They are not "pre-Christians"

Church culture has a word for people who do not follow Jesus yet, and it sounds generous: pre-Christians.

It is worth noticing what the word actually does. It defines a human being by what they are not yet, and it positions them on a track that we are running. They are inventory in a pipeline, somewhere between contact and convert, waiting for the next stage.

Nobody means it that way. It still leaks.

The tell

You can hear the pipeline in ordinary church sentences. We’re working on him. She’s close. He’s not ready yet. We just need to get them to a service.

Every one of those describes a process with our hands on it and their name in the object position.

And people can feel it. That is the part we underestimate. Within a few minutes of meeting you, a person can generally tell whether you are interested in them or in an outcome involving them, and only one of those makes them willing to say anything true.

What Jesus did instead

Zacchaeus is a small man in a tree with a genuinely bad reputation — a collaborator who had made money off his own neighbors. The crowd’s assessment is not subtle.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” So he hurried down and received him joyfully. When the people saw this, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” — Luke 19:5-7 (OTB)

Watch the order, because the order is the whole point.

Jesus invites himself into the man’s house first. The welcome comes before any change at all. Only afterward does Zacchaeus stand up and start giving money back — and Jesus never asked him to.

We generally run that sequence backwards. Change, then welcome. Get right, then come in. Jesus welcomed him, and the change came out of the welcome rather than before it.

What people actually need from you

Not a service invitation. Most are not waiting for one and will not accept it.

They need space to question without being corrected. Room to process at their own speed. A chance to experience God without a religious performance being required of them first.

So the shift is small and total: from getting them to church to walking with them where they already are. Spiritual conversations in ordinary places, on their turf, at their pace. And when a door opens, an invitation to discover the Bible together — never a bait-and-switch, and never a pew.

Recite this

The welcome came first. The change came out of it.

Try it this week

Catch yourself using pipeline language — “working on,” “close,” “not ready” — and stop mid-sentence. Then say the person’s name instead, and one true thing about them that has nothing to do with their spiritual status.

I will stop using pipeline language about ________________, starting ________________.