic of God's existence. At the end of our conversation, I gave him a couple of resources and we're planning to talk further in the coming weeks.

I am praying that the Holy Spirit opens his heart, because Jesus stated, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent me draws him..." (John 6:44). As I trust God to do the impossible (such as transform my friend's heart), I will seek to do all that is possible, by first proving God exists (Level 1), that the Bible and Christianity is reliable to reveal specific truth about God (Level 2), that the Gospel message is his hope for salvation (Level 3), so that he can grow into a fully-developed follower of Jesus Christ, who is assured of Heaven (Level 4).

How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him who they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? - Romans 10:14