Recently our church has implemented a 1, 2, 3 evangelism
challenge. Some of you may be wondering about the challenge. It is a plan that
you invite one person to church in January, two people in February, and so on
all the way up to 12 in December. If we follow that challenge by the end of the
year, we will have invited 78 people to church. For some, this evangelism
challenge will spur us on while for others it will cause us anxiety. The
thought crossed my mind: why do we have trouble evangelizing or why do we avoid
evangelism? Thom Rainer has written a good post about this here.
One of my points is adapted from a couple of his, but I will share a few
reasons of my own too.
1.
We do not evangelize because we are afraid.
Fear is a common deterrent. We tend to avoid things that
produce fear in us. Kids who fear the dark insist on having a night light.
People who are afraid of flying avoid traveling in airplanes. Because we fear the
act of evangelism, we simply do not share the gospel. We do not want to share
the gospel because people inevitably may label us. We think, “I don’t want the
stigma.” We may think of an evangelist as a televangelist or a person with a sandwich
sign, or perhaps someone screaming on the street corner. Nevertheless, the
reality is that people are already labeling us, by our clothes, by our actions,
by our friends. We should be battling so that we are identified with our love
for Christ opposed to our love for the Detroit Lions (insert any sports team,
family member, rock band, hobby here).
In reality, do we have to fear? Do we fear rejection from
our family and friends? The message, the
joy, and the opportunity of eternal life should far outweigh whatever
consequences we might face right now. We must remember too that we are not
alone. God tells us that we should not fear. Jesus’ name is Emmanuel, God with
us. God is omnipresent. He is
everywhere. Let us trust him to be with us. Check out these verses if
you are uncertain of God’s Presence.
2. We exclusively “share” the gospel in our actions.
This reason certainly may connect with the first one, but I think
it deserves its own category. Yes, we can and we do share the gospel with our
actions. We say that actions are more
powerful than words, but oftentimes we need to use words. A man can tell his
beautiful wife that he loves her through showering her with gifts, through
doing a share of the housework, by watching the kids so she can spend a night
with her friends. He can lovingly stare into her eyes. However, I still believe
that despite all of those actions, she still wants to and needs to hear “I love
you,” said.
You may ask what does that have to do with evangelism? We miss
an opportunity to share the gospel if we exclusively use our actions. You say,
well, I donate to charity, well unfortunately agnostics, atheists, and people
from other religions donate to charities too because they think it is a good
thing. You may say I donate to Christian charities, well, that is great too. Well,
I volunteer at x, y and z. Once again, anyone can volunteer. While giving and
service certainly are marks of a Christian life, another mark is sharing the
gospel. Our actions as well as our words should proceed out of our love for
Christ.
3.
We do not evangelize because we think our “story”
is simply not enough. (And you are right!.)
When we go to Christian concerts or we see Christian movies
we may see some type of testimony. We see a “rags to riches” type account. We
tend to see or think of the extremes in testimonies and evangelism. We hear the
story of the drug dealer who turns their life around or the person who
completely hits rock bottom and was perhaps suicidal, or the near death
experience. We then think, well my story is not that drastic or that powerful
thereby assuming that we lack an incredible witness. The reality is, however,
we all have the rags to riches story. Paul tells us that we were all dead in
our trespasses and Christ gives us new life. Each of our stories whether we
grew up in a largely Christian home or had a colorful life away from God is
still valid. The story that Jesus Christ came to die for our sins is the same
for you, for me, and for everyone else. It still remains the greatest ever
told.
Chances are, as well that many of the people whom you may be
sharing your faith with, are people who know you and love you. If they care
about you, they will want to hear your story as well, and you should care
enough about them to share it.
The truth is that none of our stories is enough, the Holy Spirit
who is working in their hearts. Our lives and our stories are the vessels through
which the Holy Spirit works. It is not our
stories bringing people to Christ rather the Holy Spirit who calls. If we put our hope and our strength in God
while evangelizing, we will be much better off.
4.
We have forgotten our role as evangelists.
(Thanks Thom Rainer)
Ministry is a wonderful occupation. It is great to be able
to serve a church family, to preach the gospel, to shepherd. Unfortunately, one
of the unintentional consequences of having dedicated ministers is that we seem
to have lost our evangelistic bearings. Church members may feel like this is the
Pastor’s job. Evangelizing is what he is paid to do, right? On job descriptions,
many churches put that they want to grow the church spiritually and in numbers.
Therefore, they think that evangelism is the pastor’s responsibility. It is (Or
at least it should be), but the responsibility also falls on the members. None
of us has an exemption from the Great
Commission. Jesus calls us to make disciples. Friends, we all are
responsible for sharing the gospel.
5
5.
We take the Gospel for granted.
This is the United States of America, our paper currency says “In God We Trust” we may have opening invocations at business meetings and school functions,
but the reality is, that many have not heard the gospel. They may know stories,
but they may not have the full picture. We think that everyone knows the
message, but this simply is not the case. We probably have neighbors who are
not at church, we probably have friends that are not at church, co-workers and
friends who are not at church. These individuals need the gospel just as much
as we do. We cannot simply assume that everyone has the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We should work to make sure that
everyone knows the gospel.The Gospel is about transformation, changing lives; we should share that same
opportunity for transformation.
Why do you avoid sharing the Gospel? Is it one of these reasons? Would you like to share yours? Leave a comment below!
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