Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Evangelists on the Playground

This evening we took the children to the awesomely cool "rec park" in Waynesville. Playing tag with my second daughter, I wiped out trying to clear the tongue of a slide. It was quite a sight to behold as the preacher went down into the mulch, skinning his elbow. One fellow near me, though he didn't offer to help me up, did offer a word of consolation; "At least you're enjoying it." Heh. Yeah, I guess.

I try to stay close by the children as they make friends; call me overprotective. My two oldest daughters had made two little friends and had been playing pretty hard with them. As my oldest was resting on some of the equipment chatting with her new friend, she began to talk about faith in Christ.

My second oldest was playing on the balance beam with another little girl and she asked the little girl where she attends church. She then asked her to join us at our church.

We either make evangelism too hard or we have turned it into something it ought not be. Out of the course of natural relationships, my little girls started conversations about Jesus and His church. They didn't use a conversation guide, a canned presentation, or a formal approach. Perhaps this is the element we are missing in our evangelism methodology; the personal touch.

7 comments:

Karma Shuford said...

Do you have ANY idea how much I would have given to have a video of that???????


And I agree totally, we become so wrapped up in ABC, Roman's Road, FAITH, EE, or whatever the hip method is, that we forget that first and foremost we are supposed to love our neighbors. Out of that love comes a relationship, and then our concern for their spirituality becomes much more genuine and they are not just another notch in our belt.

Also, unlike M and L, we tend to rely on those "programs" and "scripts" to tell us what to do rather than letting the Holy Spirit guide us.

I have a student that I have to work with on occasion. He is a nice enough guy, but you can't be in his presence for more than about 5 minutes until he is trying to convince you to go to his church and become Mormon.

I applaud his effort and zeal, but I seriously feel like he just wants me to be a Mormon so he can say he did his job, and not because he really cares about my spirituality. I wonder if evangelical Christians can be as worrisome. :/

The Prophet said...
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Tony said...

No trolls allowed. Have a nice day.

Tony said...

Karma,

A video of what? The kids witnessing or me crashing and burning? :-P

I'm not a fan of drive-by evangelism. I think my kids best exemplify the best method. There is a time and place for confrontational evangelism, but it should not be held up as the standard.

I've met some pretty zealous Mormons, JW's too. I think we could learn a lesson from them about zeal, though but you are correct in your assessment.

Karma Shuford said...

Oh, definitely the crash and burn.

I imagine you probably made a noise kinda like my word verification -- gerinesk

Anonymous said...

Oh, Tony, that is so precious. It really is. Thanks so much for sharing it. Mind if I share it on my SBC Encounters blog? selahV

Tony said...

Oh no, I don't mind at all. Thanks for reading.