What Is Evangelism?. Patricia M. Lyons
a first or brief encounter—to discern where God is already calling and converting darkness into light.
You Can Be an Evangelist
Both extroverts and introverts can be patient and passionate listeners for God, and the world needs both. Both personality types can listen to the words and worries and wonders of another person and help them hear the voice of God in all of it. Evangelism is holy hearing and loving listening by any kind of person. We help people hear God by listening to their words and stories, watching their eyes and faces, and then pointing out where we see and hear God’s holiness, goodness, mercy, and love at work in their daily lives. In later chapters, we will consider precisely how to engage people about where God is in their lives.
In my experience, the most persuasive preaching is a life lived in faith. I can remember the names and faces of people in my life, all the way back to childhood, who were people of strong and contagious faith. Some of them talked to me about their faith or answered my questions about it. But others never mentioned their faith, or talked much at all. What drew me to them then and now was the observable transformation, love, and power of their lives. What made them my spiritual heroes was how their unique lives showed evidence of hope, faith, and love daily. My curiosity for their faith led me to ask questions, to pull words out of their lives. They were disciples of Jesus and it showed. And I knew miraculous transformation when I saw it.
Lives lived abundantly are evangelists more than any personality type. Jesus said so many life-changing things. But prophets before him had spoken powerful words about God too. Jesus lived his faith in a community that could watch him talk to God, take risks, experience suffering, heal the sick, expel demons, endure rejection, break bread, and love others heroically. Jesus was more than a preacher and teacher. His life was a walking explanation of and invitation to what it is like to know God and give your life over to God’s presence and purposes. It is the life of Jesus that I have experienced in my baptism, in the Eucharist, and in my prayers and body that converted me to believing He is God. Though the scriptures have been indispensable in helping me recognize the presence of Jesus in my body and soul and in the world, there is no Bible verse attributed to Jesus that alone converted me to a belief that Jesus is God and that he can transform lives. It is the transformation I have seen in others who are following Jesus that has convinced me that following Jesus can transform my life too.
It is people that talk to God, not just about God, daily and authentically, that experience real transformation in their own lives. When their family, friends, and even strangers see that transformation, then others know something real is happening. It is that witness—the observable fact of something real that is happening in your life because of the love of God—that is the force that stirs others to ask you or others about your faith. Your words should not be necessary as commentary on something more real, more obvious, more unique, and more powerful than language can adequately capture. When people see you forgive the seemingly unforgiveable, give to the deserving, show mercy to the guilty, show love to the haters, show patience to the thoughtless, show kindness to the mean, show generosity to the selfish—then as Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
If you don’t know what to say about your faith or you don’t know what words to use, there is a deep and divine truth in your hesitation. Words alone were never meant to be the witnesses of Christ to the world. It is you—your whole life, your body, your breath, your suffering, and your hope—that is the witness, the evidence, and the ultimate persuasion. Your life committed to Christ transfigures your humanity, not some turn of phrase. Do not traffic in terms, but delight in practicing the faith daily—seek the sacraments, read the Bible, say your daily prayers, love your neighbor—and the world will most certainly meet the Christ taking over your life. Believe that Jesus can live in you, and you in Him, and before you ever open your mouth, Christ in you will be the light, the leaven, the salt, and the hope of glory that can convert the world to the love of God.
Remember we do not “do” evangelism for God. God evangelizes the world through those who choose to follow Jesus and to be filled with Christ in sacrament and prayer. Evangelists are the faucet of the living water with which God wants to bathe creation. You are the chalice, not the wine.
It is your life, not your words or lessons or sermons, that will turn other people toward God. If your life is being transformed in Christ, then others will see it, experience it, and seek it. God is contagious. Faithful followers get up in the morning and see their own lives as their mission field—they are the first convert from their choices each day. They spend their days drawing closer to God through prayer and fellowship and learning and liturgy and serving others. And, as their lives become more and more deeply rooted in the life of Christ—as their baptismal identity and its miraculous power becomes more and more the core and course of their life—other people around them will see God.
The 5 Steps of a Highly Effective Evangelist
1 Be a disciple.
2 Learn to recognize and follow the voice of God in your life through scripture, prayer, sacrament, and community.
3 Listen to other people share their lives with you, and listen for God’s presence and voice in their story.
4 Name where you see God in their life story, using their words and their experiences.
5 Be ready to explain what you mean by God’s voice and how you have learned to hear it. This last step is, for many people, the only step in evangelism. But although it comes last in joyful and liberating evangelism, it is nonetheless an important step.
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A near-universal definition of evangelism is this: telling a story. Humans are storytelling people. If there is ever awkwardness with evangelism, let me suggest that it’s a problem with the story, not the ability to tell it. The reality is that many Christians do not believe they have a powerful personal and transformational story to tell about knowing God.
Many of these people go to church. Some weekly and others only on holidays or for weddings and funerals. Many of them have been involved in leadership in their churches. They give time, money, and energy to their parish. In many cases, these churchy people were raised in homes where their parents or grandparents also attended a local church and gave a lot of their time and treasure to it. Statistics and demographics tell us that these multi-generational churchgoing families are more and more rare, though they were the backbone of local churches for hundreds of years in this country.
Membership in churches across mainline denominations is shrinking every year, and few churches are replacing the baby boomers as they age with younger families or young children. Yet there are many small churches across the country that open their doors on Sunday morning to some of the most hardworking and faithful followers of Jesus that American Christianity has ever seen.
Many churches are struggling to find new ways and new energy to find new members. We know church is important in knowing God, but to too many visitors to our communities, we look almost desperate. It is hard in any relationship to hide anxiety, frustration, or the shame of shrinking capacity. Elaborate and energetic welcoming ministries try hard to bring in new people and shower them with love and affirmation upon arrival and into the weeks after their first visit, but few churches have vibrant and sturdy ongoing fellowship and formation offerings for every age group.
We are thinking and talking and praying to keep our faith communities alive. It is no wonder that there is little space and oxygen left in any faith community or ministry for joyful or contagious conversations about how Jesus Christ is transforming our lives through the word of God and through the sacraments. Our communities face unprecedented challenges to sustainability and growth. It seems there is more of a call to rescue the institution than to rest in the presence of Christ at any moment. The institutional experience of church has become more important in our words and ways of being than the actual passionate and life-changing experience of following Jesus with others through every minute