Our Secret Weapon for World Domination
By: Ian McKerracher
You precious souls who have read my previous blogs will have already noticed that I usually begin with a personal experience and then somehow relate that experience to the Biblical Worldview. The idea for this blog began when something unusual happened as I was getting ready to sign up for a different Internet Service Provider (ISP). This was not an impulse purchase. I had been dissatisfied with my present ISP for some time and had already decided to make a change when, if you can believe it, the change I needed rang my front door bell.
Standing there was a young, articulate salesman of a new and improved ISP. He was shivering uncontrollably, so I immediately invited him to come in out of the cold. As he warmed up he told me how with his company I would get better service and save money, and I believed him (He explained it all in great detail and it made sense to me). Then, just about the time he appeared to be thoroughly thawed out, I said, “Yes.”
Having convinced him that I was a serious customer, I then started a conversation about spiritual things. It turned out that he was a Christian, and had been raised in a Christian home in Zimbabwe. Preliminaries out of the way, I asked him if he had checked out Christian apologetics and he said that some of his friends were of that persuasion, but that he wished he had a better handle on the subject. So, we talked about that for a while.
Everything about that conversation seemed normal, until the next day when it occurred to me that what happened was an interesting illustration of the gospel mandate Jesus placed on his followers. True, most Christians acknowledge they are called to propagate the gospel, but not everyone opens their mouth when the right circumstances arise. This reflexive avoidance of gospel conversations is strange to me as I was born again into a Church culture that strongly supports the practice, not only of speaking up in “chance” conversations, but also intentionally going out, two by two, to do “street witnessing” every Friday night in the downtown core of our city. Pretending that evangelizing isn't part of the Christian experience is a totally foreign concept to me.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand why some Christians hesitate to speak up. Fear of rejection is real—both ways—and as our culture sinks deeper into an open rejection of the Faith, reasons for fear increase. The personal discomfort of declaring Jesus Christ as Lord to an outsider is a real feeling, and, if one is ever going to speak up about their faith, it must be faced and conquered. Oddly enough, we hesitate to speak to strangers because we have no idea how they will react, and we hesitate to speak to our familiars—co-workers, family members, or friends—because we DO know how they will react, or at least we think we do. (Hmmm)
Adding to our hesitation is the (entirely unnecessary) belief that we must drop the whole Gospel on them in every go, that we must convert them or try to engineer some other unrealistic outcome. Or, possibly, we believe that they will not be all that interested, and that we may become a target of derision. But here’s the thing, even when you are speaking to a person you are not likely to see again—on an elevator or at a party, you are not required to give anyone the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). You are only required to carry the gospel baton as far as circumstances allow. God has plenty of evangelists who can take the baton from you for another few laps before handing it on again.
Amazingly, this is even more true with familiar people, those whom you will see again. You only need to nudge them in the right direction at each encounter. Greg Koukl, in his great book Tactics, talks about this. He suggests it is better to drop a single pebble in the person’s shoe that will cause them to think about what you said, instead of always trying to hit a home run every time you come to bat.
Another source of fear is the possibility that they may think less of you or see you as rudely intruding into their lives. Sure! That may happen. They may be unreceptive. But remember the stone-in-the-shoe analogy and realize that you haven’t committed any horrible social fault. If they are unreceptive, you are not so invested that you can’t change the subject and love them the way they are. All is good. They are just not yet ripe for the picking.
This is where my parable with the salesman comes in. You see, when he rang my doorbell the salesman had no idea if I was interested in his product. He could not have known that I had been thinking about changing my ISP company for a few months already, that I WAS ripe for the picking. It’s the same with evangelism, only better. We have a secret weapon acting on the inside of the people we meet. I mean, of course, the Holy Spirit. He is always at work drawing people toward God. Most resist for a time, and strangely enough, they often resist most strongly just before their inbuilt opposition collapses.
Think about it. Because God is at work, a person’s opposition to the gospel is constantly under attack. A news item will give a twinge of compassion. A vagrant thought can produce a touch of guilt. A tragedy can move a person so close to Eternity they can almost see it. This is where the living testimony of a consistent, godly attitude fits in. As evangelists, we are to be friendly and personable enough during periods of strong rebellion that we are still close enough to hear their hearts break as their unfounded worldview crumbles. With a string of spiritually-influenced banter sprinkled into whatever conversations we have had with them, we should be poised to meet their questions when the penny drops and the conversation turns into a serious discussion about the things of God. That is what we are all called to do. We are that “salesman” who is out to benefit friends, families, loved ones—whoever—available, and so there when the perfect moment arrives.
That is the essence of evangelism. Are you ready to form the exciting habit of sharing the gospel at every opportunity? I can testify that the benefits to the hearers are shared by the speakers, all served up by our secret agent, the Holy Spirit. I highly recommend that you engage the people in your world with the Best. News. Ever. You may find a friend that you thought was an enemy. So, “Go into all the world….”
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