Evangelism, part deux

There is a part of me that says this particular post ought to be labeled "Evangelism, part 'Duh' " Evangelism has to happen if the church is going to survive. One of the great things is that the church will survive without people ever saying a word. God speaks to our hearts and minds, and the scriptures tell us "the very rocks will cry out" if we fail to speak the name of Jesus. So in that sense evangelism is part 'duh'

The other reason that this post ought to be labeled part 'duh' is some reflections on my own experiences with evangelism. I think maybe I will start with attractional evangelism and address the other methods in another post. Attractional evangelism says that we ought to live our lives in such a holy and distinct manner that others would want to find out how we manage to live as we do. The trouble is that too many of us, myself included, are afraid of what the real message of the Gospel tells us about living differently. We don't want to be uncomfortable so we carry on with life as is, and therefore the "duh" moment is when we realize that there is nothing substantially different about the way we live our lives so that others might want to check us out and become a part of what we are about. I know I am even more scared that if I lived the life of the Gospels noone would want to be a part of Christianity, shunned, herded, ignored, ostracized and berated on a regular basis is not a piece of life I want to share on a continual basis and yet the Gospels and the Epistles tell us that in fact this is what would happen if we were actually living for Christ and the Kin(g)dom of God on a daily basis.

Time to figure out how to deal with the fear I guess...and that is what will lead me to the next form of evangelism, confrontational evangelism.

Peace,