What is evangelism?

            Hey everybody, this is Nic, Elicia’s husband. I would like to take some time to talk about evangelism and sharing what God has been doing in my life. Go easy on me everyone, as this is my first time blogging…Donna…. :) I’m just kidding, here goes.

Last year we had an outreach program (for the lack of a better description), called Friday Night Live.  The whole idea was to build relationships with students that wouldn’t normally come to church.  A process took place that began with a simple authentic relationship with the goal of one day engaging in a faith-based conversation with each student. Usually this occurred naturally as the students wondered why we had hope in such a seemingly hopeless world.

Through Friday Night Live, I was able to get relatively close to a student named Josiah. He was an eighth grader who thought he was a thug with a thick shell, but he just wanted someone that would be real with him. He came because of a girl, imagine that!  He claimed that he was in the illegal fight club in town, whether he was or not I will never know. Regardless, he was one tough dude. As I started to spend more time with him, I realized how desperate he was for true love. The more time I got to spend with him, the more I was able to speak about what I believe. You’d never know it just by talking to him, but Josiah was very open to the topic of faith.

Eventually, he began to tell me why he had an issue with Christians, and most of what he said made a lot of sense. I understood where he was coming from. I continued to pray for him and God continued to provide opportunities to share the Gospel. Slowly, he began to disappear. He went from consistently contacting me, to not returning any attempt I made at reaching out to him. To this day, I have not had the chance since to ask him if Jesus’ plan of redemption started to make sense or not. While this makes me quite sad, I understand that it’s a seed planted that someone else may harvest. Apparently that’s all the time God had set aside for our friendship for now. I just pray that I made the most of that time.  

Evangelism is not always what we expect (or wish) it to be. I think the best model of evangelism for us, is Jesus. I know that sounds really obvious, but it seems like we forget that.  Just one example that I’ve really enjoyed lately is John 4: the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. Start by looking at their conversation; the first thing we see is Jesus relating to her on a personal level. He met her exactly where she was at, spiritually and socially. He could have started with condemnation (you need to repent and turn from your sin); He was Jesus…but he didn’t. Instead He gave her what she really needed: Love. He broke social and cultural barriers and thereby showed her unconditional love.

I’ve noticed one obstacle that keeps us from telling the people around us about Jesus, is having no idea what to say. But all you really have to do is show that person that you love them and care about them. That’s an amazing start on it’s own! Only then does Jesus then begin to reveal himself to the Samaritan woman as the Messiah.

I think true evangelism in its most basic form is just sharing the love of Jesus. A lot is revealed in how we present ourselves and treat others. When we are walking in the Spirit and being obedient, God will provide us the opportunity be a tool in furthering the kingdom. But we absolutely need to PAY ATTENTION!

Sometimes this can feel a bit overwhelming. And while we do have responsibility, the really cool thing that helps me with this is that we don’t really have anything to do with the salvation aspect. The Holy Spirit works in people’s lives, reveals the Truth to them, and renews them. Our job is to (like the woman at the well) respond to what God has done in our life!