Crossing the great divide in evangelism

Let me tell you about Patrick. When I was a student, the chaplaincy centre (where the CU met) and the student union were separated by a narrow alleyway. Whilst you could almost simultaneously touch the two places if you stretched out your arms wide enough; culturally and spiritually they were miles apart.

In the chaplaincy we welcomed great Bible expositors, prayed, studied the Scriptures, and debated theology. On the other side of the great divide, they sorted out student accommodation, earnestly debated student politics, played pool and drank copious quantities of diluted cut-price lager.

Every year during our Events Week the CU would try and cross this great divide. We’d hire a room in the union, book a speaker and head out into “enemy territory”, feeling rather uncomfortable. We’d all known professing Christians who had made their home in the union, drunk heavily and negated any witness they had for Christ by merging with the world.

But one memorable day I walked through the student union with Patrick. And was shocked. I knew no-one and felt out of place – but he seemed to know (and care about) countless people, staff and students alike. “How’s your Mum’s chemo going?”, “Did you get that thesis finished?” he asked, as we met people in the concourse. Patrick was infinitely better at sharing his faith than I was and brought far more people to outreach events than I ever managed. He seemed to be comfortable in the world, without being worldly, and it rebuked me!

If I was a devilish modern-day Screwtape figure, seeking to wreck the spiritual lives and integrity of Christians and could not make them compromise their witness through outright sin (and drunkenness certainly ticks all the boxes there), then I would corral all the Christians into introspective bubbles and seal the gospel off from the world. In other words, I’d stop them being like Patrick at all costs.

I lost touch with Patrick for many years after university, but one day Googled his name to see where he had ended up. I was delighted to find a headline from a local newspaper (followed by a radio interview) about a vicar who was holding gospel meetings in a village pub. “People were not crossing the village square to the church, so I took the message to them” explained the by-then Reverend Patrick. The landlady was interviewed and expressed her appreciation that someone had brought the Christian message to her place of work, as she would never have considered going to church.

A quarter of a century later and I am still wrestling with the same issue. Recent experiences of suffering have forged my church friends into an increasingly close family who I want to be with and where I feel at home. Even in Christian service my instinct is to focus my energy and efforts exclusively into church-based activities, but this is a mistake. Milton Jones’ old joke about churches being as dangerous as helicopters ‘because you can get sucked into the rotas’ remains both amusing and true!

Today, the best and most faithful personal evangelists I know are also members of cycling clubs, running groups, gyms, book groups or creative-arts collectives. They do not merely undertake occasional forays into the world to drop a tract and leg it as fast as possible, but are faithful Christians who find that they can develop life-deep friendships in these common-interest spaces.

Matthew, Mark and Luke all make the point that Jesus was criticised for hanging around with the wrong sort of irreligious people and Paul says that the goal of our salvation is be conformed to Christ’s image. That must mean increasingly rooting out our own sin, but also that we are increasingly comfortable being with sinners!

So, the reason I wanted to tell you about Patrick, was because he reminds me of Jesus.