evangelism

A bunch of us from Kettering just spent 3 days supporting the church household in Ipswich with their campaign.

To be honest I hate evangelism- the "jump out on people with a leaflet" approach does not work for me and the "sit around looking friendly and inviting so they come to talk to you" just makes me feel like a spare part.

Evangelism is also not that popular generally. It is seen as rather intense and the realm of religious fanatics. In Britain we are too polite and too eager to be tolerant of other views to be brave enough to speak out. That's a bit strange seeing that the first Christians were radical enough to be accused of turning the world upside down.

The other problem with trying to decide wether one should or should not evangelise is:- we are told to do it!
I could try to find a church where "we don't do that kind of thing" or "it's for those who 'have the calling'", but it is still there in the Bible in black and white.
Jesus, before he went back up to heaven, comissioned the disciples to be his witnesses and promised that the Holy Spirit would be with them to help them.
I agree that not everyone does it by taking a painted bus into town to attract attention and bring "church to the street", but everyone should be doing it- somehow.

On Friday afternoon there were some lads shouting at us "Jesus is a **** ****" and so on. Their use of adjectives scares me because I know God is awesome and does not apreciate his name being disrespected. I would not personally risk the wrath of God like that, and sometimes I am concerened that being "high profile" about Jesus provokes people to hurl the abuse they do.

Anyway, in the end these lads came over to talk and we had a good chat with them. We met them again late at night when the lad who had been overshadowed by his more mouthy mate asked us some really searching questions. That is what I do enjoy- testing and stretching and exercising my faith, to reach outside of the limits of what is spoken about in church to find out that it does all still hold true and our eternal and ancient God is big enough to meet the demands of modern thinking and dilemas.

I think Jesus would have enjoyed a good discussion with the disciples, pushing the horizon of their faith to make it stronger.

Anyway, some of the questions and answers will probably come up in blogs soon....