Hectic time

Willi came to visit from Rwanda. He helped us moving to from MV to SL, Chris, Willi, Simon, me worked all day long,packing,loading,unloading. In between, I check e-mail to answer inquiry about the house. Then I read my nephew, Josh's blog about what Not to do when we witness.


There are four aspects of evangelism that many Christians get wrong.

1. The Motive of many Christians for witnessing is simply guilt. They know the Bible tells them to, so every once in a while the guilt builds up enough for them to try to do something about it. Our motive should be compassion. We should be leading people to Jesus because we love them and want them to be saved from their sins. Without this motive, everything we do or say will simply be a clanging symbol.

2. The Goal of evangelism is not to win an argument or prove that you are right. The Goal should simply be conversation. God's love comes through us when we are in a relationship with others; not a competition. People can tell when you just want to win an argument rather than build a relationship.

3. The Perspective we should not have is that our interaction needs to bring a person to salvation. We need to understand that each person is on a Journey. And our job is to help them along. It helps if you picture a scale from -10 to +10, with 0 as salvation. -10 would be absolute hatred for God and +10 would be the best relationship with God that is possible. Now everyone can be charted on this graph. When you encounter a -7, your job is not to get them to 0. It's to get them to -6. That's what the Bible means when is says some sow the seeds, others water them, and still others reap the harvest.

4. The Response that you give to their objections to Christianity needs to be appropriate. There are 3 kinds of barriers to accepting Christ. Emotional, Intellectual, and Volitional. Emotional barriers are caused by bad experiences from church or Christians. Obviously the best way to deal with these is to simply demonstrate love to these people. Giving them statistics and charts won't heal their heart. Intellectual barriers are issues like science versus religion, or logical contradictions. This is where facts and figures can actually help. Someone who thinks that all Christians believe the world was made 6,000 years ago doesn’t need a hug. They need facts. And finally, every person has a Volitional barrier. This is simply a matter of God not having revealed Himself to them yet. There is nothing to do about this except to pray.