In many ways I have given up on my calling as an evangelist. I no longer feel led to preaching the gospel as a means of recruiting souls into a place where we go when we die. As a Southern Baptist evangelist, that was the role I was expected to fulfill. If the role of the itinerant evangelist is to convince people to walk an aisle, pray some magical words, and receive everlasting life -- well, I was probably never that good at it anyway. Over the past few years, I've been rethinking my calling as a preacher of the gospel.
Depending on where you look, you'll find evangelism defined as something like -- the act of preaching the Christian gospel as a means of sharing the teachings and message of Jesus.
Somehow modern day Christian evangelism has been boiled down to "How to get to heaven" rather than "How to live and love as we make this human pilgrimage."
I just finished reading Matthew's account of The Sermon on the Mount. Over and over, the teachings of Jesus are about how to treat each other and how to honor God. Love your neighbor. Love your enemy. Be kind. Be generous. Be honest. Be forgiving. Love -- did I mention that already?
Jesus says that you can know a tree by the fruit it produces. You can know a person by what they produce, as well. Someone that preaches love, but acts hatefully is a false profit. If your good works are motivated by a need to cover up hateful things, you are not a good person producing good fruit.
I ran across this statement in the middle of a twitter thread this morning:
Could it be that the best form of evangelism is not to speak, but to do?
It is said that we should always preach the gospel and when necessary, use words.
That will put a lot of evangelists out of a job!
It's a good thing I had that air traffic controller gig to fall back on!
Love your neighbors.
Love you enemies. (sometimes they're the same people)
Love yourself, too!
John
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