Thoughts on Evangelism

I've been thinking the past day or so about evangelism. Mostly about how terrible i am at it. And by terrible, i don't mean that i'm bad at it, i mean that i don't actually do it. I like to make excuses for myself all the time, like that this isn't the gifting or the call that God has given me, but when it comes down to it, i know that i'm not carrying out my God-given mission as a Christian. And that thought stings.

I think the model and practice of "relational evangelism", while most often completely valid, is used as one of the greatest cop-outs in all of Christianity. Most often we use it to "witness" to our non-Christian friends, hoping that maybe they'll notice something different about the way we live, while we are freed from ever having to grow a pair and actually talk about God with them. St. Francis of Assisi is famous for the quote-able axiom, "Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." While this is completely true as far as how we should live as children of light, i don't see any instance of evangelism in the Scriptures where someone came to the LORD without a believer telling them about the gospel. Most often in the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit was leading the believers to preach and witness and die for the gospel of Christ. I think of Phillip, who was led by the Spirit to go and witness to the Ethiopian eunuch. The Spirit had already planted the seeds in his heart through the Scriptures, and left it up to Phillip to explain the Scriptures in the new light of the death and resurrection of Christ. He didn't take time to get to know the guy or become his close friend before he felt comfortable enough to share the gospel with him.

And what about 2 Corinthians 6:14, which tells us not to be yoked with unbelievers? What fellowship can light have with darkness? How do we deal with this when we're trying to evangelize? That's kind of scary to think about. Is relational ministry even biblically valid? I think that depends on how you define it. Most of the time, when i've convinced myself that i'm just practicing relational ministry, it's a cop-out in order for me to continue comfortably not sharing the gospel. I can't speak for others though. Maybe most people are better Christians than i am.

Now i haven't taken the classes on evangelism, or ever actually done it, but i feel like we (i) make it much harder than it needs to be. How much does the Gospel mean to us? How convinced are we that, unless we do not share, these people very well might end up in eternal damnation? How convinced are we that the Gospel of Christ is for every man, woman and child on this planet? How confident are we of the Holy Spirit working in us to proclaim this?

Just some thoughts. Take them or leave them or comment on them.