Sep 1, 2010
Ed’s Christian Survival Guide: You’re Afraid to Share Your Faith – Part 1
This series of posts on sharing your faith continues my series of posts on Christian Survival…
Some days you fear that you’re sending everyone you know who isn’t a Christian to hell. Well, not exactly. You’re just afraid to share the Gospel with them, which you’ve heard is just about the same thing as opening the gates of hell for them and giving them a kick on their way down.
Images of blood-stained hands fill your mind whenever you think of the unevangelized around you. Lady Macbeth has nothing on you. No matter how often you say, “Out darn spot!” you move between guilt and fear because you can’t think of a way to share the Gospel with these people who supposedly are your friends, colleagues, and family.
You tell yourself that if you truly, truly cared for them, then you’d evangelize them by starting some kind of conversation about purpose and meaning in life, tie it to a time when you feared God would banish you to hell, wrap things up with a whirl through Romans and a slam dunk salvation prayer.
You’ve been told that real Christians share their faith, but you’re terrified. I’ve had anxiety attacks about evangelism… while shopping… at Wal-Mart. I mean, we could make ourselves insane with evangelism. If every person is an eternal soul who could end up in hell, shouldn’t we walk from person to person every minute of every day asking them if they know Jesus?
For the more introverted in the church, the majority of our evangelism training is a one-way ticket to a panic attack.
Perhaps that sounds silly or overdramatic to you, but if we follow some of our evangelism and salvation teaching to its natural conclusion, we have a recipe for nervous, pushy, and awkward Christians who either try to share their faith in strange ways or cower in fear.
Oh, and by the way, that’s sort of what we have a lot of, so perhaps we should talk about this.
And if there really is so much at stake, an eternity of torment, then shouldn’t we make evangelism our top priority?
What is a faithful follower of Jesus to do? We are commanded to be witnesses, but how should we do it and how frequently? Can faithful Christians neglect this charge to make disciples? Should we worry about the destiny of those around us and the blood on our hands or can we just rationalize these things away?
Right… these are weighty questions.
We’ll spend the rest of this week asking hard questions about hell, salvation, and evangelism survival strategies.
I’m pretty sure that the one common denominator with respect to “evangelism” is that both believers and non-believers hate it.
[Reply]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by edcyzewski and edcyzewski, Ray Hollenbach. Ray Hollenbach said: RT @edcyzewski: Moving beyond evangelism panic attacks: http://bit.ly/aKXljz // waiting for the full monty on this one. Great hook, Ed. [...]
We can evangelize quite effectively by the life we lead. Publicly and privately.
When we are approached by others asking how we remain calm during a storm, or similar situations.
We can use this opportunity to discuss our foundation and direct them toward Jesus.
[Reply]
James,
That’s right on target and I’m heading in that direction. Evangelism is both easier and far more difficult/demanding than we have been told.
[Reply]
[...] Yesterday I kicked off my survival guide series on evangelism by addressing the anxiety it causes. [...]