“Get out of jail free”card 2
Hi everyone this is following on from last week to get you in the loop read Get out of Jail Part 1
The “Confrontational evangelism doesn’t work” Card
I don’t know who coined the phrase “confrontational evangelism” but I have a problem with that word for two reasons. First of all it strongly implies that verbally sharing the gospel with a stranger, neighbour or friend is a confrontational and, therefore, negative act. It sounds more like an assault than a conversation.
Secondly, ALL evangelism, if done effectively, is somewhat confrontational. The term “confrontational evangelism” implies that there are kinds of evangelism that are not confrontational at all. But when you are sharing the gospel message, no matter how loving you share the message, you are confronting a worldview with the truth of Jesus. As a matter of fact all you have to do is to look to Jesus and see the vast number of times he confronts on some level almost everyone he encounters with the truth. From the woman at the well to Nicodemus to the Pharisees to Peter to the crowds, Jesus was consistently confronting people with the truth. To be like Jesus demands we become masters at confrontation.
Again this confrontation can and should be done with “gentleness and respect” (2 Timothy 2:23-26), shared as a meta-narrative or story that just happens to be true (Acts 17:24-31), fuelled by love (1 Corinthians 13:1-8) and empowered by the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), but it is confrontation nonetheless.
I have always said that sharing our faith involves two things -the gospel message and the way we present it that effectively gives us the right to be heard
I explain it like this ,For a missile to work effectively it needs a delivery system to guide and steer that missile to its intended destination ,-what’s more important the bomb or the delivery system? , The answer is they both are ,otherwise it might be blowing your house up!!
We can apply this principal, to sharing our faith by saying the gospel is the bomb (because God is da bomb) and the way we present the message to people is the delivery system
The delivery system is always a case of “Different strokes for different folks”
Both have to be working well for maximum impact!!
So remember we are not called to impose the Gospel, but to expose the gospel
We are not tigers pouncing on our prey ,we are beggars telling others where the bread is .
Blessings
Jeremy
