News from Faith United Presbyterian Church

Can I Get a Witness?

One Sunday afternoon in March a few years back, while I was still dressed in my collar, I was proselytized in a HyVee parking lot by a brother in Christ. It seems he thought I was Roman Catholic and I might want to cover my bases.

Because I was wearing my collar and because I knew the congregation I was serving had our own evangelism campaign coming up, I responded to him in a more Christ-like manner, than I might have otherwise. I took his tract.

My brother in Christ was a member of the Marion Avenue Baptist Church in Washington, IA. He had come over an hour to hand me, and who knows how many others, a tract published by Sword of the Lord Publishers. One the front were the words: How to Know You Are Going to Heaven. My brother invited me to come to his church some Sunday, when I was free, to hear his pastor, "the best preacher in the state of Iowa!"

No offense was intended, and so none was taken. But my brother did make me stop and think. At first I thought, "Would that I had folks so on fire for the Lord, they'd try to convert a priest!" But, then I thought, "Is this what my good Presbyterian folk think I am asking them to do when I speak of evangelism, to run around in shopping malls handing out hard-hearted tracts to unsuspecting shoppers?"

My friends, there is no question my brother had a great fervor for his beliefs and he probably had a fire for the Lord, as well, but we're on the wrong track if we think we can proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, by giving someone a piece of paper! We can no more become an evangelist by handing someone a tract, than we can become a car by sleeping in the garage! (OK, I stole the joke from Garrison Keillor, who stole it from Billy Sunday!)

There is no question my brother had a great fervor for his beliefs but this is not evangelism. In evangelism, our goal is not necessarily to get people to believe what we believe. Neither are we, necessarily, trying to get them to confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Indoctrination and confession have more to do with conversion than evangelism and conversion is God's work, not ours.

Evangelism is simply bearing witness to others the good news of God's love we have come to know in Jesus Christ. How do we speak to others? What do we say to their face or behind their backs? How do we treat others? How do we treat ourselves? Do our words and deeds reflect God's love? Are they words Christ might have spoken? Are they deeds Christ might have done? When people look at us or our life together, do they see the body of Christ?

People of faith, in this holiest of weeks, as we look again at Christ's body on the cross and go with the others to the empty tomb, pondering the great love God has for us, let us remember, no one is asking us to convert the hearts and minds of unbelievers. This is God's work. All God asks is that we bear witness to his saving love in Jesus Christ. Can I get a witness?

See you in church!