wow so this is what it feels like...

I come back to my blog after a whirlwind of change, and find this just as I left them. Wonderful. At any rate, Dan Edelen has an AMAZING post about 'the antiwitness' and evangelism. Thought I'd throw my two cents in.

As many of you know, I come from an SBC background, and have been indoctrinated with every evangelism 'strategy' imaginable since I was in elementary school. Seriously. Billy Graham, 4 Laws, FAITH...my church even came up with one ourself, something to do with a notebook. I've participated in door-knocking and street preaching, the Jesus film and evangelistic body builders. From it all I've found a few important things:

1. MANIPULATION DOES NOT WORK - Billy Graham once said he'd be pleasantly suprised if 10% of the people who walk the aisle at his crusades will be in heaven. Nothing that attempts to force the gospel down someone's throat works with any kind of effectiveness - those that genuinely respond to such actions often do so either out of emotion or because of God's presence already at work.

2. One does not need to 'know how to lead someone to Christ' - often the excuse for not reaching our world is that we 'don't know how' to share Jesus with people. This is true. Our problem is that we interpret this to mean that one must know a specific group of facts and verses in an attempt to insert a packaged gospel into someone's mind, therefore spawning off any number of programs designed to teach people to share their faith. What this actually means is that we act like Jesus every day and introduce people to our faith by sharing who Christ IS, not a set of verses.

Do I sound cynical or mad? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I think this topic strikes a chord for me because, regardless of what I've just written now, I haven't 'led someone to Christ' in a long time. I see people doing things like door-to-door evangelism who pray a prayer with 5 people, and although 4 out of 5 may have prayed nothing real at all, a person met Jesus! Why is it that I KNOW that building relationships with people and living out a true Jesus-filled life is the gospel that is talked about in the Bible, yet forms that seem to manipulate and turn more people off to the gospel than onto it supposedly see 'results'?