October 23, 2003

• Evangelism

  
  

  So last night we were passing out flyers for our "God in the Cosmos" seminar at the 46th Street station in Queens.  I really like our new pastor.  Pastor Davis is so good at starting conversations with anybody, getting to know what's going on in their lives, and eventually sharing the gospel.  And he leads by example, too.  If none of us showed up, he would still have been out there by himself passing out these flyers.  Later on during dinner, Kyu began talking to our waitress and also invited her to our event, which was unusual because he doesn't normally talk to waitresses that aren't hot.  But it got me thinking about the whole action of evangelism.  My approach to conversation is so antithetical to sharing the gospel.  All I do is gather data.  I ask questions, observe and analyze and I'm incredibly hesitant to impose my will on the other person, deliberately steering the conversation to my hidden agenda.  But this is precisely how we're trained to do evangelism oftentimes.  The trendy word these days is to be "intentional" about sharing the gospel, which sounds fine and lovely.  But how do you have normal relationships with people while having this little goal that you're trying to accomplish in every conversation?

  
  

  In college, I went to this one retreat where we had a seminar on evangelism.  The last line of our little manual read, "And remember, try and use everything under the sun to bring the conversation towards Christ."  I started thinking about the implications of what that meant, and it hit me like a mack truck, cuz I knew there was no way I could do that.  I went up to the speaker later on in tears and asked him, is this what God wants?  Is this what it means to deny yourself and take up the cross?  How much of my personality did I need to change or sacrifice to obey the Great Commission?  I don't remember his response.  Now that may sound like an extreme example, but it's not all that far off from what's generally accepted.  After all, what's at stake is people's souls and if you care enough about them, you have to let them know.  It's why missionaries exist.  Heck, I was one for a while, and I never got used to working the conversation.  Native Japanese people are incredibly sensitive to the subtle shifts and meanings in conversations and it was always an endless battle speaking of Christ in a way that was not forced.  They know you're a missionary, and you know they know you're a missionary and everybody knows what's eventually coming, so every conversation has some drama to it.  Throw in the fact that a lot of native Japanese have some difficulty expressing their true feelings and emotions and you have the makings of some fun conversations.  It wasn't like that with other cultures.  Anyways, I digress.

  
  

  So what's my solution?  I don't know.  Maybe I'm just too conscious when I'm talking or I give people too much credit or respect, cuz they naturally talk about the things they want, so then I should too, right?  But I find that the times that evangelism is easiest is when my mind is on God, and in the normal course of sharing about my life and what's going on in it, it's no effort to speak of who God is.  That to me, is the key struggle - to not get bogged down with the daily routine of life and instead, keep my big, beautiful, wonderful God in the forefront of my mind.  The rest should take care of itself...

  • 1:02 pm
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