The cool early summer nights takes me back thirty years ago to a Christian
camp in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.  A friend asked me to come along,
and I still remember a white-haired speaker from San Jose, California,
imploring the high school kids to turn to Jesus.

One night the man lead a song with a refrain that said something like, "It
was on a Sunday when I came to faith."  The tune continued with each day of
the week  -- Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday -- and campers were to stand on the
day of the week that most reflected the day of their conversion.  Every day
of the week was mentioned, and I remained seated.  On the last verse, "It
was on a Saturday," there just two or three of us who remained seated, and
peered pressure must have done its work.  We, too, stood.

I have now enjoyed spending a large part of my adult life pondering what it
is that constitutes a genuine Christian conversion.  Because I have spent so
much time interacting with college students, I have explored whether
conversion is a matter of right belief?, or warmhearted trust in Jesus?, or
baptism?, or church membership?, or a certain kind of experience? or all of
the above?

With the evangelical world in which I was raised, conversion was a defining
characteristic.  It was simple and functional.  Conversion was an individual
experience.  You know when you were saved because you could point to the
date of your conversion experience.

Frankly, the results of the evangelical enterprise cannot be doubted.  On
the other hand, many of the kids I grew up with, the very kids who made
simple, public decisions, are no longer in church.  In my campus ministry I
came to believe that while conversion can and does take place in one-time
events, by no means is it as automatic or certain as is often stated.  The
real challenge for the church is to make disciples, not to make converts.

I am using the word convert as defined by theologian Richard Peace, who says
convert marks those who take a tentative first step toward Jesus, whereas a
disciple is one who is actively and consciously following the way of Jesus.

The biggest youth group in my hometown was at the Methodist Church.  For
most of those who attended the group, including me a nonMethodist,
conversion was "a process of socialization," as Scot McKnight calls it.
Christianity was more a matter of nurture than decision.

The most outstanding worship leader I had in 20 years of campus ministry was
a young woman who was raised Methodist.  She was baptized as a baby and
raised in Sunday School.  During her days in our U of I campus ministry, she
decided she wanted to be baptized by immersion.

Her mother drove to Champaign-Urbana for her daughter's baptism.  Just
before the ceremony her mother took me aside, pointed her finger in my face
and asked, "Why are you doing this?"

The ceremony continued, but that's not the end of the story.  Years later,
the same woman, then working in Chicago, called me and told me she was
reading the Church Fathers.  Pouring over the original documents with a
fine-tooth comb would be more like it.  She was active in an Evangelical
Free Church at the time.

Her reflection lead her seriously consider the reality of the Mass, and
ultimately she joined the Catholic Church.  Before doing she, she argued for
months with an elder in the Evangelical Free Church who had left the
Catholic Church, having found it dead.

My friend concluded just the opposite, and before joining the Catholic
Church she even flew to India and met Mother Teresa, just months before
Mother Teresa died.  The best worship leader our group ever had went on to
marry an Irish Catholic, has three children to date and is a youth group
leader in her local parish.

Over the years three element of conversion have slowly coalesced in my mind.
Conversion must include repentance (from sin) and faith (in Jesus).   But
second, conversion must happen within the community of God people.  Third,
the centrality of worship within the church and the role of the sacraments
are integral in inviting people to the journey of conversion.

That night of camp in the Rockies was not the night of my conversion.  It
was merely a tiny element in my multi-layed story of God's incredible grace.
 
 

Don Follis is an Urbana pastor and member of Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Urbana, Ill.  His column
appears on Fridays.  Copyright © 2003 by the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette.