Evangelism

I think that this word, this concept, has given me more struggles, qualms and guilt than almost any other word in our Christian language lexicon.

When I became a Christian in college, I hung around with friends who were part of one of those Christian college organizations, and evangelism was their favorite past-time, almost like a sport. I remember sitting with friends on a balcony off the student union overlooking the main plaza where kids hung out between classes. We would pray and look around for a potential victim - oh, uh, I mean for that person that God might be leading us towards sharing with. If we felt like we had been given the green light, we would make our way down the stairs and over to where the chosen target, uh - student - was sitting and strike up a conversation and ask them about their relationship with God. We always had a few spare copies of the Four Spiritual Laws hanging around in our backpacks along with a bible, of course, in case we needed to refer to a higher power while convincing them of their need for Jesus. Not only did we participate in this hunting sport - we kept score, we put notches on our belt to record how many people we had "led to Christ".

Are you cringing yet? I am. I did. I hated it. I hated the constant pressure that I felt from my Christian community to participate in this ambush sport. Not that I couldn't see that occasionally it produced good fruit - I had prayed to receive Jesus in a pretty similar situation myself. But more often it just produced painfully awkward social situations and hurt feelings or anger, and I would experience a deep sense of shame.

Fast forward a few years, and we added some new variations on this game. Relationship evangelism. Servant evangelism. Both of these, in theory, are based on a quite beautiful concept. Sharing the gospel should come from a place of relationship with the person whom you are talking to, or from a place of having served them, of having done something good for them without any strings attached. But there were strings attached. Church attendance was usually the goal. We might pass out cards with our church's address and meeting times, hoping that the people we were talking to or doing something for would find the experience so compelling that they would want to come to our church and meet more such wonderful people as ourselves, and eventually find relationship with Jesus. Or we were so driven by Jesus' command to preach the good news to all the world, that this seemed to be the truest way that we could follow our God and His will for us. For some of us who struggled with the sense of manipulation that these practices seemed to involve, well - the ends justified the means. Was there anything more important than seeing our friends and neighbors come into a relationship with God? What ever it took would be OK (and we'd have more notches on our belts).

And so... I still struggled. I hated the underlying sense of manipulation, I just hated it. Yet, to do any less seemed like a failure to comprehend and accept God's command that I share the good news with those around me. At least I felt like that was the message that the church community was giving me. I struggled with shame, still not being able to live up to the standard set before me and hating the pressure, yet feeling a sense of revulsion at what I was being pushed to do.

Now I am reading and am in conversation with people online and in my church, about a different kind of evangelism. At least, this is how I perceive it. I love the emphasis I have found in my online exposure to emerging church conversation of movement away from measuring success in our fulfillment of the gospel by numbers. I began to have hope that my feeling of calling and ministry through service to my community in our local schools and through relationships with the families where I live, might be something worthwhile.

When my church announced a few months ago that we were going to be talking about a new church "mission statement", I thought cynically to myself "Oh no - here it comes again. More pressure to evangelize, to spread the word, to rack up the numbers on our belts". I prepared myself to experience another shower of guilt and shame, and wondered how I would respond. I entertained the possibility of giving up on going to church, of joining the growing number of my friends who have walked away from institutionalized church. Instead, I was surprised by the open-ended, gracious statement of mission that our church has adopted: "To extend the transforming love of Jesus to our world". The conversations and sermons that have ensued have been extremely motivating and encouraging. I am more enthused about being a part of my church now than I have been in many years.

Still, I am trying to sort out in my mind the messages I have heard through the years. I have asked myself if my excitement about a calling to love and and be in relationship with my neighbors without an agenda isn't just a cop-out. Could I just be looking for a way to avoid rejection and be liked by all? Could I just be too fearful of speaking the truth of the gospel? Could all those old "tapes of shame" that play through my mind be true?

Today, in talking about this with some friends from church, I feel like I finally saw a part of the answer to that question. Maybe this will be a simple known fact to most of you, and I am just a slow learner. But I realized that if I am in a real, honest relationship with someone - then I will, at some point, be sharing the truth of my life with them. For to deny the hope that I have in God, through Jesus, would be just as much a deception as it is to try to maneuver someone into relationship just for the chance to tell them about God's good news. What I see before me is a call to live in love, honesty, and real, deep integrity - and the more that I can do that in all my relationships with my family, with friends and neighbors, and with God, the closer I will be to living the gospel.

Maybe I will find some day that I've still missed the point. But today, I feel a motivation to follow Jesus and be a part of expressing His love for the world in a way that frees me like never before.