A mountain biking ride with a group of students taught me three surefire ways to turn people off Christianity. Learn from my mistakes! #turnoff #Christianity #selfcare #spiritualselfcare #spiritualwholeness #newbelievers #jesusrevolution #mentor #disciple #selfcare #selfcarehacks #selfcaresunday #podcast

A mountain biking ride with a group of students taught me three surefire ways to turn people off Christianity. Learn from my mistakes!

Do You Ever Turn People Off Christianity Without Realizing it?

“Did you sign up to go on the bike ride?” I asked one of my students.

“No, I signed up to make cards.”

“Really? That sounds like fun. How come you don’t want to ride?”

“Honestly, Mrs. Ojeda, I don’t know if I’ll ever go again,” the student confessed.

“You’ve improved so much,” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, but you guys keep going on harder and harder rides, and I’m not having fun anymore.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know how to respond to my student’s honesty, so I fumbled for a good response and hope it worked. “I’ll let you know the next time we go on an easier ride, ok?”

“Sure.” The student didn’t sound convinced.

Pedro and I needed to have a conversation about truth in advertising our bike rides. I hated to think of kids giving up because the trails scared them or they felt inadequate. This conversation happened five or six years ago, and we’ve done a better job of fitting riders to the terrain. Occasionally, one slips through our system, and we end up with near-disastrous results.

I’ve learned a few lessons from our mountain biking experiences about how we inadvertently turn people off Christianity. We can have the best intentions, but if we don’t watch these three things, we can turn people off Christianity faster than we can say, “Let’s go mountain biking!”

Show Notes

If you’d like to read about more of our mountain biking adventures, you can click here and here.

A mountain biking ride with a group of students taught me three surefire ways to turn people off Christianity. Learn from my mistakes! #turnoff #Christianity #selfcare #spiritualselfcare #spiritualwholeness #newbelievers #jesusrevolution #mentor #disciple #selfcare #selfcarehacks #selfcaresunday #podcast

Come Back Next Week

Next week I’ll continue to theme of spiritual self-care when I share three ways to learn to love outside your comfort zone.

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10 Comments

  1. What a good vehicle to explain how better mentor new Christians – even how friends need to realize their friends who are new Christians might be overwhelmed because they don’t understand what their friends understand. We so need to be careful that we don’t use church-ese to build walls and set ourselves apart! Has your new bike rider come back or did he give up?
    Maryleigh recently posted…A Donkey-Fetching Thriller (& Remember Me Monday Link-Up)My Profile

  2. What a wonderfully gentle and challenging way to present something we may not always think about when it comes to our Christian brothers and sisters. Although I’ve written about the sweeper and not leaving anyone behind, I confess that I haven’t thought as practically about this. As a women’s ministry leader in my church, your point about meaty Bible studies was especially helpful. Thanks for this!

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Anita Ojeda

Anita Ojeda juggles writing with teaching high school English and history. When she's not lurking in odd places looking for rare birds, you can find her camping with her kids, adventuring with her husband or mountain biking with her students.

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