Prerequisite For Evangelism

Hey, thanks again for sending in your questions related to our recent sermons. As you likely know, we are right in the middle of a series entitled A Better Story, in which we are identifying six conversations that our friends, neighbors, colleagues are already having in which we can enter into and share Christ as the better story. So the question comes in this week, what if I don’t have any friends, neighbors, or colleagues who are non-Christians?

What am I supposed to do then?

Can I use this type of evangelism? That’s a great question because we have repeatedly said this approach is to engage with our friends, neighbors, colleagues who don’t know Christ and we share Christ as a better story to them.

This approach to evangelism is not for the random guy at the ice cream shop, the person you meet on a bus walking up to somebody on the beach, that’s not what this approach is for.

All of that’s great, but that’s not this approach. This is really thoughtfully sharing Christ with people who we care about. And so I would say if we don’t have friends, neighbors, colleagues who are non-Christians, we should kind of wake up and see that’s really a problem.

We’re supposed to be light and salt of the earth and if we’re not engaging with the world around us, we’ve probably insulated ourselves, which is really not the role of what Christians are supposed to be in the world. I know it’s much more comfortable to just kind of get in our Christian bubble and not have relationships outside of that bubble.

That’s more comfortable, but that’s really falling short of what our purpose is.

We’re supposed to go out and make disciples of all nations, right?

We can’t do that if we’re just locked in our own little Christian bubble.

I heard Francis Chan say, I think this was in his book Crazy Love, but he said Christians are kind of like manure.

If you spread them out, they do a lot of good, but if you pile them all together, they stink. If we’re all piled together and we’re not spread out, then we’re not really fulfilling our purpose in the world.

So I would say if you recognize I’m in a bubble and I don’t have these relationships outside, you need to go get outside your bubble.

I’m not saying, oh, just go make friends in order to share Christ with them.

You’d say that feels disingenuous, right?

They’re not really my friend.

I’m just using friendship as bait to share the gospel.

That’s not what I’m saying.

I’m not saying just make a friend exclusively for that purpose.

I’m saying recognize if you’re in a bubble, that’s a problem.

You’re not supposed to be in a bubble.

You’re supposed to be engaging with the world.

It’s a corrective.

I always have to preach to myself because there’s a tendency, right?

When I took college students up to Hume or we’d go up there for a pastor’s retreat and

there’s the staff up there, right?

I’m like, how great would it be to just live at Hume and have just these Christian relationships

and be in this bubble?

I know some people need to do that and we love Hume and we want to keep going there

for retreats and I’m glad that that’s there.

But Christianity at large, we can’t all just go live on a mountain somewhere and not engage

with the world.

There’s something incorrect about that.

When monks would just kind of retreat to their monasteries and not go out and engage with

the world, there’s something not Christian about that.

We’re supposed to be engaging.

We’re supposed to be the salt of the earth.

We’re supposed to be spread around.

If we don’t have that, that’s really good to recognize.

I would say, go forth and make disciples of all nations.

That is the imperative for all of us.

If that’s not up and running for us right now, then absolutely, let’s get out of our

bubbles, go out there, be involved in the world, be spread around and not all piled

up in one place.

Thanks for the question.

We hope it’s helpful and may God give us many friends who are outside of our bubble.

We will see you next time.