Dr. Brené Brown said it well: “vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”  In days when people mount up shields of defense and deflections to prevent others from getting to “the real you,” one mark of an effective gospel witness to post-Christian thinking people involves making yourself vulnerable, showing a life-openness that invites others to see how the truths of the Faith bring hope and wellness to the brokenness of daily life.

As a general rule of thumb, I’ve found through the years that most people are attracted to admissions of brokenness: things like failures, mistakes, deficiencies, and shortfalls.  Indeed, in a world where people certainly admire success, they identify more with vulnerability and the life lessons that come with it.  Vulnerability, the desire to allow others see the “authentic you,” breaks down barriers of pride, arrogance, suspicion, and doubt.  When you put yourself in ways that expose your heart, your struggles, your questions,  and your feelings, people relate to this kind of authenticity and often find connection to your disposition.

I go often to funeral homes and to hospital cancer treatment centers these days.  Not only are those places where hurting people gravitate, but they’re  also places where a true leader can show impact through vulnerability.  Exposing yourself to the questions that hurting people feel, showing compassion, acting not like a spiritual “know-it-all,” and sharing your heart in appropriate, genuine ways, will lead you to people who are hungry for perspective and hope as they wrestle with the brokenness within their own life.

Certainly no person displayed greater vulnerability in life than Christ, especially in his hours in the Garden of Gethsemane, and then in his time before the religious leaders and Pilate.  At that moment, he could have called down the legions of heaven to protect him from these injustices, but instead, he chose the path of vulnerability so that God’s mission could be accomplished.  You could say from one perspective that were it not for Christ’s vulnerability, our salvation could not have been secured.  Instead of retreating and hiding behind impenetrable divine defenses, the Lord of glory chose to make himself vulnerable so that God’s purposes for us could find fulfillment.  Part of the reason why post-Christian people are so attracted to Christ, and not to many churches these days is because he exposed himself to real world pain, injustice, and hurt while many churches focus primarily around their own institutional issues and troubles.

The gospel calls us to go to our world’s brokenness, pain, and injustices in our own neighborhoods, and to expose our lives to their hurts, questions, suspicions, and doubts with genuine vulnerability.  We don’t have to know all the answers all the time in order to be a witness.  We don’t have to have the solutions every time in order to make an impact.  Vulnerability involves the power of presence and identification, the desire to identify with people–their hurts, their questions, their struggles–in a spirit of compassion, understanding, and care.

This week, be vulnerable.  Expose the real you, and see where the gospel will go through you to post-Christian people.