Friendship and Evangelism: how do they fit?
I have been a big proponent of “Friendship in evangelism” meaning that i’ve been a believer that evangelism is most effective in friendship and that our agenda for in meeting people can’t necessarily be evangelism, it has to be love for people (even if they don’t necessarily become our friends i guess - we just need to genuinely love them)…i thought this out recently in this post.
But, Andrew Hamilton (Backyard Missionary) had some good thoughts today that i think challanged this viewpoint a bit…
what do you think?
ScottB said...
108/7/05 8:37 PM | Comment Link |
I wonder if we can think about this in terms of the categories Joe Myers uses - public, personal, private, and intimate (did I get that right?). Maybe what we mean by relationship means that we move evangelism from public to personal space, but not all the way to private (which is what it sounds like Hamo is talking about). What I hear when folks talk about this shift is the move from impersonal to personal, from marketing to relating. I think it’s helpful to think of it in these terms, but to Hamo’s point, I don’t think that should prohibit us from sharing the gospel in other spheres of our life as well.
But I’m still not going to hold up signs with scripture on them during football games or anything like that. ;)
Todd said...
208/11/05 7:28 PM | Comment Link |
scott,
i think you make a Great point here. intimacy is NOT the only legitimate form of community, while it is a valid and important one…the others have just as much value. apply that to evangelism and incarnating jesus is not only done on the intimate/personal level. hhmm…i like that…thanks!