The E Word

"Evangelism? AUUUUGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!"

How many of us respond that way to the topic of evangelism? We know that it is something that we should do, but as long as no one brings it up, then we can quietly tip-toe forward without actually doing much about it. And then WHAM!! Someone brings it up, and we have to deal with not doing very much evangelism all over again, get into the guilt, get through the guilt, then get past the guilt into tip-toeing around it again. Until the next time someone brings it up.

We'll even boldly discuss all the reasons we don't evangelize as we prepare to continue not evangelizing: I don't know how, I'm afraid, I might say the wrong thing, I can't get the conversation going in a spiritual direction, and so on. We feel that if we list the reasons why we don't do it, we've made progress (without actually having to do it!). 

Part of our problem is lack of being equipped - we don't because we're not prepared to. Part of it is a matter of our will - we don't because we don't want to. Part of it is fear - we don't because we fear disobedience less than we fear rejection. And yet, hammering ourselves with these truths rarely, if ever, produces the kind of evangelism we should engage in.

One big part of our problem is that Hell isn't real enough to us, yet. We don't get how hell-ish Hell is, and so we don't feel an urgency to offer rescue to those around us.

But another big part of our problem is that we have a weak idea of what "evangelism" actually is. We too often think of evangelism in a particular, narrow, uncreative way. We think of coming up to strangers with little booklets or trying to force fit our conversations with friends to spiritual topics (deathly afraid that we'll actually succeed in steering the conversation to spiritual topics!). If we can get a better idea of what "evangelism" is, perhaps it won't seem so foreign to who we are.

The goal of any act of "evangelism" is not necessarily to "close the deal" - to bring someone to the point of praying to receive Christ. That's right - a majority of evangelism is not for the immediate goal of having someone "pray the prayer." That's always the ultimate goal of evangelism - make no mistake about it - but in a single instance of evangelism, more often than not, bringing someone to the point of decision is not the goal.

One of our big hang-ups about evangelism is freaking out over the responsibility to bring someone to that point. But if we can get it into our heads that "doing evangelism" is not so narrowly defined, I think we'll be more likely to "do evangelism."

This article is too short to spell it all out - my goal here is to spark your curiosity for future discussions. But let me hear from you. I want to know from you how your idea of "doing evangelism" would change if I said that evangelism is really about helping someone be more positive about Christ than he or she was before. What do you think? How would that change your reaction to the word "evangelism"? Let me know!