Imagine waking up one morning and being you, but not. You get out of bed and look in the mirror. What’s different? you wonder.
You still look like you. You haven’t magically switched bodies with your best friend or your teenage self. No new gray hairs as far as you can tell. Nothing seems different. You’re the same you as you were before you went to bed last night. Your clothes fit the way they always have. You grab your usual breakfast, and you take the same car on the same route to work at the same time you always do. Your workday is the same—the same tasks, meetings, and coworkers. Everything seems the same, but you can’t shake the feeling something has changed. And something has.
You are different. You’re still the same you, but you’re not the same as you were before. This is what it’s like to become a Christian as an adult, and the strangeness of this change has implications for discipleship.
Messy Reality of Adult Conversion
I came to faith in 2005, a couple of months before my 26th birthday. Like many who grew up in a Canadian household, religion was largely unknown to me. I didn’t have a problem with that because God wasn’t on my radar.
You’re still the same you, but you’re not the same as you were before. This is what it’s like to become a Christian as an adult.
Then I started reading the Bible for the first time because I wanted to make fun of a friend. As I read, Jesus became unignorable to me. He was someone I had to take seriously; I couldn’t not. Trying to figure out how to respond to Jesus culminated in a moment where I knew I had to ask him to save me.
I was left with a loaded, all-important question: “Now what?” What did becoming a Christian mean for my life, relationships, job—my everything? What does it mean to be a new person, to experience a new birth into new desires (Ps. 37:4; Phil. 2:13), a new purpose (Ps. 73:24–26; John 17:22, 24; 1 Cor. 10:31; Rom. 11:36), a new identity (Eph. 1:5), and a new future (Rev. 21:1–22:5)?
I had no clue. I needed help.
Our Post-Christian Mission Field
Here’s the uncomfortable truth. Many seasoned Christians and churches struggle to know how to help adult converts navigate the “now what” of faith. This isn’t because they lack the desire. It’s because the experiences of adult converts are foreign to them.
I now live in Nashville, Tennessee, and most Christians I know here grew up with believing parents who deeply loved Jesus and encouraged them to worship him. To many, especially those from areas where elements of Christianity haunt the culture, faith seems normal. The habits, symbols, and language of Christianity are generally understood without much, if any, explanation.
But for those of us who grew up without any real connection with Christianity (or in some cases, without any awareness of it), there’s nothing normal about it. We don’t look at a cross and think “Jesus.” We look at a cross and see the letter t.
We’re not alone. The number of people who grow up ignorant of Christian culture is only increasing in the West. As they do, it’s going to be even more difficult for many Christians and churches to know what to do with post-Christian people—both before and after they come to faith.
Opportunity Before Us
We should acknowledge both the mess before us and the opportunity. When we feel overwhelmed, or when we see that the discipleship playbook we’re familiar with doesn’t apply, we’re being invited to refresh our thinking, to see the foundation and familiar habits of our faith with fresh eyes and renewed wonder.
This doesn’t just mean teaching the basic doctrines of the faith, although new converts do need to learn those. We must help them navigate what to us may seem obvious, things we don’t typically give much thought to. We must help them do the following:
See why Bible reading matters and how to do it
Understand what prayer is and what it looks like in practice
Recognize the signs of a healthy church and know why the Christian life can’t be lived apart from community
Navigate romantic relationships in light of their new understanding of life’s purpose
Figure out how to disagree on big and small issues in a way that reflects their newfound faith
Know how to engage with creative efforts—and to pursue creative expression—while calibrating and obeying their consciences
Pursue the ideal of being both steadfast in their convictions and kind in how they engage with others, especially nonbelievers
Show Younger Brothers and Sisters the Way Forward
One of the most important ways the Bible describes the church is as a family. We embrace that identity as we seek to help adult converts develop a firm foundation for their faith.
We should see them for what they are: our newborn brothers and sisters—grown-up in body, but children in belief. Just as the earliest years of life are among the most crucial for our development, so too are the earliest years of our new life in Christ. We have a responsibility to encourage, guide, and nurture our younger brothers and sisters during these early weeks, months, and years.
Many seasoned Christians and churches struggle to know how to help adult converts navigate the ‘now what’ of faith.
That may seem daunting. After all, none of us has it all figured out. We all still fall short, sin, and mess up in all kinds of ways. The answers new Christians get from us won’t be perfect, because we aren’t perfect. We’re still on the path toward holiness—the path that only ends when we stand before Jesus.
But we are a few steps ahead on the path. And what we’ve learned along the way is worth sharing. Are you ready?
The Gospel Coalition