Yesterday after church service many of the ladies from our church gathered together for yum cha at a local restaurant. Not to be left out, some men went over to North Rocks for a meal at Nando's. I had never been to Nando's before and were treated with some delicious spicy chicken. I ordered extra hot chicken and added extra-extra hot peri-peri sauce...it was a welcome amount of heat for a spicy food enthusiast as myself.
While we waited for our party to arrive, we were greeted by a Nando's employee offering chicken wings to people who passed by. Most people who walked by were happy to enjoy a sample or two. Occasionally there was a person who was not interested, but the bearer of wings did not seem to mind. He continued to happily hand out samples and vouchers: why should he be ashamed to offer quality meat for free?
As I ate my sample I thought about the parallels of evangelism. Jesus is the Bread of Life freely offered not just to satisfy a stomach temporarily, but to save souls for eternity. In offering Christ to others we address the greatest need of all people for love, redemption, forgiveness, and salvation. The truth is, most people are more interested to fill their mouths and stomachs with lemon and herb roasted chicken than to consider the truth of the Gospel. We as Christians ought to be as joyful to offer the Gospel without offense to all as this chicken man, I thought.
Do we as Christians believe Christ is better than roasted chicken? Of course! I considered differences in motivation. This man was a paid employee who offered free chicken on the hopes that people would buy more chicken. It is to our shame that we would offer the Gospel for the express purpose of inviting people to attend our churches. This cheapens the sacrifice of our Savior. It is good to be able to direct seekers to fellowships where they will be exposed to the whole counsel of God's Word, don't get me wrong. But our motivation for sharing Jesus must never be to increase attendance of our church. That makes us like mere hirelings. We ought to share Christ with the lost for the sake of Christ. We share Jesus because of the souls He died and rose to save, not to fill pews.
If we shrink from the idea of sharing Christ with others, we must confess it as sin. It brings glory to God when we are without shame concerning the Gospel as Paul states in Romans 1:16: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek." Also he affirms in Romans 10:11: "For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." Just think of the power of the God through the Gospel to save! Let us be bold to share Christ with the world for His sake alone motivated by God's love. Jesus has taken our shame: let us choose never to pick it up again.
I look forward to reading and talking about some of these topics, my church is moving into a temporary shared site for a year, and then we'll be planting a new church. one of the things we've been talking about is evangelism and the motivation behind what we do. The eternal problem I've noticed is as you mentioned, street-side evangelism often comes off as trying to hawk your wares like the people on the only road out of TJ. One thing we've come to collectively discover is that in our personal lives God affects outreach to others by simple random kindness. praying for others, initiating conerstion with the goal of helping them however God enables you. Devoloping relationships with people based on the love Christ has for them often opens them up to understanding God's love far better than a preacher on the corner might. At least that's what i've observed in American society, which is fettered with so much skepticism as to suspect that everyone making public declarations to strangers probably wants their money (as is often the case)
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