Every Christian knows about the Great Commisson - to go and take the gospel to the world. But what happens if you're not an evangelist?
I'm not. God has chosen not to give the gift of evangelism to this Christian. So what does that mean for me? How do I share the gospel with people? Can I use my gifts to evangelise?
Apparently I can. If God calls us all to be evangelist, even without the gift of evangelism, than we're all evangelists. Recently, I've been reading Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, and that man is clearly an evangelist! It got me thinking though. I've been placed in a house with two Christians, and two non-Christians, and evangelism always starts at home. I've been having several interesting conversations recently with one of the non-Christians. She's a pagan, and obviously searching for Jesus. Praise be that she's even asked me if she can borrow a bible from me to check things as she researches her spirituality. She's actually reading the wording and asking questions about it - it's fantastic!
Now I'm going to introduce another evangelist - one of my Christian housemates. She's oh-so-definitely an evangelist, and yet I don't think her way of evangelism speaks to my pagan friend. I don't agree that an evangelist should tell people they're going to hell. That's not the way to get people to come to Jesus. We need to display Jesus' unfailing love, not the retribution should we not follow him.
I've been trying to encourage my housemate to seek Jesus. I discuss religion with her rather than preaching to her about Jesus, and I've discovered many similarities in our thought processes. I know she's looking for Jesus, and I pray that she will find Him through her own research and spiritual experiences. I can also display all of Christ's qualities that are in me and even show her the ones that I'm working on - such as patience! But I'm learning to lean on the Lord, and she can clearly see that and the benefit it's made to my life.