Evangelism 2.0

I was sitting in traffic. Anyone who is reading this in or having ever been to Lagos will know how epic an affair that can be: a short journey could take hours, and add super selfish sometimes downright dangerous driving into the mix and one’s mood can plummet quicker than the proverbial lead balloon. But on this particular journey I was struck by a noise. It wasn’t the usual chorus of irate horning, but it was a familiar worship song, being played at top volume. I looked behind me and there was a little three wheeler car,  one normally sees yellow ones operating as taxis,  painted pristine white and decked out with megaphones and bearing the legend ‘JESUS’. I couldn’t help but smile, and of course snap, and then sing along to the song. Traffic just got interesting.

But it wasn’t just about brightening up commuters’ days; the driver and whoever helped him decorate the car was hoping to do something far more dramatic; he was hoping to win souls for Jesus. Get people giving God the glory before they opted for anything else: themselves, their possessions, and their position, maybe all three put together and instead see him as the source of every good thing in their lives. Not only that, he was doing exactly what Jesus called us to do:

“He said to them, “Go into the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” Mark16:15

Evangelism can sometimes feel like such an embarrassing word: with associations of earnest holier than thou sorts knocking on people’s doors and bombarding them with factoids about why what they believe is best. However, it needn’t be that heavy handed. One friend used to operate a ‘flirt to convert’ concept, where she would chat up guys and then suggest church as their first date. On one level it was quite hilarious how the most hardened atheist would agree, probably on account of her model good looks and mile long legs, but let’s just say that committed conversions were few and far between!

So how does one do the Evangelism thing and avoid a cringe situation? The key is seeing how Jesus called the original disciples: there was a lot of calling out to people and saying ‘follow me’ (for more fulsome accounts check out Matthew 4:19-22 and Mark 1:16-20), but then this begs the question why did people with homes, jobs, loved ones and maybe chocka social lives, just take off on this altogether different direction?  Put simply it was Jesus. Even right at the beginning, before they had seen miracles galore, mega crowds coming to listen to his preaching, or met with the risen Lord after Good Friday, the disciples were convinced. They sensed there was something tangibly better to be found in a life in him. The details were revealed to them in due course, but for now, that feeling sufficed.

Which brings it back to us contemporary evangelists, operating in a world where there is so much information and not enough time to take it all in, we need only show the Jesus in us to evangelise. And that doesn’t necessarily mean talking in super spiritual terms, or boring some poor person who happens to be in the queue behind you in a shop or standing next to you at a party. Just giving off the vibe of one who truly possesses the peace that passes all understanding, who most definitely has compassion and care for all creation, who doesn’t judge and doesn’t condemn. Who just, you know, imbues a room with positive energy and a sense of possibility. Do this, and people will probably flock to you, not necessarily Sermon on the Mount styles, but they will come and they will ask questions and they will want to know more, and if you see it going in that direction, you can probably ask them to church. What happens next is in his most able hands.