Skip to main content

Evangelism gone wrong, Evangelism rectified

I've been reading the book The Provocative Church lately, and must say I give it two hands up and an amen. Reading this book will jump in the face of everything you thought evangelism was.

Once not long ago (as in, beginning with my entrance into college and up until just recently) I felt very guilty regarding evangelism. The book hit this to a T when it sums up that most Christians feel that evangelism is something that ought to be done, but they don't readily do because they don't know how, they don't feel good at doing it, or they don't want to subject friends to a church that they themselves are bored and unfulfilled with.

I have always wished to evangelize, but have always had the principle hindrance in feeling that it does no good to talk about God to someone who isn't really curious. And, to that end, I've simply strove for Christian progress (see Justification, Sanctification, Reconciliation, in a previous entry). This book holds that just such an approach, on a church wide level, is the cornerstone of evangelism. If the whole chuch should be living a life different to the world around it, and preach a message of how to practically go about loving others, living in peace, and caring for people and the world around you, people will ask why. When you tell them why, tell them about Jesus. Having already gained their attention, they will be far more likely to listen.

Some might say that there's people out there who just don't seem like they would notice, or care. Well, and I indite (sp?) myself on this as well, I guess we just haven't shown them something different yet.

The other day over ice cream I was telling an old high school friend what I do with my friends for fun, and also telling her that all of these friends for the most part are from my church. She was interested, excited that we had so much fun and were so communally close without having to get completely drunk. Pretty soon, I'm going to make sure she (as well as anyone else she cares to bring) gets to see this kind of community. I'm not going out of the way to share the gospel with her. She's asked a little before, and I've answered a little, so I know she is to some degree interested. Hopefully, she'll be more intrigued, and gradually (by observing it) get to see the truth of the gospel through life lived by a church.

Popular posts from this blog

The $2000 monkey on my back, deferred

It’s been more than a week, and I think an update is due. Plus, I can give updates on my own status with my heart murmur, having seen the doctor this past Friday. The only thing that has kept me from updating until now is simply laziness (in other words, I was far too busy studying/eating/cleaning/sleeping to actually relax and write). This past Friday I went to the Student Health Center to see my doctor about the previously mentioned murmur recently discovered. My doctor presumed it was most likely an innocent flow murmur, which occurs if a heart valve doesn’t close all the way or in time when the heart beats, allowing blood to flow back the opposite way, and the blood causes turbulence heard as noise. If you’ve ever heard turbulent water flowing over and through rocks and back upstream in eddies in a river, you should get the idea of what a murmur is. It was recommended that I have an echocardiography done, or an ultrasound picture of my heart. This would allow us to see exactly how ...

My first place, technology and humanity

This past Friday I signed the lease on my own apartment. No roommates, just myself. It is both exciting and scary at the same time. It feels grown up to do the signing myself, and being the one person responsible for everything. In any case, it is a milestone in my life to have my first place. Being a type of person that enjoys having a peaceful repose to retreat to when I need recharging, it was overwhelmingly calming to wake up this morning to the sound of rain and rolling thunder, and to sit on the couch with a bowl of cereal after a time of quiet devotion and journaling. It is highly rewarding to now be sitting here publicly journaling while some relaxing music plays from my office. I look forward to slowly building a home out of my apartment, through decorating and spreading out of my belongings, and that will be a great feeling of comfort to come to after a hard day's work or to end a good evening. If there's any one thing I am nervous about in my own place, it is dealing...

School, Shaving, Serpentine Belts, and Sex

It's been all about the S the last few days. On Saturday (ironic, it starts with an 'S' day), my battery in my Jeep completely died a sudden death. There was a plastic sleeve attached to the battery that contained the purchase receipt. Purchased in 2002, well that explains it. It took about 10 - 15 phone calls to actually find someone available to take me to O'Reily's (I was trying to work out in concentric circles from my house), but I finally got a new battery. The guy testing the old one simply said, "Yup, it's dead," with a total resignation telling me that there was no hope in rejuvenating it. New battery, check. Now I'm mobile again... Fast forward to where I'm headed west on Stadium. A loud thunk followed by an instantaneous loss of power steering control, coupled with a drop in battery voltage from 14 V to barely 10 V, and a slowly rising engine thermometer told me something was wrong with the Jeep. I drove to HyVee's parking lot, p...