My friend, meet Jesus.

The greatest joy in all of life for me has been raising kids! When my adult offspring call to tell me about how they're wrestling with life, about how they're working out the Christian life loving others, serving Jesus, and living with joyful purpose-- well, nothing in the world compares. It makes me cry, yell, and hug strangers! Bev and I have successfully passed the faith along. Close to that joy is the joy I feel when I have the opportunity to help someone be born as a child of God and then help them work out what it means to be God's kid! Have you led anyone to that point of faith, when they have decided to trust Christ with their life?

In a thought-provoking article in the recent issue of REV. Magazine, Nov/Dec. 2007, Alan Nelson takes on the subject of Evangelism, the work of passing the faith along to others. He kills a lot of sacred cows in four pages! He suggests, and I agree, that "the work of the Church is not evangelism!" OK, take a deep breath and let me finish. It is the work of every Believer! "Church is," Nelson writes, "to mature people in faith ... gathering them together for Bible studies, preaching in-depth sermons about the Bible, and running Christian schools." Think about this. Should every Sunday morning be built around sermons designed to convince the 10% or less present in the church who are without a faith in Christ to become Believers? Doesn't that seem like a colossal waste of time of the 90% in the building who are Believers already? Doesn't it make more sense to strengthen Believers with deep worship, train them with deep teaching, and them send them out equipped to live authentic, thoughtful Christian lives that are compelling to the people without a living faith who live and work with them?

In another controversial paragraph, Nelson opines that 'outreach' as classically defined - street corner preaching, literature distribution, door to door campaigns, etc. - is zero percent effective in making new followers of Jesus in our American culture. Many pastors are still sending out the troops in those efforts and feeling very self-satisfied despite having next to no measurable results in terms of people choosing to trust Christ. "After all," they will say, "they rejected Jesus. So, we're just being rejected with Him." Nope, people are not rejecting Jesus at all. They are rejecting an 'in your face' impersonal method of making Him known. This line really resonates with me. "We'll have to be good news before we can share the good news."

People are so accustomed to hype and oversell that they don't want to just hear about how wonderful knowing Jesus is unless they can see it in our authentic Christian life. If Jesus does not make us loving, serving, caring, faithful to our spouse, honest people then we can just as well save our breath and our money spent on literature! But, where the Spirit is transforming a person into the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ, all kinds of opportunities will be created for moving others to consider Christ as their Lord.

There is another line in the article that is worthy of thought, too. "Pre-Believers are far less interested in Truth (capital T) but are interested in personal story." Some more of you just blew a fuse. "Doesn't Jerry know that Jesus is the Truth?" Sure do, friend. Nobody will ever change that. The Gospel is True and there is a moment in our presentation of the message when we will fearlessly challenge someone to believe the Truth. But, few people are going to choose to follow Jesus just because we think we have made an airtight case for sin, the Cross, and substitutionary atonement. (If you're using those words in your first conversation with a pre-believer, my guess is you have not made a convert in at least 15 years!) Once again, there is a time to teach people about those things, but first we have to tell a story - with words and in actions - that earns us the right to talk Truth.

It is my opinion that we live in a time when Americans are more open to spiritual matters than at any time in my adult lifetime. But, they are very skeptical of religion and dogma. They remember too well all the scandals involving preachers and priests that have been headlines news and they will tell you that is why they don't want to hear about 'your church.' Many will also quickly tell you about the holy Joe or Jane that attends their family gatherings with her judgments, her Bible verses, and her books - who is also a gossip and a manipulative self-serving person. When you identify yourself as a Bible-believing Christian, they will put you in the same group. It's happened to me! So, does that mean we shut up? No, we just get smarter about what we say and when we say it. And, we ask God, the Spirit, to make us real, to help us to befriend others without an agenda to 'win them for Jesus.' Genuine love is irresistible!

Here's a word from the Word. Prayerfully ponder the implications for your life today. "Jesus now called the Twelve and gave them authority and power to deal with all the demons and cure diseases. He commissioned them to preach the news of God’s kingdom and heal the sick.

He said, "Don’t load yourselves up with equipment. Keep it simple; you are the equipment. And no luxury inns—get a modest place and be content there until you leave. If you’re not welcomed, leave town. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and move on."
Commissioned, they left. They traveled from town to town telling the latest news of God, the Message, and curing people everywhere they went. " (Luke 9:1-6, The Message)

Pray for many opportunities to make Jesus' message known, to be privileged to say, "my friend, meet Jesus." It's your responsibility as a Believer.

Be wise! Be full of the Spirit! Be authentic! And, expect God to open opportunities for you to make Jesus visible in your world.

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Let the beauty of Jesus
be seen in me.
All His wonderful passion
and purity.
All my nature refine,
O Thou Spirit divine,
'til the beauty of Jesus
be seen in me!

- author unknown