— 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.
Branches do not produce fruit by effort.
They do not strategize fruit.
They do not anxiously evaluate whether they are doing enough.
Branches receive. Life flows through them—or it doesn’t. And everything depends on that.
Jesus never commands the branch to bear fruit. That’s the part we often miss. He doesn’t say, “Try harder to be productive.” He doesn’t threaten the branch with shame if it doesn’t perform. He simply states a reality:
“Whoever abides in Me bears much fruit.”
It’s descriptive, not coercive.
Fruit is not the goal.
Fruit is the consequence.
Which means when we reverse the order—when we start with fruit instead of life—we end up asking the wrong questions. We ask, “Why aren’t you witnessing?” when the deeper question is, “Where is your life coming from?”
And that’s a far more unsettling question.
Because it can’t be answered with activity.
A branch can be very busy and still be disconnected.
A Christian can be very involved and still be dry.
A church can be full of programs and still lack sap.
Abiding is not passivity, but it is dependence. It is the ongoing decision to stay where life flows rather than to move toward what looks impressive. It is choosing presence over productivity, faithfulness over visibility.
That’s why abiding feels uncomfortable to us. It removes our ability to manage outcomes. It takes away our illusion of control.
We like fruit because fruit can be counted.
Abiding cannot.
We like results because results can be reported.
Abiding is hidden.
And yet Jesus insists that nothing else works.
“Apart from Me,” He says, “you can do nothing.”
Not less.
Not not as effectively.
Nothing.
Which means that much of what exhausts us in church life may not be the weight of obedience—but the strain of trying to live without sufficient life.
When we turn witnessing into a task, we place it on shoulders instead of roots. We ask people to speak when what they may need most is to rest. We urge action when Jesus is inviting nearness.
And then we’re surprised when it doesn’t last.
Fruit that comes from pressure doesn’t remain.
Fruit that comes from guilt doesn’t taste like grace.
Fruit that comes from fear always carries fear with it.
Jesus says something quietly radical here: fruit that matters comes from remaining.
Which means silence in a believer’s life is not always rebellion. Sometimes it is fatigue. Sometimes it is dryness. Sometimes it is the honest signal of someone who has been trying to produce without receiving.
Abiding calls us back to something simpler—and far more demanding.
Not do more.
But stay.
Stay with Christ when prayer feels thin.
Stay with Christ when words won’t come.
Stay with Christ when usefulness feels unclear.
Because life flows even when we don’t feel it.
Sap moves quietly.
Growth happens underground.
And when the time is right—without announcement, without effort—the fruit appears.
Not because the branch finally learned how to bear fruit.
But because it never left the vine.
--- You Are the Light
Jesus does something remarkable in the Sermon on the Mount.
He doesn’t tell His disciples to become light.
He tells them that they are.
“You are the light of the world.”
That sentence comes before instruction. Before warning. Before application. It is not a goal to reach; it is an identity to receive.
Which means light, in Jesus’ understanding, is not something we produce through effort. It is something that exists because of proximity. Because of presence. Because light has already entered the world—and now lives in His people.
Then Jesus says something we often misunderstand:
“Let your light shine.”
We hear that as an exhortation to try harder. To speak up. To be bolder. To overcome our fear. But that’s not what He’s saying.
He doesn’t say, “Make your light shine.”
He doesn’t say, “Work at shining.”
He doesn’t say, “Prove that you’re bright enough.”
He says, “Let it.”
Which tells us something important.
The problem Jesus anticipates is not the absence of light—but interference.
He goes on to say that no one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. No one hides light accidentally. Light gets hidden because something gets placed over it. Fear. Shame. Exhaustion. Pressure. Expectation.
Light doesn’t need instruction.
It needs space.
When light is present, it shines.
When it doesn’t shine, something is blocking it.
And that’s a very different diagnosis than the one we usually hear.
We often assume silence means disobedience.
Jesus suggests silence may mean obstruction.
