I’m not responsible for the “deconversion” of anyone else. That’s entirely between that person and his or her Creator. However, in another sense, I am responsible, particularly for the brothers and sisters in my local church. I am accountable to them. I am obligated to intentionally find ways to give them reasons to love God, their neighbor, and their enemy; and to do good deeds.

Have you ever had the experience of getting knee-deep in a project only to realize that it is not going to work out the way you thought it would? I once watched a YouTube video on how to repair my TV and thought, “Seems easy enough.” However, when I got the back off of the TV and tried to follow along with the video, I quickly realized I had absolutely no clue what I was doing or how to proceed. What the video—with no words and only a pair of dexterous hands performing the operation seamlessly—made look so easy was way (and I mean WAY!) beyond my skill set. I should have known. While I can write a sentence, I’m pretty much inept when it comes to anything requiring tools. I just didn’t think it through. I also have the tendency to forget to look at all the ingredients on the list before beginning a recipe. I’ve had to do a last-minute grocery run more often than I’d care to admit. I hope you can relate. Even the most detail-oriented person goes off half-cocked once in a while. (Right?)

Of course, there are some things that even the most impulsive among us would never do without careful consideration. We test-drive a car before we buy it; we interview an employee before hiring them; we take time to think over a job offer before accepting; we look at a house and investigate the neighborhood before making an offer on a home; we visit a church and talk to the pastor before choosing where to worship. And we should do all of these things; it would be foolish to neglect them.

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