The Varelas

Evangelism: anytime, anywhere?
I went with several coworkers (most of our department, in fact) to a "motivational seminar" yesterday--an all-day snooze-fest with speaker after speaker attempting to get 12,000+ of us motivated by telling funny stories or telling us about how rich they are and that we can be too. After one of the speakers/assistant MCs interviewed Jessica Lynch (it was semi-interesting, but she is obviously not a public speaker), he got up and seemed to be transitioning to the next speaker. But he didn't. Slowly, he segued into the fact that we need something "spiritual" to really motivate us. He didn't use any "God" words at first. He said something like, "You just need to believe in something." I might have misheard that statement, but I do think he said that. Not 5 minutes later, he said that it does matter what you believe. "If I believe with all my heart, with all my faith," he said, "that this TV screen will fly me back to Florida tomorrow, all the faith in the world isn't going to make that happen. But if I have just a bit of faith that the airplane I board will get me home, it will happen." OK, I'm thinking, so what is the airplane? What do you believe? He still didn't say. Eventually, he worked in some "God" words and finally told us "the prayer [he] prayed in [his] heart 27 years ago"--Jesus, come in my heart, fill me up, make me into the person you want me to be (real solid). Then he had his wife come on stage, and they told the story of how they met and decided to get engaged "even though [they] didn't love each other. [They] felt God told them to get married."

While I obviously have some issues with the actual message this guy was giving (it was unclear/vague, inconsistent, and Scripturally inaccurate), I was offended (too strong a word? Maybe taken aback) by the sly, less-than-honest way in which it was offered. At our Friday night Bible study a couple of weeks ago, we talked about a book called Permission Evangelism, which, though I only read excerpts, gets a little too extreme for me but that advocates a less obtrusive, in-your-face, now-you-listen-to-me type of evangelism/witnessing. The author of that book would have definitely been squirming in his seat yesterday. At this motivational seminar for business people, we were given no schedule, no agenda, no list of the order of speakers or topics--no warning about this spiritual talk in the middle of "how to understand the stock market" and "the 40 questions to ask in sales." Then, after slowly easing his way into this very vague spiritual talk given to a very captive (and shocked) audience, the speaker then started using religious jargon ("evangelism," "I asked God to put her face before my eyes") that must have turned many off. If his talk were able to help turn one unbeliever into a believer (I say able because he never really presented the gospel and so if someone prayed his prayer for Jesus to fill him/her up and change his/her life, I don't think that does it; I say help because I know it isn't a person who causes another to believe), perhaps it would be worth it. It seems to me, though, that the talk did harm, putting believers like me into a state of dismayed awe, and turning off unbelievers and giving them another reason on their list that Christians are wacko fanatics ("We got engaged even though we didn't love each other because God told us to") who shove their beliefs down others' throats.