Which means the solution is not more pressure—but removal. Not effort—but exposure. Not pushing people outward—but calling them back into the open.
This is where performance-based evangelism quietly does damage.
When we tell people they must make their light shine, we subtly suggest that the light depends on them. That if they don’t speak enough, or boldly enough, or correctly enough, the world will remain dark—and it will be their fault.
That’s a heavy burden to place on fragile people.
Jesus never places it there.
He locates responsibility where it belongs: in presence, not production.
Light shines because it is light.
Fire warms because it is fire.
Life reproduces because it is alive.
And when those things don’t happen, the question is not, “Why aren’t you trying harder?” The question is, “What’s in the way?”
Sometimes it’s fear of being misunderstood.
Sometimes it’s shame from past failure.
Sometimes it’s exhaustion from carrying what we were never meant to carry.
And sometimes, if we’re honest, it’s because we’ve been told to hold the light instead of walk in it.
Jesus’ words free us from that confusion.
He doesn’t ask us to generate illumination.
He asks us not to hide it.
Which means witnessing, at its core, is not about speaking at the right moment. It’s about living uncovered. Living honestly. Living near enough to Christ that His life becomes visible without strain.
When that happens, words come naturally. Or sometimes silence speaks louder than words. Either way, light does what light does.
It shines.
Not because we forced it to.
But because we stopped standing in the way.
---
The Flashlight
I didn’t understand any of this theology when I was five.
I couldn’t have explained abiding or identity or interference. I didn’t know the language yet. But I knew the feeling.
When I was five, I went camping with my father and my oldest brother. It was late afternoon, sliding toward evening, the kind of time when shadows start to stretch and everything feels a little uncertain. We were walking, and my brother was holding the flashlight.
I remember watching the beam move across the ground. It mattered where it pointed. It showed us where to step, what to avoid, where the path was safe. And I wanted to help.
I didn’t want to be in the way.
I didn’t want to be a burden.
I wanted to be useful.
So I kept asking if I could hold the light.
My brother kept saying no.
Not angrily. Not harshly. Just firmly. He said, “If I give it to you, you’ll drop it and break it.”
But I didn’t hear concern. I heard exclusion.
So I asked again. And again.
Finally, he handed it to me.
And almost immediately, I did exactly what he said I would do.
I dropped it.
And it broke.
I remember the sound more than anything—the dull, final crack of something that mattered no longer working. I remember the sudden darkness. I remember the quiet that followed. And I remember the feeling that rose up in me, heavy and immediate.
I had failed.
Not because I didn’t care.
Not because I was careless.
But because I was trying to carry something that was never meant to be in my hands.
I didn’t have the words for that then. I only had the feeling. The sense that something important had been entrusted to me, and I hadn’t been strong enough to keep it safe.
And that feeling—that quiet, sinking sense of having dropped what mattered—has followed a lot of people into their faith.
Many of us were handed the light the same way.
Not because we were ready.
Not because we understood what we were holding.
But because we wanted to help. Because we wanted to matter. Because we didn’t want to be spectators in the dark.
So someone handed us responsibility and said, “Here. Hold this.”
Hold the gospel carefully.
Represent Jesus well.
Say the right things.
Don’t mess this up.
And when we fumbled—when words came out wrong, when fear got the better of us, when silence lasted longer than we thought it should—we didn’t question the assignment.
We questioned ourselves.
We told ourselves we weren’t bold enough.
Or spiritual enough.
Or faithful enough.
We assumed the failure was personal.
But the problem was never that the light broke.
The problem was that it was never ours to carry.
Jesus never asked us to hold Him up in the dark.
He never asked us to keep the light from breaking.
He never asked us to manage illumination for the world.
He said, “I am the light.”
Which means the light has always been in His hands.
Our calling was never to grip it tightly.
It was to walk close enough that the path stayed visible.
And when we confuse those two things—when we try to carry what we were only meant to walk with—we don’t become better witnesses.
We become tired ones.
