Normal sociable evangelism

I'm encouraging people at St David's church to organise a social where they introduce their non-Christian friends to their Christian friends (ie: us!). And that's not a big intense evangelistic thing, with a speaker and an altar call & response cards & all that. It's social, friendly - a dinner, a movie, bushwalk, whatever. "Come meet some of my friends from church. You'll like them".
At the event, we Christians don't have to be all serious & intense & evangelistic. We just have to be normal - just be ourselves. Many of the guests will be from church, so it's perfectly natural to talk about church & Jesus & "spiritual" matters. Even if Christians are in the minority, Christ is the centre of our lives, so it should be normal to talk about him in a social setting. At least as normal as talking about the other significant relationships in our lives - like our spouse, children, or work. If we're not comfortable talking about Jesus in this way, then that means our relationship with him is not strong. And that's a problem.
Hopefully, these friendly, "normal" conversations will be the first step in bringing people to church, where they'll hear the Bible taught, and eventually repent and be saved. But even if not - who cares? We've given them a positive impression of Christ and Christians - that's worthwhile in itself. And, relationships with people - Christians and non-Christian - have value in themselves. Meeting people socially is not just a means to an end, it's a worthwhile end in itself.
So... anyone wanna do some normal, sociable evangelism...?

Comments

jeltzz said…

This is good to hear Kamal. just the kind of thing I'm on about.

1 June 2008 at 22:48

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