Yesterday, I wrote the post that would have drawn a million hits. NOT! Actually, I did compose a similar post as this one but lost it before getting it published. I will try to recreate it.
You ever done "cold turkey" evangelism. Some may no it as "door to door" or "street evangelism." Basically it is when you have a memorized presentation of the gospel that you take to some complete stranger with the hope of God using the presentation to "save" them.
I am a trained Navigator so my presentation was is the bridge illustration. I still have a bible that is marked in a way to lead me through it. Although I would be rusty, I believe I could still take you through it. Using the canned talk many times in our door to door evangelism campaign. I can share that I witnessed zero actual converts with this method. Now that is not to say that God did not use the illustration to bring that person closer to himself and eventually some of those people became Christ followers. I believer some became Christ followers later in life. Jesus the Radical Pastor has a post on his experience with "street" evangelism here.
Evangelism is always something that makes me nervous. But, I am less nervous when doing it "cold turkey." I don't know the person and may never see them again. Typically the "target" was an area of social need. I was going to spend a few minutes usually not over an hour talking with a total stranger. I was not there to listen to their story. I only wanted to present the gospel.
This "cold turkey" evangelism is not the evangelism I believe is needed for assimilation. We need to be willing to listen to the persons story first before even thinking about sharing the gospel. We need to know where they are and I am not talking spiritually. We already know they need Jesus. I need to become part of his/her community or culture. I need to enter his/her world. After understanding that then I can look to sharing the gospel. While entering his/her world, I don't become part or integrated in his/her world.
If you have not thought of it on your own at this point, let me tell you that many will accuse you of being a sinner. You may be entering places where sin is prevalent. You will be guilt by association. Some from your own local church body will make these accusations. It will happen. It has happened from the very day that Jesus proclaimed that "the kingdom of God is near." (Matthew 4:17) You know that Jesus was accused in this way. Peter also see Acts 11. Peter was accused of eating with uncircumcised men (Gentiles).
Are you willing to advance God's kingdom in all the earth for His glory? We must enter their world. We cannot expect them to come to us no matter how attractional we think we or our church is. The church must move out of the four walls of the building. All the earth includes those that are very close in distance from the building.
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2 comments:
I often think about just saying stuff to people in gorcery stores or at the mall or whatever asking them opening questions like "Do you know of a good church in the area?" in the attempts to start a spiritual conversation but I always chicken out, that's terrible. these two websites are 3 of our brothers in Christ who are devoted to the ministry of "street evangelism" I urge everyone to check them out. www.livingwaters.com and www.wayofthemaster.com
May God give us all the courage and words to speak boldly to people so that "sinners would come to repentance."
Paul and I attended a weeklong training in Florida (I know, suffering for Jesus on a training vacation) for a program I will not name, beause there is no call to slander, which specializes in "cold turkey". We were trained as “trainers” – to bring the program the back to our local church and teach it there. I have many really positive things to say about this- it helped me much the same way I image that learning to do the bridge illustration well would help someone. We both feel comfortable in explaining that salvation is a free gift, and what it means to trust in Jesus for that salvation- It’s great for that. People meet weekly and go out in teams to share this news – again, not a bad thing, if done rightly.
However, without the assimilation aspect that you are talking about, without a layer of discipleship, relationship with those being witnessed to, I have seen this reduced to “scalp hunting”. People meet to report how many people “they saved” this week. (Did you notice to whom the glory went?) Once those people were saved, they were dropped in favor of new challenges. I’ve been on teams that went in and “saved” homeless people without even asking their names. They were given a piece of paper, and told that if they were to ever doubt their salvation, or feel lost, no fear, just look at that piece of paper for reassurance.
I fear that many have been inoculated against life changing, all creation redeeming truth in this manner.
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