Creation-Carevangelism

I like it when metaphors blend.

In a recent discussion we University Christian Ministry interns had, we dialogued on the notion of evangelism. That word, for anyone who isn't familiar, is essentially used in the modern parlance to mean sharing faith. It can be a lot more complex than that, but at it's base root, that's what I feel it means.

Back to that discussion we were having, though. One important point which was brought up that I particularly latched on to was the question of what our motivation behind evangelism should be. I had the discomforting pleasure of asking myself questions such as am I just sharing my faith to check a box off because it's something I am commanded to do? How broken is my heart for those who don't yet know the Lord? Do I even give a crap that people don't know God?

One image which we used to talk about the idea of evangelism and how we are to go about sharing our faith was farming. Scripture talks a lot about tilling soil, sowing seeds, reaping harvests, etc. As such, it made sense that we would use this sort of imagery to discuss the concept of evangelism.

Some quick background; I haven't had a great deal of "success" (at least as the world would define it) in my evangelistic endeavors. I don't have any grand stories of helping people come to know the Lord, save one, in which I was only indirectly involved. Most of my work for the Kingdom so far has taken the shape of encouraging those who already know God. At times, this makes me feel like I am doing something wrong, as scripture makes it very clear that God is into seeking people who don't have a relationship with Him.

A bit more background; I think caring for creation is extremely important. As I understand scripture, heaven is not some other place, but rather at the end times God is going to restore this earth back to the way in which He originally intended it. Therefore, we can't get away with having the "let's torch this entire world" mentality because we think God is going to just create a new one. It's this belief that helped me make the decision to be a vegetarian, and it's this belief that makes it so that I hate (and I don't use that word lightly) practices such as cash cropping and agricultural abuse of God's creation.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

In the midst of our discussion, God chose to bring these two different aspects of my life with Him together. As we used various agricultural images of to describe what evangelism should look like, He grabbed from my mind all of the things I don't like about industrial agricultural, the complete devaluing of the Lord's creation for the sake of feeding the few. Then He had me think about how I am doing the very thing I hate. I have begun to try to cash crop in terms of evangelism.

Based on the struggles with evangelism I talked about above, it has become easy for me to try to push more and more for people to come to know the Lord. Sure, this might seem like a good thing, seeing as how I truly do believe that the best thing someone can do with their life is serve God, but God helped me to recognize that my motivations for evangelism were complete and total crap. I didn't want to take the time to prepare someone for a healthy relationship with God. I just wanted to find all the people who were already prepared and cash in on the crop of their souls. I dramatically devalued people for the sake of my own desire to be able to say that I had brought someone to the Lord.

In short, I almost completely forgot who Jesus is, and how He cares for people.

Yes, Jesus was overt about what He was doing when it was appropriate, but every single time He talks with a person, it is blatantly apparent that He loves them on a level so intimate I can't even comprehend it. He took the time to meet with the people who were completely ostracized from society, not just those who looked like they might be more ready to receive what He had to say. As I type these words, I know I've heard them before, but I love that God cares about me enough and is patient enough to show them to me in a new way that has finally managed to convict my heart on this subject.

So what does this change mean for me? It means I'm going to stop looking to clinch the deal on someone's relationship with God, and start listening. It means I'm going to stop looking for those who seem ready to receive the gospel, and start loving all of the people I've been ignoring for the last couple of years. It means I'm actually going to try to live like Jesus. I want to welcome you into your own exploration of what your heart looks like. Take some time to let God show you what it is that you really think about what it means to share your faith, and who you focus those efforts on. Then let's all ask that tough question of whether or not that lines up with what Jesus shows us.

With His love and grace,

Taylor