New in Town

Last night was one of those funny nights.

At church, I helped lead through an evangelism training. There is much that could be said about this. Unfortunately, evangelism has become an offensive word in todays society and something that is far from what Christians do. Me included, its as if we read over the dozens of verses that command us to share with others.

We make lame excuses. 'Everyone in our country already knows...' 'they will know the gospel based on how I live my life' 'thats for the missionaries to do' 'its not my gift' That couldn't be farther from the truth. Not even close to everyone knows, no one has EVER come to faith based on my life...not sure about you?, i hope missionaries share their faith but its a harsh reality that there aren't many of them, and regardless of if its our gift, its our command. I could go on, but I suspect you hear my passion. Evangelism is needed.

So I was thrilled that our church was taking part in a 1 hour training to help the members grow in how to share their faith. We went through a few ways to do it...questions you can ask, methods to use, etc. I left praying that we are the body of Christ would share our faith with this community we live in.

I stopped at the Hollywood Video and picked up a movie, New in Town and came home and put it in. About 20 minutes into the movie, there is a scene with two of the lead characters. One girl is annoying the other with questions "do you scrapbook, are you married, do you have a family" and then she says " Can I ask you a personal question? Have you found Jesus?" The scene is actually funny..because her response is "I didn't know he was missing," but here is why it struck me. They had just met and she was asking her about her faith. I know its a movie and all, but EV was on my mind and then I was watching it play out in a movie!! Several other times in the movie Jesus came up, perhaps to the point of conviction. Go on record here, this might be the first movie that has brought me to spiritual conviction about evangelism.

I just got to thinking, I make it so much harder than it is. Telling someone about the love of God should be the most important thing I ever do in my life, and I'd hope if its that, then its natural based on how frequently I do it. I'm glad that the training and movie happened on the same night. Its God's comical way of speaking into my life.