It seems that the hot word these days when it comes to evangelism is “relevant”.  All the latest blog posts and teachings are all concerned with making sure that we as Christians and our messages are “relevant” to those that are in the world.

I’ll be honest, sometimes I get a little annoyed when I hear people talk about relevant evangelism.  Not because I don’t want to relevant, but because usually what I hear is someone that is trying to explain their way out of sharing the message, or making it as convenient as possible. 

It seems that when “relevant evanagelism” is discussed it’s conclusion is almost always to be more discreet and quite about your message.  I never read about how to be a relevant street preacher.  Or how to share the gospel boldly and be relevant at the same time.  No, it’s always like, “The world doesn’t want our message so we shouldn’t badger them with it, it will do more harm for our cause than good.”

Almost every time I go out street preaching I have a well meaning christian approach me and ask, “Do you think you’re really reaching people out here doing that?  Don’t you think you may be doing more harm than good?”  Here’s the ironic thing, they have the courage and guts to approach a “crazy street preacher” and criticize me for at least trying, yet they won’t share the message of life and good news with a stranger.

People think it’s completely obsurd to openly share the message of the gospel but have no problem when the world advertises their’s.
 
Here’s a quick story to illustrate.  We were driving down the road a few weeks ago and in the median I saw 5-6 white, middle-aged, middle class people holding up signs for the presidential candidate Ron Paul.  They were dressed real casually and even looked to be having fun. 

Ask these same people at church Sunday morning to go out and hold a sign for Jesus and you’re crazy!  Yet the world knows how to advertise and promote their kingdom, how much more should we be able to promote ours?  If these people think it’s good to hold up signs in the median for a temporal corrupt form of government, how much more should we hold up signs for the true, eternal government?

People aren’t offended if you are campaigning aggressively, but heaven forbid if you proclaim the gospel in public, in any form!

I live in Oklahoma City right now, and it seems that there is a trend going on here where businesses will hire out people to stand on the corner to hold up signs advertising the business.  Especially during tax season.  There is a company here called Liberty Tax Service and every tax season they dress up their employees in costumes (statue of liberty or Uncle Same) and they stand on the street corners waving at people as they drive by promoting their services.


Would they be doing it if it wasn’t beneficial?  Does it work?  Yeah it does!  I just told you about them.  These people will dress up in costumes in public, dance and wave promoting tax season for a small hourly wage, but the people of God can’t do a fraction of that for the payment of the blood of Christ!?  It makes me think of the time when Jesus said the Queen of Sheba would rise up in judgement against the Pharisees to condemn them…I’ll modernize it and make it “relevant” for you, “The employees of Liberty Tax Service will rise up in judgement to condemn this generation because we’re to ashamed and lazy to take the message of love and truth to the world.”

To me, this is a classic case of, “…The children of this world are wiser than the children of light.”  Why shouldn’t we just as heavily promote the gospel (if not more considering the implications!)?

I think the real problem isn’t a matter of relevance, I think it’s a matter of belief.  If we really believed what we say we believe, that we’ve been rescued from death, we would tell everybody.

Let me illustrate it for you if you don’t believe me:

Let’s say I give you 2 million dollars every day.  One million for you, and one million to give away to anybody you want, any random person.  Every single day you would have the “burden” and “duty” of giving away a million dollars.

-How long would you wait to give it out?
-Would it be a chore or a blessing to give the money away?
-If someone rejected the million dollars, would you feel ashamed and hide the money never to give it away again?  Or would you think the person that refused the gift is crazy?

Nobody would think I was crazy if I stood on a corner shouting “Free money for those that will receive it!”  They would be lining up.  Nobody would shout out to me, “Don’t you have better things to do?”

If we would do this for worldly riches, why won’t we do it for eternal riches?  I think it has to do more with our belief than it is our methods.  Do we really believe the gospel is worth more than a million dollars?

There’s nothing relevant involved with giving away money.  There shouldn’t be anything relevant about sharing the gospel, just do it.  If you gave a random person on the street a million dollars, I don’t think they would reject you because of your method.  They wouldn’t care if you wore sandals with socks or a 5 piece suit, because it’s the gift, not the person giving it.  It’s the message, not the messenger.

If you have horrible disease, you could care less about the style of the doctor giving you a cure, you just want the cure!! 

The truth is, we don’t want to be rejected, and we’ll go very far out of our way to avoid it, so far out of the way we forsake the message and commission of the gospel.  We have to get over this somehow.  Remember when Jesus sent out the 12 disciples?  He sent them out with a “rejection clause”, He told them exactly what to do when someone rejected the message.  This tells me not everybody will receive it, and that’s ok.  As a matter of fact, Jesus said only few will find it.  My goal now changes from trying to convince people that the gospel is true and indeed good news, to simply proclaiming the message and letting the seeds fall where they may.  I can’t change the heart the seed falls into, my job is just to cast the seed out. 

So, if we can focus more on simply proclaiming the news of Jesus instead of the thought of trying to “win” people, our job will be easier.  The preaching of the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing.  We need to get that straight first, what you’re doing IS foolish to the world, we don’t have to hide from it because it’s in the foolishness that God confounds the wise.

We can’t get in the habit of letting the world dictate our methods.  The world is only getting more evil.  It’s job is to push itself further from the truth of the gospel.  We just need to accept these things and enter into the darkness with our light.  When we do that, everything happens automatically.