We’ve just come to the end of another round of evangelism training offered by the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. Some 35 people from five churches gathered for six weeks to learn how to seek and engage in spiritual conversations in which they could naturally and graciously share their stories of God’s goodness. And while this usually happens in the context of connections we already have in our lives, on the last session, this past Saturday, we went out in four teams to try our evangelism muscles in public. One group went to a local pub, one to a restaurant, one walked the local town and my group went to a mall, where a couple of us held up a sign saying, “Want a Prayer?” and prayed with people.
Our team probably had the most connections, praying with about nine people, some of whom wanted to feel more in touch with God. We all discovered, though, that it is very hard to start the “God conversation” out of the blue. How much easier it would be if we’d had the experience that Jesus’ disciple Philip did during a festival in Jerusalem one day: “Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’” (This week's Gospel passage is here.)
This suggests that news about Jesus, his teachings and miracles, had traveled beyond the Jewish community into the Roman and Hellenistic cultures of that region. Did these Greeks come hoping to see a miracle they could talk about back home? Did they crave a nugget of divine wisdom to chew on? Or did they want to get to know Jesus as the Messiah? We aren’t told what motivated them, only that they were eager enough to meet Jesus, they found someone they hoped could introduce them to him.
There are more such folks in our lives than we think. In the mall on Saturday, many more people passed us than stopped, but to think that nine people came up to strangers for prayer in the middle of a mall during the 45 minutes or so we were there… that tells me that this spiritual thirst I’m always hearing about actually does exist. And we have Living Water to share.
We don’t have to go looking for such people; the Spirit is already stirring their hearts. But we sure need to stop hiding from those who are actually looking for the spiritual gifts we have! Most are not going to cross the threshold of our odd, if beautiful, buildings at the odd times of the week we happen to be in them. We need to go out to where people are, and let them know how to find us. My own congregation has a team preparing to go and offer prayer on the streets of Stamford, and see what connections we might make.
Where and how might you be being called to make Jesus known in your community? If you have an idea, ask God to bless it. If you don’t have a clue, tell God you’re open to ideas. And then look for how God might answer that prayer. God is not shy – when God wants us to do something, and we’re open, we’ll know.
We may not often hear those words that Philip did, “Sir, we want to see Jesus,” but I believe there are many, many people who hold that desire. And the way they’re going to see Jesus in our time is through us, the Body of Christ, getting out of our buildings and beyond our Sunday schedules and making Jesus visible.
We are all Philip, and all we are asked to do is introduce people to the Jesus we love and worship.
He’ll do the rest.
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