It’s Christianity, Not Amway

This Wizbang post by Jay Tea reminded me of several related posts from last year about “witnessing.” As in any other group, be it a business organization, a club, or something as simple as finding a good restaurant, when you latch onto something good, you want other people to experience and enjoy it as well. Is there anything more significant than eternal life, and how you’re going to spend it? So Christians spend millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours marketing Christianity and trying to find new techniques to share it.

Henry Neufeld wrote,

“some Christians who want to push themselves on everyone in a frantic race to convert and bring into church membership as many people as possible. “Jesus is coming back,” they think, “and he’s going to accidentally fry a bunch of people if I don’t get busy.” The answer, they seem to think, is to work on the statistics as fast as possible.”

Last year I posted about faith and Jay Tea at Wizbang because in one of his posts, several Christians insisted on pushing their faith at him in spite of the fact that he said,

I tend to have a very laissez-faire attitude toward religion — if they don’t try to convert me, I won’t attack their faith. I think of it as a form of mutual respect.

It doesn’t get much clearer than that. It should have been clear that proselytizing would be disrespectful and offensive. God had placed a friend in Jay Tea’s life who is a devout Christian, and she ministered to him and witnessed to him via her own life. No stranger on a blog can top that; they would have exactly the opposite effect. Not only because to a non-believer it’s often perceived as very disrespectful, but there’s that underlying fear – “If I become a Christian, I’m going to have to act like these people! No thanks!”

This sort of thing has happened to me more than once. Referring to the incident and several others in my own life, I wrote,

Ever spend a long time witnessing to family or friends, and have some shmuck who calls themselves a Christian, or even an actual Christian, act like a complete jerk to them? The person you’ve tried so hard to lead to faith feels validated in every negative stereotype of Christianity that they’ve ever heard, and basically blows off your “religion.” That happened to me recently, and there were a few things that I realized from it. My first reaction was to get angry and think, “That jerk So-and-so just dumped a bunch of litter on my mission field!” Then I remembered that it’s not MY field. It’s God’s. He does the saving, not me.

If you want to evangelize – and if you call yourself a Christian, but don’t want to share this wonderful salvation you have, you need to re-assess – you don’t need any special techniques. Just live it. Pursue holiness, pray for repentance (your own, not repentance for people who get on your nerves), seek God’s will through studying your bible and prayer, and find a good church so that you can be discipled and held accountable by your peers. Once you’re doing those things, and living out your faith, people will notice. You don’t have to nag them, persuade them, or “lawyer” them into believing, and you can’t do that anyway so don’t waste your time trying.

A recent post at Wizbang demonstrates the efficacy of just living your Christian life and letting that be a witness to others:

A friend of mine is having a very turbulent life right now. Her husband is entertaining two great job offers, and both involve moving — in opposite directions. Or they might stay where they are. Either way, it’s highly likely their lives will get more complicated — and better.

Her statement about it? “This is a huge turn of events. But luckily I’m a Christian, so I’ll just wait until God stops the ride before I throw up.”

That’s almost the kind of faith I can get behind…

When we’re witnessing to anyone, or even dealing with anyone who knows we are Christians, it behooves us to remember that we are not personally responsible for saving people. We’re incapable of it. That’s God’s job. And in our misguided zeal to “save” someone, we might just be dumping a bunch of litter on that ministry field that someone else is going to have to clean up. Do you want to put someone else in the position of having to say, “No, not all Christians are like that – you know me, and you know I don’t act that way!” When we live it, love and serve others, put aside the manmade stress and experience the joy God gives us, that’s the kind of faith other people can get behind. Few people are saved due to an encounter with a street preacher. Ask any ten Christians what led to their salvation, and eight of them will tell you that they heard the gospel via a friend or acquaintance they admired. That person either told them directly, or invited them to church. We don’t have to accost people we’ve just met. It’s Christianity, not Amway.

But dedicate your lives to Christ as Lord. Always be ready to defend your confidence in God when anyone asks you to explain it. However, make your defense with gentleness and respect. Keep your conscience clear. Then those who treat the good Christian life you live with contempt will feel ashamed that they have ridiculed you.
(1 Peter 3:15-16)

Henry Neufeld follows up with Selling Christianity, go check it out!