I got permission from my wife to tell this one. Actually, it was kinda her idea to relay this story.
The movie “E.T.” was a staple for kids in the 1980s. It’s a classic…a peaceful race of alien explorers land on Earth, but have to leave hastily and one of their own is marooned in a forest in California. Looking for assistance, this explorer makes contact with a local kid, who tries to help the alien (later called “E.T.”, short for “Extraterrestrial”) make contact with his own race before the bad-guy human scientists track him down and take him away. I saw this multiple times as a kid. I think I even watched it in one of my elementary school classes.
My wife, on the other hand, did NOT see it as a kid. In fact, even as an adult, when she saw previews for it she thought it was weird, a little off-putting, and she simply had no desire to see it because she thought the alien looked creepy. I didn’t necessarily have a burning desire to watch it as an adult, but when even the possibility of it came up as an option, either for the two of us to watch, or to show our kids, she had kind of a “hard pass” mentality, even when I’d say “aww, c’mon, it’s E.T.!” Nope.
Well, I guess it was years later when the two of us were just kind of surfing through Netflix looking for something to watch. A lot of times when you pause on a selection in Netflix, it will show you either a trailer for the movie or a clip from it. Well, E.T. made its way onto Netflix and I paused on it to see what it would show. It played a clip from the movie where the kid was about to reveal to his older brother that he’d been harboring an interplanetary refugee. To their complete surprise, their little sister unexpectedly burst into the room, came face-to-face with E.T., and started screaming in fear. This reaction freaked out E.T., who also started yelling in fear. The ensuing comedy as the two brothers tried to get things under control before their Mom found out got my wife laughing. The two of us ended up watching the movie right then and there, and soon after, the whole family watched it. It all happened because of one scene that shifted my wife’s perspective.
A lot of people who don’t believe in God picture Christians as intolerant, holier-than-thou hypocrites. In some cases, that stereotype is well-earned, but not nearly as much as they might think. None of us are perfect, and we’re not always the best at loving on people who think differently from us. Think about this, though. For every non-believer who’d rather not step inside a church, that’s someone who can be reached by a Christian simply listening to them and their story, and accepting them for who they are without trying to change everything about them.
It’s not our job to change people. God changes people. God meets people where they are. It’s our job to point those people to Him. One of the best ways to do it is by listening to people’s stories, getting to know them, and eventually having conversations with them (preferably in a place they feel comfortable and safe, which usually means outside of church). Having respectful discussions with them in non-threatening ways is a great method of getting them to shift their perspective enough to put a little more thought into why they believe what they believe. That opens the door for some of the big-picture questions that gets them really thinking about things they may have been avoiding.
And it all begins when your relationship with them allows you to start changing their perspective.