A gifted evangelist is a wonder to me. Without them I would give up.
Maybe not Christianity.
Maybe just evangelicalism.
I say that because evangelism is impossible to me. I’m not afraid to talk about the gospel. I mean, to me it is so beautiful. But I need currency, or cache’ to feel comfortable. It’s the line from stranger to Jesus conversation that is intimidating.
Not evangelists. They were born with an unending supply of cache’. I know it’s the Holy Spirit who draws people, but it seems like He’s extra present on the tongues of the evangelist.
Evangelists have a maddeningly enviable ability to give zero cares about what people think. And very rarely do they come off poorly, (the difference between evangelists and prophets) even when they’re street witnessing. That may be at least half of the gift. Many have tried to imitate the zeal, going out on the streets, and have ended up just embarrassing coffee-sipping, book worm Christians like me. But when I am on the streets with an evangelist, who is doing every taboo thing that hipster Christian bloggers say make Jesus look bad, on those occasions, I’m not embarrassed. I’m in awe of my friend and feel that Jesus is honored.
I sometimes wish I had my own personal evangelist who I could just take with me everywhere. He or she would initiate conversation, and I’d fill it in with witticisms and qualifications. The person would say to me: “I would go to your church and listen to your sermon” and to the evangelist “I would go to your dinner party, and become a Christian.”
When I’m with an evangelist talking to someone about Jesus, I’m not uncomfortable. “Sinner’s prayer” notwithstanding. The same stuff that would make me cringe reading about, when on the streets with gifted evangelists, impresses me.
As long as evangelism is just a reading topic surrounding church planting, church growth, missiology, methodology, I think I will be critical of evangelism. The reason why is simple.
Evangelists, typically, are concrete, practical, impulsive, extroverts to the extreme, and this makes evangelism a thing nearly impossible or silly thing to try and intellectualize, and turn into theories, like writing a thesis about the capacity of snowmen to feel pain. (Come to think of it, anything is a subject in postmodernism)
I can complain behind my computer that what we call evangelists are really Finneyites, and there’s a big problem with Finneyites, and that we need to look past revivalist mentality in evangelicalism to Jesus and Paul for examples of evangelists, and how they built relationships and blah, blah, blah.
I know what I’m doing.
Excusing my envy of gifted evangelists with academia.
Because again, whenever I’m with a truly gifted evangelist working their magic, skepticism is at a minimum.
Now dangerous fanaticism and charismata and enthusiasm gone overboard exist in the church world, and it is a product of the 2nd Great Awakening led by Charles Finney. And we have to be careful about it. But there is a difference between non-gifted screaming escapists extremists, entrenched in a culture war, trying to artificially produce a revival, and just plain gifted evangelists being their boss evangelist selves. And we can’t equivocate individuals in the group with their fringe members, i.e., Ferguson rioters with Ferguson protestors, Westboro Baptist Church with all Baptists. Most gifted evangelists aren’t extreme, red-faced, escapists with questionable eschatology. They’re regular people in whom boldness, likeability, persuasiveness, and instant relatability combine all at once, naturally, and lethally.
They need not be included in book-wormish lambasts of extremist evangelicalism, lest we alienate them and their gift from the Christian community.
Do not throw evangelists out with the bathwater.
When we subject evangelism to a discussion about method, philosophy, and church growth, by making church structure the method of evangelism, we smoke out the gifted evangelists, and the mission turns into us trying to be hipper, realer, and friendlier, or on the other side, rejecting discussion about method, in favor of a church that is sounder, righter, and “orthodoxer”.
A mentor of mine says, “Evangelism is not the result of church planting. Church planting is the result of evangelism.”
Which, for my part, is also to say. “Evangelism is not the form of the church. It is the Spirit’s gift to the church in the form of gifted individuals.”
We don’t go to evangelists for counseling, strategy, or meaty theology. For that we rely on shepherds, apostles, and teachers, none of which are the form of the church either (is it fair to say that the seeker-friendly vs. God-centered war comes down to “the evangelist form” against the “pastor/teacher form”, i.e. two non-forms vying for form status, and thus totally redundant, divisive, and time-wasting?). We go to evangelists for evangelism and watch them smash our worst fears and stereotypes about evangelism. How do they do the same thing we try to do, but successfully and fearlessly? It’s like asking an actor how she channeled that character? I’ll never understand why we listen to actors stammer through abstracting their characters in interviews. The answer is on the screen, not in the interview. In short, they’re gifted. Let gifted people lead in their giftedness.
I walked into the coffee shop where I write sermons and build relationships; only this time with my buddy who is an evangelist. I’ve got good rapport as a regular with the baristas and fellow regulars, but my friend, he doesn’t even live in this town, or know any of these people. It’s his first time at this shop. Within five minutes of talking to the barista we know her musical tastes, her opinions of Brattleboro, her favorite places to hang out, and her thoughts about God. I don’t even know how this happened. I reached into my pocket to grab some cash for the coffee and the tip, and I look up and this barista and my friend are in a full-blown conversation about Jesus. And it is not awkward. It’s fun.
This is what happens every time I hang out with evangelists. These people should be encouraged and unleashed. Our churches should be furiously seeking these people and releasing them on baristas, street folk, business-people, restaurant servers, small business owners, etc…etc…
Maybe today is a good day to find an evangelist and tag along.
Next post: What if I am not gifted at evangelism?
Bratt Chapel 