Conversion through Friendship

The most common “advocate” for conversion is a family member or a friend (you can read about this in my book Turning to Jesus). Some are converted by reading, some by listening to a sermon, some by studying a problem, some by an aesthetic encounter (I know someone who was converted through a piece of art in an Eastern European church) or watching a film or reading a novel, and some by the power of an intellectual argument. But the most common is a friend, or a family person, that is, someone trusted whose faith embodies and makes credible the Christian faith. As is the case with Kirsten Powers:

What’s your story? What “advocates” do you see?

“I started dating someone who went to Tim Keller’s church, Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City. Out of curiosity, I went with him. But I told him upfront that I would never become a Christian; that it’s never going to happen. After about six or seven months, I began to think that the weight of history is more on the side of what [I was hearing at this church] than not. Tim Keller had made such a strong case, that I began to think it’s not even smart to reject this. It just doesn’t seem like a good intellectual decision.

“Really, it was like God sort of invaded my life. It was very unwelcome. I didn’t like it. Obviously, I started having a lot of different experiences where I felt God was doing a lot of things in my life. It’s kind of hard to describe, but I did have this moment where the scales just fell off of my eyes, where I was saying, ‘this is just totally true, I don’t even have any doubt.’ …I don’t really feel like I had any courage when I became a Christian, I just gave in. I wasn’t courageous; I didn’t have any choice. I kept trying to not believe but I just couldn’t avoid [accepting Christ]. If I could have avoided it, I would have. There is nothing convenient about it in my life or in the world I live in. It’s not like living in the South where everybody is a Christian. I live in a world where nobody is a believer. But God pursued me.”

Her name is Kirsten Powers.