We become cautious ones.
Fearful ones.
Quiet ones.
Not because we don’t care, but because we’re afraid of dropping it again.
--- Putting the Light Back Where It Belongs
There is a quiet mercy in realizing that some things were never ours to carry.
It doesn’t come all at once. It usually comes slowly, after years of trying, years of holding on, years of feeling responsible for outcomes we couldn’t control. But when it comes, it feels like relief more than revelation.
Jesus never asked us to hold the light.
He never asked us to manage it, protect it, or make sure it didn’t break. He never said the success of His kingdom would depend on how steady our hands were or how confident our voices sounded.
He said something far simpler.
“Follow Me.”
“Abide in Me.”
“Remain.”
And then He said, “I am the light of the world.”
Which means the light has always been exactly where it belongs.
In Him.
When the light is in His hands, it doesn’t flicker when we stumble.
When the light is in His presence, it doesn’t depend on our strength.
When the light is Christ Himself, the burden of outcomes quietly disappears.
We stop measuring our faithfulness by visible results.
We stop confusing silence with failure.
We stop mistaking effort for obedience.
And something in us softens.
This is what it means to let your light shine.
Not to make it shine.
Not to force it into brightness.
But to stop standing in the way of what Christ is already doing.
Jesus says that people don’t light a lamp and then hide it under a basket. He’s not accusing His disciples of cowardice. He’s naming a human tendency. We hide light when we’re afraid. When we’re tired. When we’ve been handed responsibility that feels too heavy.
Sometimes the basket isn’t sin.
Sometimes it’s pressure.
Sometimes it’s expectation.
Sometimes it’s the quiet fear of dropping it again.
So the call today is not to go out and witness more.
It’s to stop gripping the flashlight.
To stop carrying what was never meant to be carried.
To stop believing that Christ’s visibility in the world rests on your performance.
Witnessing is not something we switch on.
It is what happens when we walk in the light.
And walking in the light doesn’t require courage. It requires nearness.
It doesn’t demand technique. It requires honesty.
It doesn’t start with speaking. It starts with being.
Being present with Christ.
Being honest about our limits.
Being willing to stay close even when we don’t feel useful.
Because life speaks when it is alive.
Light shines when it is uncovered.
And Christ reveals Himself when He is abided in.
Some of us have been quiet not because we don’t love Jesus, but because we’ve been tired of carrying Him.
And the invitation today is simple.
Put the light back in His hands.
Stay close.
Remain.
Abide.
Let Christ be Christ.
And trust that when His life is real in you, it will not remain hidden.
The light will do what it has always done.
It will shine.
--- Appeal
Today’s invitation is not to do more for God.
It is to come closer to Him.
Some of us have been quiet—not because we don’t love Jesus, but because we’ve been tired of carrying what we were never meant to carry. We’ve been gripping the flashlight instead of walking with the Light.
So the appeal today is simple.
If you’re weary of performance…
If witnessing has felt heavy instead of hopeful…
If you’ve been measuring your faithfulness by outcomes instead of nearness…
Then hear this invitation from Christ Himself:
Remain.
Abide.
Stay close.
Put the light back in His hands.
Stop carrying what only He can carry.
And trust that when His life is real in you, it will not remain hidden.
That is not withdrawal from mission.
That is the beginning of it.
--- Prayer
Lord Jesus,
You are the Light of the world.
Forgive us for the times we have tried to carry You
instead of walking with You.
Forgive us for mistaking effort for faithfulness,
and activity for abiding.
Teach us again how to remain—
to stay close when words are few,
to trust You when outcomes are unclear,
to live uncovered before You and before others.
Remove what blocks Your light in us—
fear, shame, exhaustion, and false responsibility.
Restore in us the quiet confidence
that Your life speaks when it is lived.
We place the light back in Your hands.
And we choose nearness over performance,
being over striving,
abiding over anxiety.
Shine as You will,
where You will,
through lives that belong to You.
Amen.
