I got to thinking after we had some friends over the other night. They’re the type of friends who remind me of Thanksgivings in my childhood: full of theological debate and discussions. Conversations always run deep, and Bibles get whipped out as we reference and cross reference. I love it.
Anyway, the topic of evangelism was breezed upon, and it reminded me of something God has been teaching me over the past year. Or years, really if I think about it.
I don’t know if many of you know this, but growing up, I had always wanted to be a missionary. I think I made it official when I was 6. As I got older, I started going on short term mission trips. I started learning about mission organizations, and applied to colleges with great mission programs.
You see, I didn’t want to just be a missionary. I wanted to be one of those kinds of missionaries who lived in a hut and witnessed to people who had never seen a white person. I thought the area I’d probably go into was Bible translation.
That’s where I think the Bible college I chose really changed my life. You’d think that of all places that a wanna-be missionary could get all fired up and prepared to go on the mission field would be Bible school, and you’re right. Moody Bible Institute is about the best they come, which is why I wanted to go there. I thought all of those Thanksgiving dinners and one on one confirmation lessons, and being the granddaughter of missionaries and daughter of a Sunday school teacher would have prepared me for studying the Bible, but I had never felt so ignorant as I did my first week there. It’s like the Harvard of Bible schools. I remember when my roommate found out that I was Lutheran, she looked at me in shock and said “You baptize babies, don’t you!” My first meal in the cafeteria, the boy next to me at the table turned to me and said “How about you? Do you go along more with the Northern Galatian theory or the Southern?” It must not have been that important, because I don’t even remember the relevance of that question, besides to scare poor freshman.
Anyway, I learned a lot about missions while I was there. Actually, I learned a lot about God there. I made a commitment to spend more time with God in either prayer or His Word than doing homework for the first year, which was a tricky commitment to make. If I spent 3 hours doing homework one night, that meant that I had to spend more than 3 hours having devotions. Surprisingly, my grades that year were my all time best. It was about the most intense year of my life thus far.
I wrestled with God that year. There was something He was trying to show me that I just couldn’t wrap my brain around. You see, I was going to be a missionary. And not some European-city dwelling missionary, but a getting dirty and going places no one else wants to go kind of missionary. I knew the facts. I knew that there was a shortage of missionaries in the 10/40 window. I knew how God was calling people to the harvest. There were people dying every second without hearing about Jesus and I was going to go out there and fix that. I was going to single-handedly fix missions, save people, be a hero.
What I learned that year was that God didn’t need a hero. God didn’t need a savior. I did.
I found out that year through all of my classes, and studies, and prayer is that God cares more about MY relationship with him, than what I can do FOR Him. It felt so selfish to put my relationship with Him first. To deal with my issues first. I was honestly shocked that God did not need me on the mission field. The fact that God did not need me to do anything, and I needed Him to do everything gave me a terrible identity crisis.
Over time, I realized that my job was to follow Christ. If that meant to Jerusalem (my city), Judea (my region), or the ends of the earth, that was totally up to Him. If I got to participate in any ministry, it was truly a blessing that God bestows upon me, and not something that I do for Him…cause He needs the help and all.
There’s a book “10 Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life” which somehow got into my hands that year, and was one of the many books I mulled over. It talks in one of the chapters of the spiritual discipline of evangelism. It was partially through this that I was first exposed to the idea that God gave us evangelism as a part of our Christian walk, and not so that we can put notches in our belt.
Let me explain. When we go into a conversation with someone with the intent to convert them, and we walk away with them still not believing in Christ, we feel like a failure. However, this is not true. Sharing Christ is a command. Disciplining and baptizing as well. Following that command is part of our spiritual walk. But why? I mean, shouldn’t you be gifted in this area in order to be effective? And if you’re not gifted, should you let someone who is kinda, do their thing?
Ironically, this is the one spiritual discipline that people feel they need to be specially gifted to do. True, there is such a thing as the gift of evangelism, but evangelism isn’t a commandment for those few. Just like you read your Bible, pray, mediate, memorize, you should be evangelizing as a way to know God better. It’s not just a gift, it’s also a spiritual discipline.
It’s been in this last year that the truth of what I read a few years ago has really sunk in deeper. Some lessons that God teaches me comes in layers. Waves. There’s a deeper realization on some things every once in awhile.
