Dn. Raphael Why do most Christians seem to avoid evangelism?
I’ll tell you why I avoided it.
As you know I was raised a protestant. I embraced the Jesus Movement which started in my teen years. An important emphasis of the movement was to witness, share the gospel, evangelize. I went to parks and public places with others. There we introduced ourselves to strangers and presented the gospel to them.
I also participated in a “Jesus march.” We didn’t have enough people to get the street closed so we ambled down a sidewalk in downtown Phoenix. A friend held a sign that said, “Honk if you love Jesus.” When people honked we waved at them.
In those teen years, my heart was in the right place. But I wasn’t too young to see we weren’t having the results we expected. What did we expect? We wanted the people we talked to follow us in our faith as immediately as the disciples of Jesus did. It wasn’t happening.
Nobody trained us. It was pretty much, “Hey, we’re going to witness at this or that park. Wanna come?” In time I avoided that.
Churches I attended didn’t do much to teach evangelism either. Everyone left it to the pastor. The Bible says it’s every believer’s job. I plodded ahead without direction.
I adopted a new strategy. I would share the gospel with strangers if needed, but now I would share it with friends. My style was an in-your-face kind of evangelism which resulted in arguments. That wasn’t right. I’m amazed I remained friends with my friends. It was time for a new strategy.
St. Francis of Assisi is credited with saying, “At all times preach the gospel. If necessary, use words.” He probably did not say it, but I went with it. I decided to be a good person. If someone noticed how good I was, then I would share the gospel. You can probably guess how effective that was… not.
I met a young man who was also a very good person… like me. I wanted to know if he was getting inquiries about his living a good Christian life. I presumed wrong. When I asked him about his faith he told me he was not a Christian. He angrily wanted to know why a good person has to be a Christian. I didn’t see that coming.
I needed help with evangelism. In college I found Campus Crusade for Christ. They were structured. But I quickly became disillusioned with their evangelism efforts for two reasons.
• They were not a part of any organized church. They didn’t always advise their converts to find a church. They really wanted their new converts in their programs, not church.
• Their gospel presentation was short and sweet. It started with “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” We’d show our contact a small pamphlet that contained “Four Spiritual Laws.” In less than four minutes they were saved after praying a short prayer. I wondered, “How can someone make a lifelong commitment so quickly? Does any serious commitment happen in such a short time?” What do you think?
I came to the point where I avoided evangelization. Well, I didn’t totally give up on it. I spent my evangelism efforts trying to understand it. I read a lot about it.
Why do you think Christians avoid evangelism? Do you avoid evangelism? What would have to change for Christians to embrace it? I’m curious. What are your thoughts? Email me at dn.raphael@desertdeacon.com. I’d like to know what you think.