A Winsome Witness
Evangelism has gotten a bad reputation. Most in the church would grudgingly admit that we should evangelize, but most really don’t want to do it.
Unfortunately, there have been more bad examples of evangelism than good ones. We envision Mormons on bicycles coming to the door to harangue. Oily-haired televangelists living lavish lifestyles at the expense of donors giving sacrificially. Evangelism that sounds more like a sales pitch than Good News of a Savior who loves and welcomes us.
A week from Sunday, we will celebrate Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birthday of the Church. Pentecost marked the beginning of evangelizing the world! In preparation, this Sunday we will read from Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer” to hear how Jesus prepared the disciples for the task ahead of them.
What we find is Jesus praying that we would be one. He prayed that we would be one with Him as He is one with the Father, and that we would be one with one another. That is no small thing! In being one, Jesus tells us, we glorify the Father and the best way I’ve found to understand what that means is to translate “glory” as “reveal.”
The greatest thing we can do is to reveal Jesus, and in revealing Jesus we reveal the Father. That is really the task of evangelism. It is not about convincing another of anything. It is not getting them to repeat some particular prayer or join our church or — perhaps worst of all — adopt some particular political position.
At the heart of evangelism is revealing Jesus — letting Him be seen in our words, our actions, our love and care for others. We don’t need great rhetorical skill or vast Bible knowledge. We need Jesus. We don’t need perfect doctrine or dramatic conversion stories. We need Jesus.
That’s what the disciples had and it was enough for them! Remember that the most effective evangelism is not the carefully planned assault but a loving, natural witness to what Jesus has meant in our lives. That is a winsome witness!
This column appeared in the May 21, 2023 edition of St. John’s eNews. Click here for the complete issue.
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