Going Over The Baggage Limit

— When Evangelism Language Wears Us Out

There are certain words in the church that carry more weight than we realize. Not because they are wrong words, but because of what they’ve come to mean through repetition. Through tone. Through history.

Witness is one of those words.

You can feel it in a room the moment it’s spoken. There’s a subtle shift. Shoulders tighten just a bit. Some people look down. Others look away. Not because they don’t love Jesus—but because they already know the direction the conversation usually goes.

When the church talks about witnessing, it often comes wrapped in urgency and expectation. Charts are shown. Statistics are quoted. Stories of bold believers are told. And the unspoken conclusion settles quietly over the congregation: we’re not doing enough.

So we brace ourselves.

Because many of us have heard this message before. We know the rhythm. We know where it usually lands. Somewhere between inspiration and guilt. Somewhere between challenge and quiet discouragement.

And here’s the strange thing about that.

A non-Christian never needs a sermon on how to be a non-witness.

No one has to teach silence.

No one has to train indifference.

No one has to coach spiritual quiet.

Silence is natural when there is no life.

Which should make us pause.

Why do we assume that people who claim to be connected to the living Christ need repeated instruction on how to speak about Him?

Why do we talk as if witnessing were an advanced skill—something you graduate into after enough training, courage, or technique?

We don’t do that with living things.

We don’t hold seminars teaching apple trees how to bear apples.

We don’t gather orange trees and encourage them to try harder to be citrus.

We don’t lecture light on how to shine more effectively.

We assume something much more basic: if the life is there, the fruit will follow.

And yet, when it comes to faith, we often reverse that logic. We start with fruit. With behavior. With output. And when the output isn’t what we expect, we assume something is wrong with the person.

Not courageous enough.

Not trained enough.

Not committed enough.

But Jesus never framed it that way.

He never looked at His disciples and said, “I need you to become better witnesses.”

He never said, “Once you master this, then you’ll be ready.”

Instead, He spoke in the language of life and connection.

“Follow Me.”

“Remain in Me.”

“Abide.”

And then—almost casually—He made a statement that has shaped the church ever since, not as an instruction, but as a description:

“You will be My witnesses.”

Not you should be.

Not you must work at it.

Not you’d better get this right.

You will be.

Which tells us something essential.

Witness, in the mind of Jesus, is not a task layered on top of faith.

It is what faith looks like when it is alive.

Light doesn’t decide whether or not to shine.

Fire doesn’t debate whether or not to give heat.

Life doesn’t negotiate whether or not to reproduce.

It simply is—and because it is, it reveals itself.

So when silence appears in the church, perhaps the most honest question is not, “Why aren’t people witnessing?”

The more searching question might be, “What are we actually connected to?”

Because the gospel never asks us to manufacture light.

It never asks us to generate life.

It asks us to remain where life already flows.

And that changes the conversation entirely.

If witnessing is treated primarily as something we must do, it will always feel heavy. It will always feel like pressure. It will always feel like one more responsibility added to already full lives.

But if witnessing is understood as something that happens when connection is real, then silence becomes a signal—not of failure, but of disconnection. And signals are invitations, not accusations.

Many of us are not resisting evangelism.

We are exhausted by performance.

We are tired of carrying expectations we were never meant to carry.

Tired of measuring faithfulness by outcomes.

Tired of feeling quietly inadequate because we don’t sound like the stories we’re told to admire.

And perhaps the most compassionate—and most biblical—thing the church can say right now is not, “Try harder,” but, “Come closer.”

Not a call to do more, but an invitation to be nearer.

Because when life is real, it speaks.

When light is present, it shines.

And when Christ is truly abided in, He does not remain hidden.

--- Abiding: Life Before Fruit

When Jesus wanted to speak to His disciples about fruitfulness, He did something unexpected.

He didn’t start with mission.

He didn’t start with responsibility.

He didn’t start with results.

He started with relationship.

“I am the vine,” He said. “You are the branches.”

That image is almost too familiar to us now. We hear it and nod along, as if we already understand it. But if we slow down long enough to let the image work on us, it quietly dismantles much of what we’ve learned to assume about faithfulness.