"Mrs Smith: What a blessing. We had him at our church too. He advocates non-confronttional evangelism.
Christian: Yes. I like that. It's what I've been using with Erik. We've become good buddies over the years.
Mrs Smith: I like that approach too. It's so much better than shoving the gospel down people's throats.
Christian: True. That can alienate them. I'm waiting for the right time to bring up the subject of God with Erik. It's been two years now. I don't want to make him feel uncomfortable. Erik came to one of the meetings, and he really seemed to enjoy it. That's the good thing about non-confrontational evangelism. Maybe today he will bring up the subject. I never do, because I don't want to offend him. I'm just a good friend, and I think that's the right approach....
Friendship evangelism that doesn't seek a way to quickly tell people about their eternal fate is the ultimate betrayal of trust. How can we call ourselves a friend of someone we don't bother to warn of terrible danger? Friends don't let friends got to hell."
(The Way of the Master training booklet, p. 14-15)
Discuss.
11 comments:
I mean there is some truth to the fact that if you were secretly a super-hero or had won a lot of money or had invented the cure for cancer or knew of a really nice but cheap cafe or saw a rock about to fall on their head you'd say SOMETHING.
(I err on the side of not saying something in the fear that I'll say the wrong thing.)
Its a bit weird to be friends with someone and *not* share your faith. It doesn't have to mean preaching at them, but just telling them about your beliefs and how they affect your life, that kind of thing. Hiding your faith out of sensitivity of their feelings feels like your trying to pretend to be someone else, closed off, not genuine as a friend.
It also seems weird to be friends with someone and only ever tell them the gospel. Loving people means loving all of them, being interested in them, engaging with who they are and what they do.
Friendship evangelism should be wholistic and genuine.
I think that's a good balance Nikki.
I'm inclined to agree with the "master", if we love God and are caught up in His Kingdom our lives will be filled with thinking and acting as such, to not talk about this HUGE part of our lives with our friends in passing, and in detail, is seriously putting a lamp under a bowl.
My step-father took Dan and I to task recently for not evangelising him more, he said "so if you think I am going to hell why aren't you doing anything about it"?
-I think it had been a month or so since our last full-on discussion with him!!
I like the way Nikki put it.
amen Nikki!
I agree with him to a point (Nikki, love your take on it), but there were some pretty cheap shots at the "friendship evangelism" team in that little dialogue. It's been two years and the guy has never even mentioned God, to say nothing of the Gospel? Yeah, that's realistic.
Voddie Baucham preached a good sermon on contending for the faith and reminded his audience that your neighbor is never going to walk up to you and say, "You know, I've been watching you mow your lawn... and there's something different about you..."
Thanks for blogging about this, Mikey :)
I assume that "friendship evangelism" does actually involve evangelism, not "just friendship" as WOTM portrays.
I also assume that every conversation is (potentially) a "gospel conversation", containing varying amounts of the whole story.
My questions about WOTM are...
Why use just one gospel package?
Why restrict ourselves to the WOTM "law" package when there are other biblical alternatives?
Should pressing for a (instant) decision be the norm for our conversations?
What is the value of WOTM's "conclusive" logic? Where does "cutting to the heart" and life-change happen?
I think there's such a tremendous amount to be said about the gospel that WOTM is, at best, one useful tool/perspective in a whole sea of gospel proclamation.
Cheers
Arthur
@arthurandtamie - great questions. Thanks for posting them.
Interestingly, WOTM's training book closes with some great suggestions for friendship evangelism.
I think their logic: friendship evangelism is ok, as far as it goes. But it's so slow, and so tricky (you don't wanna offend your friends), so why wastes all your energy on friendship evangelism.
Far better, WOTM argues, to focus on stranger evangelism, because it's more efficient!
@Mikey
I'm just not sure that stranger evangelism is more effective in any sense!
If we're going to favour stranger evangelism over evangelism in the context of life and relationships, I think we need a very good reason for it...
Arthur
'friendship evagelism' is what should be a natural process mandated in to some sort of articial oddity with training books telling you the best way to do it.
I thought about this and considered that if you are really into a hobby like surfing or a really close to someone your friends will know about it. You don't have to make the effort - it comes up naturally in conversation. like with surfing - your friend may not be into surfing but you might tell them that the surf was good last week. Or invite them to have a go.
I'm not saying though all books are hopeless of that there isn't wisdom to be learned.
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