Evangelism Explained : Jonathan Crabtree

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Recently I have been thinking about the miss perception that my friends have been having about evangelism. It is preached from the pulpit weekly how we should always be striving to invite our friends, family, colleagues, neighbours and every other human we encounter to church. Now I'm not taking the strength out of that statement, we should be inviting people to church, but unless it is a preach specifically on evangelism, the heart behind it can be lost. it is often said in an off comment during every preach, but unless the congregation have heard a sermon on evangelism recently they can either forget or sometimes no even realise how important the heart behind evangelism is. I have friends who feel pressured into telling everyone that they should come to church when that in itself defeats the object of evangelism. Evangelism comes from the heart and comes from a deep relationship with god. Its not about us getting people into church for our benefit, or for the sake of the preacher so we can get brownie points, but its because we want our friends to understand the love and compassion we get from god, and the best way to show them is to take them into the church, into the house of god, where they can be in an atmosphere saturated with gods presence.

Another thing to be aware of when thinking about evangelism is who to tell, who to talk to about god. I have seen my friends come away from church and think, "Who can I invite to church who will want to come". Wrong question to ask. The worst thing you can do is specify people and attack them with invites and church talk, It needs to come natural. I find the best form of evangelism is love. If you want someone to come to church, respect them, wether you think they want to come to church you love them, and then offer them to come to church once and if they say no keep loving them. You need to let them understand that you like them, and care about them wether they want to come to church or not. Express to them gods unconditional love and they will eventually ask you if they can come, or the next time you ask they will say yes. We need to remember that they are all gods children and our brothers and sisters, regardless of wether they are interested in church or not. Interested in us or not. Our two commissions from jesus are to love god with all our heart soul and strength, and to love our neighbour as ourself. If we treat everyone like christ intended in that verse we will surly see the church across the UK grow tenfold over the next year. But in the midst of all this don't forget to pray and bring gods spirit into the situation. if you have someone in your mind that you know needs Jesus, rather than bombarding them with flyers for church events, bombard them with prayer and bless them. This will soften their heart to the things of god and help them see the light.

My prayer for you this week is that you would have a god perspective on your peers this week, wether they are your friends or not. I pray god would reveal to you that they are all his children and your brothers and sisters and thus make it easier for you to love them this week, i pray you would have boldness to speak out about your faith but constraint to be yourself and let god move in their life and not for you to do it all in your own strength, Amen.

(Also i am not sugesting that Olivia is broken in any way, she is awesome :P Just clearing that up)