Frank Viola | Beyond Evangelical

Official Blog of Author & Speaker Frank Viola. Digging below the surface and moving beyond the shallows in today's Christianity.

Advice to New Christians

I wish someone told me the following things when I was walking on the clouds of the newfound joy of my salvation at age 16.

This list goes beyond the typical recommendations given to young believers (read the Bible, pray regularly, get involved in a fellowship, etc.). I’m not mentioning those as they are “givens.”

If you click on each point, it will take you to a resource or a Scripture that expands the subject.

There are many other points I could have added, but I wanted to keep this post to 12 statements. The list doesn’t represent any kind of order or priority.

1. Christians will break your heart. The greatest pain you will receive will be at the hands of fellow and professing believers.

2. Not everyone who professes Christ knows Him. The fruit of real faith is love – treating all others the same way you want to be treated.

3. God will not meet all of your expectations and will sometimes appear not to fulfill His own promises.

4. You will experience dry spells where there is no sense of God’s presence. Learn to live by faith, not feelings.

5. Build a library and read the best Christian books in print. Don’t waste your time on “pop” Christian books. Go for depth.

6. Write your goals down (goals = dreams = prayer requests). And document when a prayer/goal is answered/fulfilled.

7. Never judge another Christian unless you’ve walked in their shoes. Always think the best of others (Matthew 7:12).

8. Choose a mentor, but never choose one who is insecure, speaks negatively about others, and has an inflated ego.

9. Some of the things you struggle with now you will struggle with when you are old. Resist condemnation (Romans 8:1).

10. Many of the answers you have now will prove inadequate later in life. Always be a student and a child in the Kingdom.

11. Never bluff an answer to someone’s biblical or theological question if you don’t know the answer. Learn to say “I don’t know.”

12. Discover who you are in Christ and learn what it means to live by His indwelling life.

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  1. This is a useful list. I wish someone had of shared it with me in the first year of walking with Christ… and helped me through it.

  2. Concerning #11:

    In my experience with counseling others, I find that if well-meaning people who try to help with Biblical advice would utilize “I don’t know” more often, we counselors would have less work to do. When someone comes to me with a problem, I often find myself having to spend a great amount of time breaking through misconceptions and false beliefs about the Bible before I can even get to solving the problem. It is often a difficult and daunting task depending on how deep the misconception has taken root.

    Thanks Frank for being so…frank!

  3. Learning to live by faith and not by feelings has been a struggle. It’s only now that I am in my 30’s that I can look back and see how faithful God has been to me despite my inconsistency. I am so thankful that God does not give up on us but keeps encouraging us to grow and delights in our steps of faith. Thank you, Frank.

  6. #4 hits home the most right now. The last six years I have experienced seasons where God’s presence seems distant. However, I have witnessed the greatest miracles of my life. I have learned to trust in God’s faithfulness and not my feelings.

  8. Great post Frank. There’s nothing better than seeing someone come to Christ. There’s nothing more frustrating than to see them fall away from disillusionment because of misplaced expectations.

  9. I also became a believer when I was 16. There are no words to describe the journey toward maturity in the Christian life. Yes, if you are in fellowship with other believers, there are truly going to be messy times in your growth. It can be compared to the metamorphosis of a butterfly; struggle, stretch, reach and eventually burst forth to new life. And don’t we need each other to do that, even the crazy stuff, to get us where God wants us. The unfortunate thing is, some make it and some don’t. I believe that’s where we as fellow saints go wrong. It’s too easy for us to let go of the ones who get lost in the process. The truth is: we are all in the process of reaching maturity, leaders included. We all struggle to identify exactly who we are and what we are about. In the process we rub shoulders with others who haven’t quite gotten there and it does get ugly at times.

    Traits you want to look for in a mentor: all the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, hope, faith etc and I’m going to add equality (we learn from those we mentor as well). Traits you don’t want to look for in a mentor: all the works of evil (anger, anxiety, fear, words that hurt, unforgiving schedules, un-equality etc).

    Thanks for the post Frank. Great as usual.

  12. I wish someone had told me these things when I first met Jesus almost 13 years ago. Some of my greatest heartaches happened during my early walk with Him by believers & those who claimed to know Him. Some of them were even church leaders. But by the grace of God, I have moved on and finally out of the institutional church just a year ago. I was sharing one incident that happened to me at a church more than 10 years ago in our home fellowship and was surprised the pain is still there as my voice cracked with emotion. I take great comfort in knowing Jesus Himself was rejected & accused of all kinds things by people who claimed to know God. Thank you for sharing this.

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