Tired of feeling guilty about evangelism?

Seeking to develop a culture of evangelism in our church, we recently surveyed our church members about how they felt about evangelism. One response made me laugh out loud, only because it resonated so much with me: ‘I absolutely hate evangelism, but I do love to talk about Jesus whilst sharing my daily life’.

The truth is, I would go a step further; I hate evangelism and really don’t think I talk about Jesus much in my daily life. I wonder how many of us feel something of that and the guilt that that induces!

And yet, for me, when I’m pushed to think about it as I am today, virtually every week I am in the joy-filled position of spending time with several non-believers and sharing in a piece of Scripture, a discussion around it and a prayer time (sometimes even a worship song). And I love doing that. But I still don’t feel like I am an ‘evangelist’ - in fact in many ways I feel a fraud agreeing to write this article.

I find the pressure within myself to perform as an ‘evangelist’ crippling and counterproductive to any actual evangelism and I often ponder what meaningful ‘evangelism’ actually is. So I try not to think about that most terrifying word, which to me is so often associated in my mind with the speaking of an unwanted message into a space that is uninvited. Rather, I plough my efforts into the pursuit of the two Greatest Commandments: to love God, and to love my neighbour. What I find is that having this focus in my mind enables the sharing of Christ to take place naturally, relationally and meaningfully. It becomes wanted and invited rather than contrived or imposed.

Let me share how this works out for me and for others in our church at St Mary Magdalene, Gorleston. Our church’s stated mission is that we are ‘being transformed and transforming our neighbourhood with the extraordinary love of Christ’. Our approach includes partnering with the wider community, statutory authorities and local agencies as much as possible. It means that when we run, for example our lunch club and drop-ins (serving those who are isolated, homeless, or facing financial or other significant life challenges) or our estate youth club, we do so alongside those ‘people of peace’ in our community. Community volunteers help in the kitchen, lay up the tables, and wash up, staff from local agencies and services bring specialist services, such as debt advice or homelessness support, members of the local council often pop in to help out and we all work together for the good of those coming through our building and out in the local area.

These partnerships create these surprising, natural moments. As we meet with the dedicated pastoral care and signposting team before and after our lunch club, we share a scripture and pray before discussing the issues and needs of the day. Our local agencies are in the room for these meetings and whilst encouraged to feel free to leave whilst we do our ‘prayer bit’, they always choose to stay in for those precious times. When we run ‘Jesus Time’, an informal half hour fresh expression at the end of our Friday Drop-in, not only Drop-in attendees stay on but so does, for example, the benefits and debt advisor! When we have our ‘God slot’ at our outreach youth club, non-believing volunteers hear us engage in a presentation and discussion with the youth about Scripture, Jesus and how and why to believe in him. One youth volunteer this week said to me about the God slot, ‘I just love it!’

But please, don’t let me associate any of that with ‘evangelism’ in my mind, in case it somehow spoils the sheer joy of sharing the love of Christ!

This article is written by Anna Price, part of the Passion for Evangelism network. PfE exists to empower, encourage, and equip women to share the good news of Jesus with God-given confidence and creativity.

To grow in your ability to talk about your faith, check out Passion for Evangelism's latest event in partnership with Oak Hill: "Finding your voice".