Evangelism. Kind of an ugly word for a lot of folks. It gets a bad wrap. I just got home from the Keller study and I was chatting with a guy I met on the beach retreat. His group has an atheist in it who promotes some great discussion. I have a group filled with believers, and it's been good, but I long for some serious debate at times. Anyway, I was really glad to hear that the conversation was open and respectful. My buddy said that the atheist had really given some honest thoughts to the possibility of Christ.
I'm proud of the way we have run this course. All of our Well studies are set up to promote interfaith dialogue and healthy safe discussion. It's a forum where all sides can learn something. But at the same time, we're hopefully to make strides for Christ. We are doing our best to evangelize in a safe and loving way. No one is coerced to do anything. It's a forum where we can wrestle with tough topics and hopefully convince people that God loves them and desperately wants to know them. This is done through a humble, servant type of example.
I pray that our Christian community can live up to the standards and model set forth in the Bible. One of the points made tonight in the video was that no one was surprised that the Church had made mistakes in the past. It's an organization run by people and so it is destined to be flawed...that reaction to the Church bothered me. I want the world wide Christian community to be set apart. I want it to be filled with people that have been affected by the spirit and born again. I want people to be shocked and outraged when the Church lets them down. I want it to be special and held to a higher standard.
I want to reflect that I have been changed. I want to care about people before myself. I want my community to do the same. I pray for world wide change.
