Whoever and wherever you are......
Dear Sister,
Whoever and wherever you are......
If
you are like me, and when you have contact with ANYONE you do not want to miss
a chance to tell them how to get to Heaven (and miss out on Hell) have I got
a tip for you !! Jesus videos, Bridge booklets, little Gospels of Luke , those
booklets that go with the Alpha course “Why Jesus” - are great for
giving to people who come to your door to read the meter, fix the dripping tap,
and especially those who come representing Mormons or Jehovah’s witnesses.
The Bible Society (look for them up locally in your White Pages) and Campus
Crusade for Christ <www.campuscrusadeforchrist.org>) have various witnessing
packs you can buy cheaply.We have gone doorknocking offering the video, and
we have given them to children who came to play with our son. You can hand them
to your hairdresser, the girl who packs your groceries at the supermarket, anyone
the Spirit moves you towards!! I guess that in this day and age we have more,
cheaper and varied aides to evangelism than we have ever had before. On the
facing page you can see a flyer that we handed out with some Helium balloons
at the beach a few years ago. The girls were keen to go witnessing, and we combined
a day at the beach with a day giving away Helium balloons to little kids. We
took a thick black felt pen, and wrote JESUS LOVES ---- (child’s name)
on them before we gave them away. If you do this, it is a good idea to have
a badge or a t - shirt with the name of your church on it so that the parents
know who you are and what you represent. My son likes putting John 3 16, or
“God Loves You “ messages in plastic bottles for people to find.
He says, God knows where they are going to end up. If money is a problem, there
are free newspapers you can letterbox, which have good news stories, and usually
a piece on how to receive your salvation. ( eg“The Alternative”
<editor@alternative.org.au> tel 0402010918. P.O. Box5990, Maroochydore
4558)
I have also seen ads paid for by private people on how to be born again, with
free offers of booklets and no strings attached to any particular denomination.
We know how important it is to follow people up, and put them in touch
with a local church, but there is a place for “stealth” evangelism
too. If you are too chicken to show your face (like most of us) , you can still
be an effective witness. In these largely pagan days, when there is so little
in the “normal” worldview that speaks about the reality of God and
His love (and his judgement), any little thing that draws attention to the truth
of the Gospel has to be a plus. A person may shrug off one, two or three taps
on the shoulder from the Lord, through a tract, a message on a church notice
board - such as “Wise Men Still Seek Him” - a sticker on a car windscreen
etc. Eventually , more and more such taps on the shoulder will have to bring
the consciousness to bear on the fact that there ARE many of us out there who
can tell from practical experience that our God is real. That miracles happen
more often than the TV news gives credence to. That there IS a real eternal
choice to be made. And that someone cares enough to tell them how to miss out
on a horrible eternity, and choose a wonderful future.
If we really believe in Jesus and the Bible (and He spoke more about Hell than anyone else in the Book ), can we really do anything less? Ezekiel 33. God Bless You.
POSTSCRIPT: by Ian Sullivan.
These sort of perceptions and feelings have their place. Concerns about the methodology and style of evangelism are quite valid. Whether our own sense of guilt is justified is a reasonable question which deserves thinking about. We certainly do live in a pluralistic society, but whether this means that ideas, and ideologies should not be challenged or debated is questionable. It does however, bring us to a central question. Do we have to evangelise? This is the real issue, and methodology is secondary.
Is being a Christian a matter of believing certain propositions about God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit with evangelism a debatable optional extra? Or, more disturbingly, is Christianity good news, and a Christian life one in which spreading that good news (evangelism) is an integral part of being a Christian? Jesus himself said of preaching the Gospel:
Mark 16:15 And he said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. (RSV)
Jesus commands the disciples to preach the Gospel, and declares that the completion of this task will usher in His return, and the final triumph of God. The end has clearly not yet come, so the task is still in process, and the commandment still applies. We are commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel!!
Preach??? Don’t panic! We don’t all have to carry portable pulpits around with us and deliver an evangelistic sermon in the market place every day. We don’t necessarily have to rush off overseas, or to any specific location either.
Preaching the Gospel simply means to communicate the Good News wherever we may be, and to whoever we might be put in contact with, using whatever God has given us by way of abilities and personality.
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come. (RSV)
Ezekiel 33.
6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes, and takes any one of them; that man is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.
7 "So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.
8 If I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.
9 But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life.
10 ¶ "And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said: 'Our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?'
11 Say to them, As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live
Luke 24:48 You are witnesses of these things.
John 15:27 and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning.
Act 1:8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses
in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."