Last night we finished building the remaining headboards for two additional beds. All that is left is spraying them. One will go to Mark and the other...? maybe for one of William's kids?
We then turned off the saws, ate some wicked berry pie with a sidecar, and discussed evangelism some more. In addition to showing compassion, we want to learn to speak words of life and light to the people we work with in UC (and in our life in general, but we are intentionally practicing this in UC). How do we do this? We are resisting falling back on our simplistic notions of evangelism. It is easy to blurt out the 4 spiritual laws or some other scripted "witnessing." We want to reflect on what our approach should be.
We agreed that sharing out of context may not be appropriate. What is the context? Love and relationship. If we don't spend the time it takes to learn to love them then are we doing more damage than good? Chris taught us that we can make the mistake of wanting people to love God without us loving them. In the context of UC, we are talking about exceptional love - compassion. All of this is incredibly inconvenient. A family doesn't necessarily need help on Wednesday nights at 7:00. It may be more like Saturday night at 9:00. It means making time to take them to lunch.
As I write this, this all seems incredibly new and revelatory, but, on the other hand, sounds basically the same as I have heard for most of my Christian life. Maybe the reader (all 2 of you) may be thinking - duh, what else you got! Maybe it is new to me because I am not talking about love and compassion as an idea, but am actually trying to do it. Trying to do this once is worth more than 20 life group discussions about it, which is what I have been doing for most of my Christian life - nodding in agreement but essentially not practicing it.
Maybe that is why I have been perfectly content to make beds for a family, drop them off, look in their eyes, listen in my heart, try and see them as God sees them, and try to love them as God loves them. And all this without saying any evangelistic words. I was working on context. But words can bring life and light, just like compassion can bring comfort and hope. It is time I learn to do both. Let's practice together.
Sorry for boring you with such an elementary lesson here. I'm just slow.
2 comments:
I love what you are doing and how you are doing it. Too often we miss opportunities to help people because we are too focused on learning how to.
I'm sure by actually putting the elementary concept of compassion into action, it reveals its depth.
Maybe even asking the people if you can pray--right then and there--- for whats going on in their lives can be a part of the evangalism.
I agree with both your points.
I think the "doing" is a necessary part of the equation. We need to stop having so many discussion groups and bible studies and hit the road.
Praying is good, but its not evangelism is it? The idea here is that in loving someone who is suffering, are words helpful? If so, what words? What about the process?
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