I’m going to preface this post by saying that since writing it, I have been out ministering door to door for two days and have found a lot of the issues I bring up here to not matter. God’s really been teaching me how it’s okay to not go with the intention of “converting” people, even in this culture where it seems more expected. The people I have interacted with have been hospitable and kind, and our visits much like those we had in Honduras going door to door to take surveys. Our “evangelism” hasn’t consisted of lame sales pitches about Jesus. It’s consisted of sitting in new friends’ houses and being offered food and blessings.
Still, what I wrote here is about my background and how I see the world. The problems I mention are real, and so are the hopes. I’m writing to Christians and non-Christians. Comments are welcome.
When I think about all those brave, loving people that have been on African mission trips, I imagine them drilling wells with one hand and passing out freshly translated Bibles with the other, an orphan on the hip and a loud, long, impromptu sermon on the tongue. And I think about going to an isolated village to knock on doors and ask that inflammatory question, “Do you know Jesus Christ?” And I get uncomfortable, because I don’t know what to think about that question. And we will most certainly be doing plenty of knocking on doors this month, whether I want to or not.
I’m afraid of evangelism here. “Evangelism,” that word just means telling people a good message. The good news, that is, about God loving us and wanting us to know him and let him into our hearts and our world, and how God becoming a person, Jesus, and living and dying has somehow made this possible. That’s good, that’s true.
But “evangelism” holds other connotations for me that it may hold for you: TV channels, and little booklets about how God doesn’t want you to be gay or believe in evolution, and sweaty preachers with bad hair, and canned logic traps from apologetics textbooks to trap you into admitting there must be a higher power.
In my experience, evangelism is beautiful when it means living and talking and committing to people for years, showing them with your life who God is. When it’s about tallying the number of anonymous (to you) souls saved and leaving them to fend for themselves, it weirds me out.
I’ve been trying to put my finger on what it is about evangelism that scares me. I’m afraid of knocking on people’s doors and telling them what to believe. I’m afraid of being in a completely new culture, talking to people I don’t even know or understand, acting like what I base my life on is more legitimate than what they may base their life on. I’m afraid of arrogantly acting like I have all the answers when I don’t. I’m afraid of preaching a view of reality that is too narrow, that disregards others’ contexts because it’s just encountered them. I’m afraid that I’m not telling the truth.
I’m afraid because I did my share of evangelizing in America, especially at college. I was an Intervarsity member and leader and I jumped through those hoops. I sat at tables with candy and tracts and led Bible studies. I came back from conferences fired up about God and told my roommates the Gospel every so often. I invited people to church. I put my faith on view and I put myself on the line, telling about my faith in an environment of warm indifference, tactful hostility, and cheerful evasiveness. It was embarrassing and disheartening but somehow we kept at it. People have prophesied revivals at Vassar. Jesus said the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few. But in my four years at Vassar, I never saw that. I know nothing we do for God is in vain but it’s hard to remember that.
And certainly, I saw so little come of simply talking about God at people that I am now unable to trust door-to-door evangelism as I know it as a viable, life-giving way of sharing the hope I really do have in Christ.
And then, there are those good old doubts. My faith is so riddled with questions and objections that I often feel unqualified to confidently tell another person I don’t know personally point blank what I believe because I struggle with what to believe myself. I’m bothered by too much. I’ve talked to too many smart, kind people who are bothered by too much. Sometimes I do not know what to make of Jesus being the only way to God, or how God can become a homeless Jewish man and be lynched and resurrected in one weekend, or how the Bible should be interpreted, or how to view Judaism or the Hebrew Bible, or how God interacts with the world, or heaven and hell, or how things like healing work, or if there’s even a God at all. My faith is very strong in many ways. It is also very wounded. And it’s also always changing. And I think that’s okay, because that constant changing and learning shows me that God’s working in me and I’m working too. But those doubts…. I don’t want a victim of my evangelism to catch me on the wrong day.
I heard somewhere that theology isn’t so much a neat little system of beliefs that you can display on your mantlepiece. If you are really encountering God, it’s going to be dangerous. It’s more like wrestling with God, the kind of wrestling Jacob did with God in Genesis 32:22, which left him with a limp and a changed name. I’m afraid that ministry these next few months will require me to ignore the ways I’m wrestling with God in order to present a digestible Gospel. The Gospel’s not always easily digestible. If angels marvel and long to look into the Gospel, it’s hard to think of presenting it to a human in an isolated 5 minutes.
I know deep down, past my education and personal struggles, that evangelism isn’t sharing what I know and how I have it all sorted out. I know that God’s working in ways I can’t see and I don’t have to worry about anything. I know it’s nuanced and you let God speak instead of you and all that. And I know that we are now in a different culture, one of hospitality, and openness to Jesus and foreigners. I know that will make a difference, but that’s not always how it feels when you’re gnawing on the theory of it.
It’s a hard thing to trust in when I’ve seen and and heard of so many people hurt by a Church aggressively seeking converts. I don’t want to be part of that system. When the most effective ministry I’ve ever seen has come from years of life with other people, from service and long talks and awkward moments and true friendship, to merely sell God to a stranger is a deeply flawed model.
It’s actually incredibly funny, me being a door to door evangelist.
Religious Studies majors from Vassar College don’t go to Africa to preach that Jesus Christ is Lord. They live in Brooklyn and sometimes remember all those readings about about colonialism and violence and how it’s harmful to spread your Western hang ups all over other humans’ experiences of the world, supplanting their narratives with yours. I honestly cannot think of an occupation more unexpected for a person coming from and deeply influenced by such a slew of academic, pluralistic, liberal, subversive, problematizing, marginalized, marginalizing voices.
Vassar grads don’t preach in Africa. What am I doing here?
I hope God can use me, hang ups and all. I hope that where I’m from won’t hinder what he’s doing. I hope that the people I evangelize to are the kind of people that will benefit and not be hurt from it. I hope it’s okay to preach even though I have so many questions and doubts. I hope that my unique background will be a good thing.
When I get like this and question the work we’re supposed to be doing, I wonder why I’m on the Race. If I don’t feel called to be a missionary abroad for the rest of my life (I don’t) and I’m timid about preaching the Gospel (alas, too often)… what am I doing here? I could give you some answers, but I don’t think I know, totally.
Something captivated me enough to make me want to throw away my future and defer dreams to shovel pig crap, pick out lice, and preach the coming of a Kingdom I don’t understand. It’s like that wonderful passage in Luke 24:32, when Jesus appeared to two friends after he came alive again and was interpreting all this Scripture to them. When he was walking with them and teaching them they didn’t get it; they didn’t realize it was him. But when he’d gone and they realized it, they said, “You know, come to think of it, our hearts were burning when he was talking.” Even before they knew the entire reality of that situation their hearts were moved. Sometimes you know things before you know it.
I think that’s how it is with me. Someone brought me here. I don’t get it all yet, but something very substantial is making my heart burn enough to leave home and do all this stuff I don’t enjoy or agree with. Beyond what I know, there are reasons I’ve gone where I’ve gone. So I’m going to experience this reluctance and try everything anyway, acting on whims and waiting to see what great splendor, what great action prompted them.
But I’m still uneasy. I’d rather live the Gospel for a year than tell it in a minute.
Maybe not the best pitch to raise money. But, because we have so little time left, I must appeal again to you. I have less than a month left to raise $1560. If you, reader, are willing to support this reluctant, confused, trying-to-be-obedient missionary, I would be so honored. You can click the “Support Me” link at the top of this page to donate online.
