I went to
an event on Sunday night that was brilliant in it's simple, attractive method
of evangelism. As you may know, in the
past year, I've been trying to push myself and the people around me to tell
stories of how Jesus has shown up in our lives within the recent past. So on Sunday mornings before our worship
services, our little pre-game meetings I ask, "Does anyone have a Jesus
story"
When
these meetings started, it was like pulling teeth to get people to talk. I know I thought to myself, a lot, "was
that really Jesus, or just nice."
But as we kept meeting we started seeing Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the
power of God at work in our lives, in big ways, but also in the small, minute
details. As a result, our meetings are easy now, and we sometimes have to cut people off, so we can start the worship services on time.
The whole
purpose of these meetings was to get people to recognize the work of God in
their lives, and to start talking about Jesus.
If we talk to each other about Jesus, and make it a regular part of our language
with fellow believers, maybe it would become habitual. Maybe it would become
part of our everyday, every minute language, so that, maybe, possibly, God
would open the ears of someone outside of that fellowship and reveal Himself to
someone who doesn't know him, and we could have a great big story to tell some
Sunday morning about how God moved in a powerful way in the life of one of our
friends, and now we have a new believer.
So back
to this event on Sunday night. PRISM, a ministry in Oakland, where Pitt,
CMU and Carlow University are, universities that draw many international students, has an open house every Sunday night, where they
serve a $1 dinner and invite foreign students to come and practice speaking
English around a table. This week's dinner was
prepared by people from my local church and I was asked to go and eat and talk
to someone who speak some very little good English. (see what I did there?) That's it.
That's all that is expected.
I
remember taking German in high school and realizing the only phrase I could
speak pretty well was, "wurtest du das licht an machen." (would you
turn on the light) It reminded me of the
Wonder Years when Kevin
was daydreaming about Madeline: (the clip is in Spanish, to make things
more confusing)
MADELINE: J'ai attendu toute ma vie pour toi.[Subtitle: I've waited for you all my life.]
KEVIN: Voulez-vous de beurre?
[Subtitle: Do you want some butter?]
MADELINE: A l'instant je t'ai vu, je n'ai su qu'il etait personne d'autre.
[Subtitle: The moment I saw you I knew there was no one else.]
KEVIN: Voulez-vous de beurre?
[Subtitle: Do you want some butter?]
MADELINE: Mon coeur est toute pleine de toi.
[Subtitle: You fill my heart.] [MADELINE fingers her heart necklace.]
MADELINE: J'ai en pensé à toi. (Very unclear pronunciation)
[Subtitle: .. You haunt my mind.]
KEVIN: Voulez-vous de beurre?
[Subtitle: Do you want some butter?]
PRISM
gave us 5 questions to talk about. Our
subject matter was "worry." So we discussed what worry is, what you
worry about and things like that, so that the student would just be asking if
I'd like some butter.
The last
question was about the Sunday before, there was no dinner because it was
Easter, so we were to talk about what we did for Easter. I was paired up with a Chinese student who
spoke great English, is not a believer in Christ, and asked great
questions. "What's with the
eggs?" "What is the traditional meal?" and the swing the door
wide open so that the Gospel and its influence in my life can be presented,
"If Easter is about Jesus dying, where does the Easter Bunny come
in?"
Fifteen
minutes later, he still doesn't believe in Jesus, but he challenged me on what
we practice as American Christians, and what it looks like to an outsider. In those fifteen minutes he learned a little
more about the story of salvation through Christ, and that the Hendrickson
children know that the Easter Bunny is a fun game, but Jesus' death, and
resurrection are real.
Jesus
stories. Look for Him. Share those stories with the people you know,
so that it becomes habit, and you can't help but let the work of the Holy
Spirit come flying out of you.