The Lord of their lives

Paul Hiebert makes the following very helpful points about how to understand a person's conversion and new life in Christ. The only thing I would want to add (and he may well have addressed this elsewhere in the book - I only read part of it), is that the information the person understands and believes about Jesus from the outset needs to be true - so that it really is Jesus Christ he is following and not some crazy teacher's idea of him.

Who is a Christian? It is a person who believes certain things (orthodoxy) or lives a certain lifestyle (orthopraxy) . . . . In the Bible the fundamental categories are relational. A person is a person because she is a mother, sister, wife, and friend. A Christian is a person who is a follower of Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior . . . . The test is not what they believe or do but who is the Lord of their lives. New believers often know little about Christ, but they are seeking him. So-called old believers may make Christ a part of their lives but live mostly for themselves.1

Conversion then is a point - a turning around. This turning may involve a minimal amount of information regarding Christ, but it does involve a change in relationship to him - a commitment to follow him, however little we know of him, to learn more and to obey him as we understand his voice. But conversion is also a process - a series of decisions that grow out of this initial turning. Viewed in this way, Papayya can become a Christian after hearing the gospel once, but those who lead him to Christ have a great responsibility to disciple him, to root him solidly in his new faith.2

Justification and sanctification "are part of the same process - turning around and following Christ as the Lord of our lives."3

Hiebert also explores how the use of rituals can help us be more clear about conversion, as well as helping us throughout our spiritual life. Again I have a couple of things to add. The first is that you want to make sure that your service isn't so ritual-heavy or the rituals aren't so bizarre that a non-believing visitor feels alienated, bewildered or disgusted. Second, you also need to work hard to show how this religious part of life intersects with ordinary everyday life, where there is nothing of this.

In rituals we bracket ordinary signs in ritual format to show that we are speaking of extraordinary realities. By singing or chanting ordinary words, we raise the level of their significance and enable them to integrate beliefs, feelings, and moral commitments. We put on special clothes and go to special places at special times. We bow our heads, kneel, or raise our hands and say, "Our Father . . ." and "Amen" to show that we are talking to God, not to one another about him.4

Our Western antiritual stance is reflected by our attitude to Sunday morning services. We say, "I go to church in order to worship." Worship is what we get out of the service. If we do not "feel" like we have worshiped, we call the service a dead ritual. People with a high view of ritual, as is true in many cultures around the world, say, "In going to church I am worshiping." . . . .  

We must ask, has our modern view and practice of conversion become truncated and weak in part because we have no real rituals by which we can express the realities of life meaningfully to ourselves and to the world around us? With no clear living ritual, religious conversion becomes simply another ordinary decision, like the many other decisions we make every day. There is nothing to mark its life-transforming nature . . . .

In much of the world, decisions, especially religious conversions, are public affairs and must be marked by signs that both perform and communicate. That is why baptism, not an inner personal affirmation of faith, is often the crucial issue in mission churches. People may express a personal faith in Christ and remain in the community, but when they are baptized, they are excommunicated from their old group.5

1 PG Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 282.
2 Ibid, 311.
3 Ibid, 326.
4 Ibid, 322. 
5 Ibid, 323.