If necessary use words
Da and her baby came home from the hospital Sunday. Her baby's hyperbilirubinemia, dangerously high on Saturday, was normal by Sunday morning. "My baby was healed because everyone prayed," she proclaimed. What is most significant is that Da is not a Christian. Not yet, that is.
St. Francis of Assisi is well known for the admonition, "Preach the Gospel always and if necessary use words." In every case I am familar with, words are necessary for people to know Jesus. But the words that often are not needed are the explanations and solicitations that Westerners are used to associating with evangelism. Over here we've found that it's almost enough to say, "We love you because of Jesus." When folks see that indeed we do love them, the rest all falls into place very naturally.
So many times have I heard people say, "I'm not an evangelist." In reality it's like saying, "I can't love anyone." Of course those people don't mean that. It's just that over the years we've messed up what evangelism really is. "God loves you" can often be presented as far more a condescending belief proposition than the warm invitation of a lover. We forget that God loses credibility if His followers don't do the same thing. Besides, loving people is fun. Doing evangelism the way it is often viewed can be downright scary. Somehow I don't think that was Jesus' intent. We conduct seminars on how to do some method of leading people through a Gospel presentation, much like companies train their salespeople to find customers and close deals. We should instead do training events on how to love others.
I expect Da will soon be a Christian. I don't think we'll have to say much.
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