Evang-A-What? Series

A Tree, net fishing, Seafood lasagna and 8,000 Krispy Kreme donuts!

What does this have to do with today’s topic? What is today’s topic. Over the past 5 weeks we’ve been looking at what our purpose here on earth is. Our Mission on earth as a church and as individuals is 5 fold:

Worship

Community - Fellowship

Christ-likeness – Discipleship

Service – Ministry

…and today EVANGELISM.

What does this word mean?

How do you feel when you hear that word?

Scared or Excited?

Awkward or Confident?

Annoyed or joyful?

Undecided or Commited?

Uninterested or Enthusiastic?

If your answers were mostly positive please answer with brutal honesty this question. How have those whom you’ve tried to Evangelize feel when you start doing your thing?

Scared or Excited?

Awkward or Confident?

Annoyed or joyful?

Undecided or Commited?

Uninterested or Enthusiastic?

The photographer for a national magazine was assigned to get photos of a great forest fire. Smoke at the scene hampered him and he asked his home office to hire a plane. Arrangements were made and he was told to go at once to a nearby airport, where the plane would be waiting. When he arrived at the airport, a plane was warming up near the runway. He jumped in with his equipment and yelled, "Let’s go! Let’s go!" The pilot swung the plane into the wind and they soon were in the air. "Fly over the north side of the fire," yelled the photographer, "and make three or four low level passes." "Why?" asked the pilot. "Because I’m going to take pictures, I’m a photographer and photographers take pictures!" After a pause the pilot said, "You mean you’re not the instructor?"

Fact is sometimes we are so focused on having to accomplish our agenda, our task that we forget to stop and make sure we’re on the right plane. Friends, I’ve been taking a serious look at this topic for quite some time. I’ve researched it, I’ve practiced it, and I’m here to tell you I’ve blown it. I’ve missed the right plane, I’ve told people things they didn’t need to hear, I answered questions they weren’t even asking or interested in, I’ve corned them into uncomfortable situations. I’ve cause people to be scared, awkward, annoyed, undecided and uninterested with not only me but with Christianity too.

St. Francis Assisi, born in 1181 to a wealth merchant, beame a knight and then founder of a monastic order once said: Preach the Gospel everywhere you go, and if necessary, use words.

Listen to these real life comments by everyday normal people about their views on us Christians and Christianity:

"Many religious people look down on atheists. I do not appreciate being looked down upon as subhuman because of my beliefs."

"I have learned to not believe, because church has showed me the destructiveness of religion."

"People who can’t think for themselves follow the disease that is religion."

I’d like to see a little more interest in me as a person before Christians start talking about my soul. It comes across as very pushy and phony when Christians don’t take time to get to know me, and I mean know me really well, before they start spouting the gospel.

I think Christians are from another planet. I imagine churches full of people who can’t relate to my problems. It’s the impression I get from two guys I work with. They talk to me [about their religious faith] during our lunch break, but they make Christianity sound so simple. Just pray about it, they say. Oh, right, I think. They don’t have debt up to their eyeballs, a kid who’s out of control, a bunch of in-laws who are always on my case about one thing or another. If these Christians have normal, everyday problems, they sure don’t admit it to me. I get the impression everything is just great with them. It’s intimidating.

I have an impression that Christians are judgmental. When I was going through my divorce, I wanted to talk to someone from my parents’ church, but I was afraid to. I’d been raised there, had even met my husband there. But my memories of those people go like this: if you’re “good,” if your life turns out perfectly like theirs, they think you’re one of them. But if things go wrong, they look down on you. My sister says that’s how things seemed when I was young and immature. I wonder if she’s right. If I’d gone to them when my husband walked out, they might have helped me through the pain. But it was such a bad time I didn’t have the energy. I needed a relationship with the church before the bottom dropped out of my life, not while it was happening. If someone could convince me that the church has other people who’ve failed in their marriages, I’d be willing to go back.