Conversion is a Slow Process...

Our path to the cross is one decision away, but it takes
a lifetime to traverse.

Reading the Acts of the Apostles, one is tempted to think that conversion is a one time event. It seems that we, as responsibles of Jesus' Great Commission, must simply preach the Gospel and expect great numbers of converts. Most often than not, this is not the case.

I remember when I started to get involved in youth ministry with Comunidad San Dimas more than 4 years ago and my almost naive expectations of the ministry. I thought that we would just preach the Gospel, call for repentance, and see mass conversions. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.

I remember having a conversation with a member of Comunidad San Dimas, seeing my disillusionment with the lack of conversions. She told something like this: "You never know what's the end result". This is especially true in some aspects of our ministry, as we go and share the Gospel in prisons, and we don't see what happens to most of them after they go out of jail.

Conversion is a painfully slow process. Change doesn't happen overnight. Conversion is a gradual step, a perpetual construction where God, our Architect, is constantly working in areas where we allow Him . While I'm not saying that miraculous conversions don't happen anymore (as it had happened in the ministry, and I will share one story of such conversion in a later post) most often than not it doesn't happen overnight.

Let us look at our own conversion stories for evidence. I'm sure most of us didn't convert to God overnight. By golly if you did, I want to hear your story!

And so, as I and many other work with these "kids" (as we like to call them, as an endearing term of course), or with any other population, it is important to remember that conversions is a process so slow, that it last a lifetime. Indeed, all believers are in this process, a process of constant repentance and change, a process that last until we die.