Fools for Christ?
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing..."
(1 Corinthians 1:18)
"Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders..."
(Colossians 4:5)
Late Saturday night I drove downtown for a weekly street evangelism session. When I arrived the weather was so cold and rainy that no one else had shown up. So rather than just drive home, I took a packet of creative tracts and just walked the street, offering them to people in front of the theaters, bars and clubs. I unloaded about 100 tracts, but I probably got about 250 terse rejections and funny stares. I suspect most of the people who did take tracts were just being polite, and many will wind up in the garbage or the gutter.
The whole experience got me thinking, what is effective evangelism? Jesus said we would face rejection, but I want it to be for the right reasons. If I'm not careful, my efforts to evangelize can make me look weird. Yes, we are called to be "fools for Christ". But it should be our beliefs that the world considers foolish, not our behavior or our attitude. People will take any excuse to dismiss the gospel, and we dare not give them one.
I'm still not sure if handing out tracts in the rain makes me look like a "weirdo" or not. But I know at least a few of them will get read, and for that I rejoice. At least it's better than doing nothing.
(1 Corinthians 1:18)
"Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders..."
(Colossians 4:5)
Late Saturday night I drove downtown for a weekly street evangelism session. When I arrived the weather was so cold and rainy that no one else had shown up. So rather than just drive home, I took a packet of creative tracts and just walked the street, offering them to people in front of the theaters, bars and clubs. I unloaded about 100 tracts, but I probably got about 250 terse rejections and funny stares. I suspect most of the people who did take tracts were just being polite, and many will wind up in the garbage or the gutter.The whole experience got me thinking, what is effective evangelism? Jesus said we would face rejection, but I want it to be for the right reasons. If I'm not careful, my efforts to evangelize can make me look weird. Yes, we are called to be "fools for Christ". But it should be our beliefs that the world considers foolish, not our behavior or our attitude. People will take any excuse to dismiss the gospel, and we dare not give them one.
I'm still not sure if handing out tracts in the rain makes me look like a "weirdo" or not. But I know at least a few of them will get read, and for that I rejoice. At least it's better than doing nothing.
posted by Cedricstudio at 7:01 PM
2 Comments:
I hear you. I've struggled with this too. I think that in our North American context, where people are saturated with useless paper everyday, it is hard to really jusitify a primarily tract driven form of evangelism. I've done prayer walks after such efforts which were more clean up efforts so that at least we wouldn't add litterers to our list of offences against society. I think tracts are nice to have available for the novice who is sharing the gospel - it gives them a point of reference to share from. But one can't forget the few stories of people who find tracts when they are ready to hear (even though you could argue that our Sovereign God could send a person at just that moment too).
I think part of that wisdom is found in looking at the people you have a heart to reach. If I were in Africa where paper isn't as common then yeah it is going to get read, I suspect there are other pockets of North America that this is true as well - just not where I live in urban Ottawa. Which has meant having to find other ways to reach out to the lost.
You have an article on early church evangelism, you should check out George Hunter's "The Celtic Way of Evangelism". Hunter is a Wesleyan writer and gives us an alternative that was effective at completely converting an entire people group - the Celts. I think there is some merit in it as an alternative here in North American.
One of the things we've done is form intentional mixed communities around common everyday things (like games and scrapbooking). The thing that we are careful to do is pray for the people we have in these communities as well as for opportunities to share the gospel with them. It takes longer but the effect has been amazing, because once someone accepts Christ they are already part of the community and probably even functioning in their giftings. This is based on Hunter's model. Not only that but the discipleship process is already jump started so you end up with Christians who not only have a solid conversion, but are also convinced of the methodology and eager to bring others into community where they have found life.
Karl, you know I am one of the more skeptical people concerning tracts in a North American context, but I think your opening assumption is just wrong and sets off an overly negative tone to your comment. I do think that Jesus would employ tracts if that was appropriate to the culture and it was what God was breathing on at the moment. In fact one could argue that the early church was bolstered by tracts in the form of epistles and early gospel fragments (Q perhaps). I have no trouble believing that tracts were an inspired idea and a valuable tool for communicating (note not selling) the gospel message. What I find unfortunate is that we tend to enshrine good ideas in subsequent generations and risk missing what the Spirit is really doing. I think the crux of it is that we should all pray and obey what God leads us into as far as being obedient to the call of an evangelist. I value and support those who feel led to employ tracts (even though I also like to challenge those who rely on tracts out of sacrifice rather than obedience) as much as I value those who use more relational means to win the lost.
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