This is not an attempt to demean or nullify or to downplay the evangelistic methods of others. I do; however, want to communicate what I think “evangelistic methods” convey to others.
Most of us Christians live in the Christian Bubble. We have no real intimate relationships with non-believers. A great deal of us wear our morality on our sleeves and expect many if not all of those in our path to conform to our morality and thus leading people further away from us.
Because we have no relationships with people the need for Drive-by Evangelism has been substituted for the need to win people over with the love of Jesus. As a matter of fact one is now the other. We are told today (I have read this just recently) that the reason we don’t evangelize the way Ray Comfort and others do is because we have no concern for the souls of man. In other words you don’t really love people if you aren’t out there trying to share the Gospel with as many people as possible.
Let first say to those who don’t evangelize is such a way, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the fact that you don’t. It is ploy, a tick, a manipulative tool to get you to do something you are not comfortable doing and may shouldn’t be doing anyway. I will say this quite candidly; attempting to get people to do things your way by manipulating them and especially calling their love for humanity and God into question is of Satan. Okay I am off that soapbox.
Back to where I was going. Because we believe that Evangelical Morality is God’s utmost concern we live very isolated lives. We don’t want our children interacting with the kids across the street, 99.99% of our friends are Christians or at least morally astute, and our idea of Christian Service is greeting or parking lot ministry. Then Comfort and Cameron comes along and gives you “Hell’s Best Kept Secret” or some other guilt trip that make you feel dirty because you aren’t evangelizing enough and you build up enough courage to order some tracts to leave on your company’s lunch table, or hand out with sweaty palms at the mall, or you join the churches evangelism team and go out in numbers to save the world from Hell.
Others build there entire ministry on what we call “street preaching” on college campuses or downtown in major cities and they feel they have reached martyrdom if someone curses them out. They feel they have suffered for the Lord Jesus because someone yells at them or throws a tomato at them. I will tell you this quite honestly friend. It is much easier to stand on a box, hand out tracts, corner people who are guilty and get them to say a prayer, or any other evangelistic method. It is much more difficult and life altering to sit in the house with vilest of humans, have them over for dinner, invite your nosey neighbor into your life, hang out with someone who’s vocabulary is more in line with a Bar around at 1:30 A.M. It is much more difficult to get to know your neighbors, to have them over for movie nights or game nights, to help that prostitute off the street, become a father figure to that troubled kid in the community.
You see doing life on life evangelism takes, time, energy, and maybe even money. A CD with a gospel message, or some tracts only take a little money and just like many evangelicals in America we love to throw money at problems instead of getting in the trenches with the wounded.
Let me end with this. I am not discouraging you from doing any of the above “methods”. But I implore and challenge you that the person who does give you that 3 minutes to do the “good person” would be more than an evangelistic conquest and they become a real human being. That since they gave you 3 minutes that you would take them to lunch or have them over for dinner (that is if you ain’t evangelizing 45 minutes from where you really live). I challenge you to first start in Jerusalem (your home community) then go to the outer most parts. I ask that you wouldn’t just tell the convert to wrestle with these issues, but that you will wrestle with them even if takes 5 years. That you will not just hand them a tract but give them your number even if they never accept Jesus Christ that you will befriend them as fellow human being. I challenge you to take the same evangelism team from your church to the same community that you were trying to convert and serve them with reckless abandon. My challenge is that you evangelize like Jesus. Who not only shared the Good News but served humanity by giving His life. The key to evangelism isn’t convicting people of sin, or getting people to pray a prayer, or getting people to say yes they will receive Jesus and not even getting them into church. It is reconciling people to God and becoming Christ to them. When we begin to quote quantity of converts instead of quality of disciples we have missed it. Not only that, if you will only relate to them based off of a decision for Christ then I don’t know if you are evangelistic as God is. It took Jesus years to win most of us over, God invested His only Son, how much are you willing to invest?