entwine

No More Ranting! Instead of ranting this week, I want to just have us think about something I have been thinking about for a while.

Evangelism!

You know, growing up in the Baptist church and then spending time doing campus ministry work at UNC Chapel Hill and now having been in ministry almost 12 years working in and with all different denominations around the world and now ministering with the Vineyard, I feel like I have seen a lot. Not all, but definitely a lot.

I have seen all kinds of different styles of evangelism. Some of my first experiences with evangelism was first with door to door evangelism. This is not my favorite, though it worked well in the small town that I grew up in.

There was Evangelism Explosion. “Do you know where you would spend eternity if you were to die today?” Pretty confrontational if done to people that do not know you.

Then there were the Four Spiritual Laws. I knew I had it all together when I learned these! I mean, what else could there be?

After a while, all of this got kind of boring. We did Crusade evangelism, setting up tents and meetings. There was revival evangelism and all of the excitement and emotion. There was personal evangelism where we spent time trying to cultivate relationships, just to drag someone to church.

And then there was: Servant Evangelism! I read Steve Sjogren’s books, (which, I NEED to state here that they were and still are some of the finest thoughts on evangelism I have ever written). These books changed my life. I mean, a true revolution went right through me. All of a sudden, compassion burst into me. I started caring about people and not simply the number of people I had gotten to do what I wanted them to do. (Isn’t it sad what we made poor people do? You know, like: “Say this, think this, pray this, do this, don’t do that, jump through a hoop, lie down, beg and of course play dead.” OK, I make a little jest here, but isn’t it the same thing as we do to our pets?) You know the whole thing just felt like manipulation and it was all to formulaic. If we did or said certain things, people and God will do what we want them to.

Back to what I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted by myself. LOL.

Anyways, I got stunned by authors like Mother Teresa and Henri Nouwen.

But, Steve Sjogren really started it all in me with a single concept. “Dolphins and Sharks.”

Dolphins & Sharks

Put in a nutshell, dolphins are those of us that share the story of our faith in kind, compassionate way. Dolphins are very sensitive to the neds of the person they are sharing their faith with, therefore, they attempt to share their faith in ways that show God’s love in practical ways. When the term “practical” is used, that denotes relevance.

Sharks on the other hand, attempt to share their faith, oftentimes with good intentions, but more times than not, end up either offending the seeking person or turning them off due to length of message, lack of relevance, lack of relationship, lack of sensitivity (discernment) or even because the seeking individual recognizes a lack of sincerity. These lacks are often seen due to the person sharing either doing so without the leading of the Spirit, or out of performance to gain statistics or possibly out of sheer drive of duty. None of these are the appropriate reasons to share the gospel. There are many faith backgrounds that do the work of “evangelism” for their various faith backgrounds, world religions, sects and cults. Heck, even AMWAY does that!

What makes us different is that we don’t have to share our faith, we have to share it!

OK, that didn’t make sense did it? Or did it? You see Ephesians 2:8-9 says that we don’t have to ever share our faith. It is not a part of the free gift of grace. We don’t have to do anything to receive the gift of salvation, which might I add right here, I don’t believe salvation is the end point, I believe that confessing Jesus as Lord is simply the beginning to a life of salvation and the finish will be when we leave the earth.

We have to share it!

Have you ever been in love? Young love is something isn’t it? It is just fun to watch. Well, sometimes. I had a friend in college who used to drive me crazy. She used to come in and tell me over and over what her boyfriend wrote to her in her love letters. This would annoy me. Finally I would yell: “LEAVE ME ALONE! GO READ YOUR LOVE NOTE TO YOURSLEF!” She would! One day when she left, my phone rang minutes later. It was her! She was calling to tell me something else that she forgot that she just found in the letter!

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!

Have you ever been around someone like that? They have to talk about their love. It drives them crazy not to!

That’s the difference. I share because I love and I am loved. (Which coincidently is why I love to read the Bible. It’s like a weird kind of love note. Every time I am in it. I find Him there speaking to me, drawing me, urging me, loving me. Intimacy!)

OK, enought with the side notes, you get the point. Well, the point I am trying to make is that I believe that even servant evangelism has gone to the sharks. I mean, It’s not the latest new fad. I am so sick of fads. It’s not a program, it’s a way of life. I am not saying that we need to stop going and sharing our faith entirely. Not at ALLL!!! I am getting ready to start sharing this wonderful love story with everything that moves!

What I am saying is that it might be time that we even rediscover the reason and heart-beat behind all that we do, even evangelism. And let’s learn five things really quickly:

1. People don’t care what you know until they know that you care!

2. Evangelism is show and tell. You can’t participate unless you do both! The better you know someone, the more you will have to show rather than tell. The less you know someone, the more the message will be important. (Google search the Engel’s scale).

3. There are a million different ways to do it. Try them all, a few are: Power Evangelism (I will discuss this in the article below), Servant Evangelism, Witnessing, Open air preaching, handing out Christian tracts, Friendship Evangelism, Life-style Evangelism (The weakest evangelism to use on people who are not close to you. The most powerful on those that are closest), Program evangelism (Four Spiritual Laws, Visitation ministries at churches, Evangelism Explosion, etc.) and Revival and Crusade evangelism (Very popular in the 70’s and 80’s).

4. The Father is always working and the Son can do nothing of Himself, he does what the Father is doing. (John 5:19 and more) In otherwords, God is busy with people. We need to be sensitive to wear His Holy Spirit is moving and join Him there. This is the key to the whole thing. I mean, if the Spirit is the one that draws all men, then wouldn’t it be smart to at least know Him as we go, include while we are going and praise Him for what He does in the end whether men accept Jesus immediately or not? 5. With that said, the last is get intimate with the Spirit. Pray and praise before you go, as you go and when you return. Ask Him what He is doing and don’t move until you see something.

These five points might just help us dolphins to get back in there. And by the way, people love the message right now. Don’t let anyone kid you. The world is white unto harvest. I am having so much fun covertly sharing Jesus every day. I feel like a CIA agent or something. I am having so much fun joining Him daily.

So, just LIVE it and guys do me a favor, stop trying so hard. Please, it’s killing you. Be a virus with the Love for our Lord Jesus and it will infect the world and change them from the inside out! Success is not measrued in the immediate responses of men, but in the satisfaction of our wonderful loving Father!

Blessings!

pd

P.S., if you don’t agree with me, please let me know. This whole idea set is growing and I love to have help as we explore it.

Original post by PD .

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Original post by PD .