I think I was starting to become complacent. For awhile, it felt like God started stripping away any ministry I tried to get involved with. I tried volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center, until babysitters became harder and harder to come by. I figured I’d always have the other families at the public school that Silje went to that we could get to know and disciple. The fact that I’m now a homeschooling stay at home mom on a farm without even another house in view is in fact, incredibly humorous to me at times. God continually sets my children in front of me and says: “This is your mission field. These children are your disciples.”
I mean, sure they run around naked sometimes and speak in words I can’t understand, but it’s not quite what I had envisioned as my mission field.
I’m not disappointed in the least. In fact, I feel incredibly blessed beyond description. I don’t know why God has bestowed on me this wonderful, amazing life. I’m not disappointed, but I am sometimes baffled by the blessing of it.
In the last year or so, I’ve actually had some very unusual opportunities online on various sites/communities to witness to people. It was not something I set out to do, or went in at all thinking that’s what would happen. I don’t go looking for it, is what I’m trying to say. People have asked me questions, and I try to answer the best I can. Well, this very quickly spirals into debates and I tend to shy away from a debate with a non-Christian, because I figure what’s the point? Their heart is definitely not in a search mode, or prepared to hear the Word, and they have their mind set, and there’s nothing I can say to change their mind.
So what’s the point, of sharing Christ with a world that doesn’t understand absolutes, or the thought that not only is there only one God, but that one God HAS in fact made Himself known. The first thing that always seems to be attacked is the authority of Scripture. How can we know it’s really God’s Word, and why is it okay for Christians to pick and choose what to follow in Scripture (Levitical laws are most often pointed out here) and it’s not okay for non-Christians to pick and choose which parts to believe are the most common arguments to overcome.
Now, with all of these discussions that I’ve gotten myself into, have I brought anyone to the Lord? Not that I know of, and I’d probably guess no. Proclaiming God’s truth in this venue has brought me pretty much nothing in terms of flooding the church with converts. However, it has been exactly what my faith has needed this last year. The act of looking up verses, defending my beliefs, arguing a point, has solidified in my mind my own doubts. It’s like I understand these truths that I had to defend on a totally different level because I engaged in this activity of evangelism. I’ve heard from other Christians, that they have been encouraged through it as well.
So here’s my point. Let’s just say “what if?” What if God commanded us to evangelize for the purpose of grounding our own faith, and encouraging other believers, and converting people was just a sprinkled bonus? What if he commanded us to evangelize because he knew that’s what WE needed, and not because it’s what others needed.
Well first off, the results you would be looking for would be different. Our goals would be different. Maybe we get so discouraged because we’re trying to be a savior, and fall short because we are not the savior. We’re the messengers. We have a message to give, and we like to twist it, spin it, and make it really pretty so that people will like it. Or maybe so that they’ll like us. I don’t know…it gets blurry.
I think this especially important for Christians who have been Christians their whole lives and don’t know much else different. When all you have believed in was God and the Bible, it’s easy to take certain truths for granted without thinking totally through them. Evangelism means you need to dig your claws into these truths in order to defend them, and know why you believe what you believe. It’s incredibly edifying, and I’ll admit, terrifying at times.
Maybe God has us experience rejection so that we may understand the rejection He faced better, and share in that suffering with him as a mode of Spiritual growth. I’m not making excuses here, I’m asking some real questions. Why did God tell us to evangelize? Does He need us to, or do we get to? If we don’t do it, will He really let all those people burn in hell as He stands by helpless because we won’t do it. We’ve all heard stories of people coming to Christ through dreams and visions, even in our modern world. God is fully capable of drawing people to Himself. The fact that God wants us to be involved in this process is an amazing blessing that should not be passed up on!
Although it’s not a replacement for personal evangelism, supporting missionaries through prayer and finances is a great way to encourage other believers, and be able to stand witness to God in action. Maybe that’s another reason God wants us to evangelize: so that we can witness over and over again His saving grace, and worship Him for that. Evangelism should draw us to worship because the mere concept of what He is doing is amazing.
There’s more I’d love to go into on the topic of evangelism, but as libraries of books have been written on it, I’ll stop here, and just encourage those Christian readers out there to pray over this, and begin asking God if He would give you an opportunity to share in this blessing as well.
Mom says
November 23, 2010 at 9:15 pmThis reminds me of the quote by John Piper in his book, “Let the Nations be Glad”.
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Mission exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.”