I saw the following quote in Christianity Today this morning. It’s taken from “A Shy Person’s Guide to the Practice of Evangelism” by Steven C. Bonsey.
Let’s pretend that you are someone who might be willing, in theory, at some point, possibly, to consider maybe doing something that, while not “evangelism”-type evangelism, still could be in some way construed as a sort of sharing of hope. Kind of.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
Wow, how simply and yet subtly powerful that thought is. I am going to find that article today! Thanks for sharing it.
Ha! Post-modernism at its finest. 😉 Now, what’s the point?
Try http://www.off-the-map.org, read up on their philosophy of ‘doable evangelism’; really good stuff from some really cool people.
Wade,
You and I were close to the same place apparantly, I had not yet read the article you reference though I had seen the link. I did really appreaciate the preachingtoday.com illustration from Bono of U2 that I posted on one of my blogs – the one linked with this comment.
Some of us need to hear “God didn’t give us a spirit of timidity.” Growing in his power takes time, but we really need to step into the process.
I’m not criticizing, merely questioning…
I have no fear or qualms about talking to people about my love for the Braves, Tennessee football, or Apple computers. Many people can talk passionately for hours, with strangers, about carburetors for a ’69 Camaro…but when it comes to sharing our hope, our joy, our reason, our savior, we clam up? Is it social? Is it programmed? Is it fear?
Fear. It is, in most all cases, fear. The rest of the time it is likely due to programming.
I have a couple of theories as to why we do not freely share our faith.
*We have lost our conviction that what we know is true, so we hesitate to share that we believe something we are not sure we believe.
*We desire to believe that there are no lost people, so much so that we cannot for the life of us figure out how to tell someone how they can be saved.
As for the quote … somewhere we must get the “evil evangelism” picture out of our minds (street preaching, tract throwing, fire breathing) and decide that “true evangelism” is whispering in your friend’s ear that you’ve won the Lotto and you want to give some to him. Or something like that.
John Dobbs said:
“”true evangelism” is whispering in your friend?s ear that you?ve won the Lotto and you want to give some to him.”
That is great. Just outstanding. Perfect. Thanks John!
John Dobbs,
I like your reasons, but I think Rob has hit the nail on the head. I think it is fear…fear of damaging relationships, fear of appearing judgemental, even fear of being un-cool.
Fear is a sucky reason not to do things…
Was the blind man whose sight Jesus restored afraid to tell everyone that Jesus had just healed him? No, not at all. It was obvious to him what Jesus had done for him. I bet no one could have stopped him from going through the town with excitement telling people what had just happened to him.
Why don’t we react the same way? Why aren’t we excited about what Jesus has done for us? Do we really even begin to understand what he has done for us? Are we so caught up in making sure that we have comfort in this life, that we don’t even really see that we need to be healed, yes even those of us who have “gone to church forever.” I have a hard time believing that if we truly believed in the power of Jesus that we could be stopped from telling others, in particular those that are “blind,” that we had just received our sight. Are we really that selfish?