I'm a natural sales person. I was born to convince people of things. If I have an opinion about something, and you disagree, it is painful for me to not try to convince you that I'm right.

Recently, at our church, we started walking anyone interested through the Clifton Strengths Finder program. Before you start thinking about motivational speakers and people spouting on about, "Amazing business opportunity!" let me explain that SF is simply a short quiz that is a way of determining some of the things that you are a natural at.

It calls these things strengths, and the quiz returns your top five strengths. Reading the curriculum rewards you with the concept that instead of focusing on repairing your individual weaknesses, it could be better to focus on using and understanding our strengths.

Woo (Hoo)

The Woo strength is my top strength and it's all about drawing others in, convincing people. "Wooing" them, so to speak.

I'm interested in what is useful, and good evangelism. For years I've promoted the web framework I like the most (Django). I think Django is perfectly wonderful, I really like the ideas of the founders and the current maintainers of the project, and it's written in Python which is a programming language I enjoy reading and writing.

The problem with my evangelism of Django is that I'm not necessarily the most informed developer to promote a software tool. I'm a pretty good geek, and I know some stuff about making websites, but I'm rarely the smartest person in any room, and I'm a pretty horrible developer by any standard.

So why should I promote a software tool that I enjoy? And, perhaps more importantly, why should people (who are probably smarter or at least more experienced than I am) listen to me?

This problem has been plaguing me at a separate level from the relatively unimportant realm of web development frameworks.

Selling God

I'm a person that believes that because of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection I can have a connection and relationship with an unseen God. I struggle sometimes with calling myself a christian because of the horrible things that have been done (and continue to be done in some communities) under the name of christianity. I also believe, in the sense that it is literature and not always literal, that The Bible is true and relevant in modern life. Because of these beliefs, I'm convinced that Jesus the Messiah is the one way to God.

Just as I stated before, I'm certain that I'm rarely the smartest or most capable person in the room. I'm rarely the most "spiritual" person, or the person that is the most in tune with God's way.

The struggle then comes when I'm trying to be myself. Combine my personal spiritual beliefs and my natural inclination toward persuading and I could easily become a really frustrating person to spend time with.

I'm also aware, in a very humbling way, that while I have a particular set of beliefs that I'm certain of, not everyone agrees with my beliefs and people are generally more suspicious of anyone promoting a set of spiritual beliefs (in comparison with something like a set of software tools.)

Finding Balance

I was hoping that writing this out would help me to find some conclusion, but I don't think I have one. I know that when I'm being myself and promoting things I care about that I don't want to offend or invade into someone else's life when not invited.

Something that I have concluded: I'm going to surround myself with experts on the things I do care about so that I can be sure that the things I'm evangelizing are valuable and worthwhile.