Why We Fail at Evangelism

It’s Friday night, and you are at the local high school game. The score is tight, and the tension in the arena is high. For forty minutes, you call out from the stands, screaming at the officials for every whistle you think went the wrong way. You boo when the opposing coach questions a close call. You even yell at the coach of your own team, asking why he’s putting in “that” guy right now.

As the game ends, you walk down the steps and run into an old buddy from college who has been sitting a couple of rows in front of you. As you walk out the front doors and into the cool outside air, you ask him, “Would you like to go to Church with me on Sunday?”

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It’s a Tuesday evening, and a bunch of “the girls” are getting together at Starbucks. You order your triple-mocha-grande-coconut-hazel-cappa-latte (no, I don’t have any idea what they actually have at Starbucks. I hate coffee.) and sit down with your friends. For the next 90 minutes you talk about everything that’s wrong with everyone else. Your husband is a jerk…and not too bright, either. Your next door neighbor was mean to you and you just can’t believe anyone would act that way. “And did you hear about…” is the leading sentence starter of the evening.

Finally, as you head back to your car, you look at Sandy–the newest girl in the group–and ask, “How about we ride together to church Sunday? I’d love for you to go with me.”

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It’s Saturday in the late morning. Your high school friends are finally getting out of bed after staying up half the night watching movies and then sleeping half the day away. As they lay in bed, they grab their iPhone and jump on Twitter to catch up. They see your tweets from the night before, making fun of tons of people, and even linking to a dirty joke. They read the retweet about how “beer can solve anything.”

Then they notice the private tweet seeing if you’ll come to the youth devo after church Sunday night.

Is there any question as to why we often fail at evangelism? And the result? Fewer and fewer who fill our buildings…and, for some reason, we scratch our heads and wonder why they won’t come.

It takes a soul living in view of eternity to win a soul to eternal life.

If we want to reach souls for Jesus Christ, we must admit that we are not perfect, but we must also not think we can live just like everyone else. Why would people ever want to become part of something if they don’t see it making any difference in our life?

So, with every decision…every conversation…every interaction, let’s be sure we are living in view of eternity. How can we reach someone for Christ today? It starts by living very differently from the world around us.

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Photo credit: Brandi Jordan on Creative Commons

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