PrintAn Attack of the 'Guilts'
I do not go to Church to feel guilty. However, last Sunday was an uncomfortable exception. No one set out to make me have this attack of the "guilts" but it happened anyway. You see, the teaching focus was on evangelism and if there's one subject that pushes my "guilt button" it's this one.
Now I accept that I am a witness for Jesus Christ. But I am not an evangelist. I do not have (as far as I can tell) a gift of evangelism. So what happened last Sunday? Each member of our Church family was set the task of completing a survey - a profile of our understanding of and commitment to evangelism. Here it is, quite a few days later, and I still haven't completed my profile!
However, there is at least one benefit that comes out of such an exercisei.e. it causes me to re-visit my understanding of what evangelism is and what it is not. I think that we who feel guilty when it comes to the evangelistic task do so because of some misconceptions. In other words, our guilt is most often based on a false premise rather than a Biblical perspective.
For example, I lived as a Christian for a long time believing that evangelism was winning people to faith in Christ. Since I had not won anybody to such a commitment, I must therefore be a failure. Hence the sense of guilt. But I have come to see that evangelism for me is sharing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ - whether or not those with whom I share that good news commit to becoming disciples of Jesus.
Now the desired goal or outcome of evangelism is that people commit to follow Jesus in a lifestyle of discipleship. But even if they don't make such a commitment as a result of my witness, they have been 'evangelized' if I have shared (or am currently sharing) the gospel with them in a way that they can understand and make their own informed response - positive or negative.
Such an understanding removes false guilt that attaches itself to any misunderstanding I may have about evangelism and my small part in that great enterprise of the Kingdom of God - to declare the gospel of the Kingdom to all people in every generation. All that leaves me with just one question. In knowing the above, why did I feel guilty as I endeavoured to complete that profile last Sunday?
I suspect it has to do with my privilege and responsibility to be a witness for Jesus. I know I am called to be a witness and to be ready to tell others what Jesus has done in my life and what I know to be true in my experience. That's what a witness does. He or she simply reports what they know to be true first hand. Others may accept or reject that testimony. They may receive the testimony or ridicule it. No matter. The witness can do no more or no less than recount what they know to be true for them.
I guess I'm saying that I don't 'do witness' well either. So I am praying that I will be ready to tell others about the reality of Jesus in my life as God creates opportunities for me to do so.
