These other comments are also great and very interesting. One thing I wanted to note was that although we may feel more comfortable if people seek us out first, Jesus does command us to seek out the lost. How we go about it, though, should be directed by the Holy Spirit’s power in our lives.

I live in a log cabin in the woods of Kentucky, USA, and I work at home. But I try to pray regularly to ask God to open up opportunities for me to share with people. And you wouldn’t BELIEVE how many miracles occur when I pray that prayer. God knows whose heart is ready to hear what He has to say to them. If you ask to be used as an instrument of His mercy, He will bring that person to you. In the meantime, you also have to ask for His boldness and empowerment, that you don’t shirk from proclaiming His good news.

As for method — your post wisely addresses our societal communication needs in our era. We also must be open to the leading of God. If He tells you to speak, speak. You will know His voice if you are leaning into Him every day, just as a child knows the voice of a parent. It is unmistakable. If we try to dissect our methods and do the correct method, we run the risk of silencing Him on how He wants us to go about it.

This is a fun discussion. I look forward to more blog entries!
Heidi Rafferty
Harrodsburg, Kentucky USA

I think you’re on to something. It’s a concept that both marketers and evangelists can learn – the importance of forming strong relationships.

The truth is most people don’t want to be sold, and they don’t want to be sold God any more than they want to be sold a box of cereal. There’s a reason most folks channel surf during commercials.

You can never effectively market to someone until you find out if they have a problem. Only then will you know if you have a solution that can help them. You’ll never know this unless you get to know them.

The bullhorn guy in the video was a powerful image of what doesn’t work anymore. Folks like that are fond of asking the question, “What if you were to die tonight and stand before God?” My Sunday School class has been studying a book called, “Christianity Beyond Belief.” The author asks instead, “What would you do if you knew you were going to live a long time?” Christianity, he asserts, is about more than just believing – it’s about living. That is perhaps a simplification, but I think it partially shows where we go wrong in evangelism today. We market Christianity as a way out of hell and into heaven. Folks just aren’t buying it.

Thanks for the great post.

Steve DeVane

As you can see from my internet name, I’m a therapist. No would like it if I went to the Malls or the supermarkets and button-holed people to tell them: “You need therapy!” They would be offended, except for maybe a very few who were waiting and hoping that one day some one would come along and recognize their need, without them having to say a word.

I think if people are searching, if they feel inside themselves a need for something more, they will come and avail themselves of the kinds of evangelism of which you speak. They will come, as they do to me, sometimes not even sure why they’ve called. Now, my work is different of course. And people do need to take a step to come and see me. It’s never something that comes along with being born, like a church might.

But to my mind, the infinite respect that we need to have for others includes that willingness to wait, that trust in God’s working within them. Naturally, it also requires that we maintain a very watchful and empathic stance, an ability to “read” between the lines sometimes, to hear or see the yearning for something more. I sense from what you’ve written that you’re speaking to that quality.

Sometimes, without even realizing it, we have an impact on someone, sometimes even a spiritual impact. A few months back, on a political website, someone expressed gratitude to me for having rekindled and strengthened their faith. I tried to deflect that, as something that must have come from within. No, the person said, it was due to me. Ok. I had to accept that. I mention it only because I think that God can work through us – even when we are unaware of that. If we just go around being authentically ourselves and expressing that in whatever we’re involved in.

I’m not really sure why I’m responding here to what you’ve written. I have immense respect for you and your website. I like your monastic bent. I too have been powerfully influenced by the monastic tradition. A tradition, to my mind, as a Roman Catholic (who dissents powerfully from the pope in many respects) that has been most authentically lived out and transmitted a spiritual vitality – through a community, through individual monks or nuns. And they don’t go around evangelizing. They exercise hospitality. They allow visitors. And simply rubbing elbows with them, even if one is never going to “join” the monastery, can, over time, have a powerful effect.

I realized that on a visit back to a monastery (about 18 years ago) that to me was like a spiritual home. I’d gone for just a weekend – coming from far away for a specific purpose (related to my work as a therapist, which, at that point, involved a great deal of suffering on behalf of a suffering patient – and I’d gone to ask the monks to pray, for me and for victims of abuse). A priest, who’d spend a week there, was commiserating, imagining that I was missing something, having been there for only a couple days. My response was an insight I did not realize until that moment: “Mount Savior is a state of mind.”

To me, that statement expresses St.Paul’s words: Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Indeed, my connection with that place had become internalized. Just as the disciples’ connection with Jesus had been internalized. And only by “losing” does one internalize. I think that’s the meaning of Pentecost. What we feel we have lost in the outside world comes to dwell within.

I’m not sure how that relates to evangelism. Maybe you can tell me.

Peace be with you. I have a feeling I have told you something important – beyond my words.

Perhaps what people need is unconditional love, and perhaps human actions are louder for me than words that people claim are holy.