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Wow! Ray Comfort Preaching at the Court House
I talk/think about engaging culture, these guys talk to people.
On the flip side, I keep hearing about how important it is to build a relationship with people that one witnesses to. I guess it could be that people are called to different things.
What do you think of street evangelism? It seems like something Paul might do in Acts.
Update: I think this comment by Nathan Creitz on Cultural Engagement? « Larry Temple - Cross, Crown, and Covenant: 4 days ago is quite on target (I hope he doesn't mind me quoting his entire comment! ;)
Hey Larry,
I think we are mostly agreeing. My point is primarily that we go to two extremes sometimes. There are the lazy Christians who rarely do anything to engage culture and they just hope their lives are interesting enough to invite questions from unbelievers. Then there are those who turn people off to Christianity by damning people to hell without even knowing them (I’ve been confronted on the streets of Boston by a person who yelled at me and said I was going to hell…and I’m a Christian!).
I’m advocating for the kind of person who does neither of these two things. I try to live like Jesus lived among unbelievers by spending time with them in their homes and inviting them over to my home and loving them regardless of their beliefs or behaviors. I don’t get in their face every single time we get together (or they would stop listening to me), but I have made sure that every single one of my friends knows what I am praying for them that they will come to know Jesus because He is the only way to the Father. Some have come to know Jesus as a result, others are still friends and they often bring up spiritual conversations. Other times I feel that I can raise an issue or confront a behavior because I have that close relationship with them. On the other hand, there are times I know to keep my mouth shut. In other words, I know them and I care for them. They know my message is sincere. While a person holding a sign or yelling through a megaphone could be sincere, the person on the other side will never know it. I want to engage culture with my sincerity because I know that’s the harder road and the more rewarding. With a tract or a sign, I can be sincere, I can be insincere and no one would ever know. So, I never question a street preachers motives, just his methods. Sometimes it is effective, but it’s hard to measure how effective, non-effective, or counter-effective it can be since no one knows the hearts of the people who hear other than God. You always know where you stand when you are sharing Christ with someone you care about.
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Update 2: I just realized that Nathan posted his comment as blog post on his blog, so I've removed the full comment in order not to quote too much. You can read the rest here: Nathan Creitz: Engaging the Culture for Christ (Part 2)
Comments? Questions? What do you think?
Sorry, new comments have been disabled. ;) You can contact me at elijahlofgren at elijahlofgre.com if you want to. ;)
Current Comments
On July 3, 2008, 9:16 pm Elijah Lofgren said...