I just finished a book called Evangelism Without Additives: What if Sharing Your Faith Meant Just Being Yourself? By Jim Henderson. It presented a very different idea of evangelism for church members.
Too often, we think evangelism is requires memorized scripts and canned speeches. What if we just talked to people? If we show a genuine interest in them, and they see our faith and our convictions, they will naturally want to know more. As they ask more and more, we can share about times when our faith has helped us along, and we can invite them – not preach to them – to come with us, won't they be interested?
That's the premise of the book, and I personally think that Henderson is right on. I think of the early church, and how they grew so fast. Especially after the stoning of Stephen at the end of Acts 7. Chapter 8 opens with the words, “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.”
It strikes me about this passage that the leaders of the church at the time, the apostles, stayed in Jerusalem. The lay people all left. Yet, years later, when Paul went on his journeys, he always found churches in the towns he visited. Why? How did these churches get there?
It was these lay people who moved to these towns and lived their faith and attracted others by simply living their faith. And they did all this without any evangelism programs or seminars or canned speeches or memorized scripts. Jesus made a difference in their lives. And others saw it, and wanted that difference, too!
If we can just live our lives of faith, so others can see the difference Jesus made in our lives, people today will want that difference, too.
If you want to know more about the book, we will be doing a book study on it at the Almond Union of Churches, you are welcome to join us. Stay tuned, I'll let you know when...
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