A Reluctant Evangelist

I have been a local church pastor for over 25 years, and in that role, I’ve served four different churches, two of which were church plants. For that reason, people tend to think that talking to unbelieving or unchurched people I meet about my relationship with Jesus must come naturally or easily for me. But nothing could be farther from the truth.

I’m the type of person who is extremely comfortable and confident in the one-way kind of communication that happens when you’re addressing a group of people. In fact, for me, the more people in attendance, the more at ease I feel. But drop me into a one-on-one conversation with anyone – especially a stranger – and my palms begin to sweat, my brain turns to mush, and I feel like I’m speaking with a mouth full of marbles.

In the early years of my ministry, I often felt guilty about the fact that I loved to preach and teach the Bible to groups but felt so awkward – and therefore very hesitant – engaging a non-Christian in a conversation about spiritual things. To cope with this sense of failure, I gave myself the excuse that I’m spiritually gifted as a pastor not an evangelist. But this notion never really satisfied the feeling that I was out of sync with something God wanted to release and expand in my life.

I was deeply aware that ultimately the only assignment Jesus left His followers was to “preach the gospel,” and “make disciples.” I was also somewhat haunted by the Apostle Paul’s admonition to Timothy – a pastor – to “do the work of an evangelist.”

Then one day, a very unexpected thing happened. God used it to begin a process of redirection in my life which continues to this day. It opened the door to a realm of experiences which have allowed me to partner with the Lord in some of the richest ministry encounters of my life. And it was all so simple.

It was the week before Easter sometime in the mid 1980’s, and I was pruning a tree in my backyard when my neighbor called to me over the fence and asked, “This is peak season for you isn’t it?”

Although a “good” pastor like me would never use the phrase “peak season” to describe Easter, I instinctively understood that my neighbor – who was not a Christian – wasn’t trying to make fun of my faith. He was simply trying to find a way to engage me in friendly conversation about a subject he thought I might be interested in using the language he understood best – the language of business. And for the next several minutes I found myself talking rather comfortably with him – beginning with the subject he introduced – in generalities about church and faith and then moving on to more mundane neighborly subjects like the weather, what our kids were doing that day, and the most effective brand of lawn fertilizer.

As our relatively brief conversation faded and I returned to my pruning, I realized that I had experienced a remarkable spiritual breakthrough. I had just had a very natural, unforced, one-on-one conversation with someone who was not a believer, that included spiritual subject matter, and I didn’t have to initiate it. In my heart, I felt Jesus whisper an “at-a-boy.” It was as though He were saying, “See, that’s all I’m asking you to do. Just be yourself and simply respond in a naturally authentic way to the encounters I arrange for you with others I’m drawing to Myself.”

I whispered in reply, “Thanks Lord. I think I can do that.”

A few weeks later, I was in the 7-11 store around the corner from our house buying a Big Gulp when the guy behind the counter asked me how I was doing. I then offered the obligatory, “Fine.” And with that out of the way, I assumed I would be free to head for the door and get on with the rest of my day. But surprisingly, he broke the unwritten rule between convenience store shoppers and those nameless people who run the register that conversations are not allowed to proceed further than the how-are-you-fine point. He annoyingly tried to draw me into additional small talk.

My first response was to think to myself, “Hey, wait a minute. You’re not supposed to actually talk to me. You’re just the 7-11 guy. You have no actual life I’d be interested in.” However, within a half-second I found myself repenting for my absolutely wicked attitude and heard the Lord speaking to my heart, “Let me introduce you to someone I love and died for.”

That stopped me cold. So I opened my mouth and actually completed a simple, short, and friendly verbal exchange with someone I had never even really noticed before, but someone my Savior passionately cared about.

Over the next month or so, our conversations broadened as I found myself periodically in the store during his shifts to buy a half gallon of milk or another Big Gulp. As we became better acquainted and he discovered I was a pastor, he began to open up to me about the spiritual hunger in his life. And one thing led to another until he visited and ultimately became a part of our church.

Not long after I met the 7-11 guy, we purchased our first home and moved about a half mile away to another neighborhood. It was there the Lord arranged another unexpected encounter with someone He loved, and it involved my broken down car.

Shortly after we moved in, a very scary-looking guy with an even scarier-looking Rottweiler bought the house next door to us. And for obvious reasons, I had kept my distance from both of them.

About the same time, the starter in my dilapidated old Chevette – I used to refer to it as a motorized skateboard – finally gave out. I know next to nothing about fixing cars, and I couldn’t afford to hire someone else to repair it. So, I used to back out of my driveway into the street using gravity, then get out and push it forward to start it rolling a little, jump in, and pop the clutch so the engine would turn over and run.

One day, our new neighbor was outside watching my bizarre routine and called out, “Are you having car trouble?” Although I had absolutely no desire to interact with this guy, my plight was so obvious, I was forced to reply in the affirmative. And, of course, on this particular day, even though I pushed and popped with all my might, I could not get the car to start.

While I was still madly trying to get the thing running before having to answer any more questions from Mr. Scary, he walked out to the street and said, “I’m a professional mechanic. Let me help you with that.”

So, worn out and feeling quite sheepish about my predicament, I walked over, shook his hand, introduced myself, and took him up on his offer. Together we pushed the car back up into my driveway and he sent me off in my wife’s car to the auto parts store. He had given me specific instructions about what parts he needed me to purchase so he could repair the vehicle.

Upon my return, I found myself under the hood of my Chevette peering into the engine compartment and standing next to a hard-edged “grease monkey” who clearly knew his way around in there. Then, out of nowhere, he quietly said, “You know, the real reason I offered to help you today is that I’ve been looking for a chance to talk to you. I bought that house next door and moved here partly as an attempt to escape the painful memories of my son’s recent death in a car accident. But it isn’t working, and I thought you might be able to help me.”

Well, what can I say? I was dumbfounded. God had once again arranged for me to confront my fears and prejudices and see His love at work reaching out to someone who needed Him.

So, with wrenches in our oily hands, we worked and talked about the love of God who sent Jesus to heal all the hurt this broken world serves up. Later, as I turned the key in the ignition and my engine roared to life, it was clear that the heavenly Father was bringing something far more important to life in the wounded soul of my new friend.

That encounter caused me to try and pay closer attention to what the Lord was clearly trying to teach me, and I began visiting the scriptures waiting on His instruction. It’s too long a story to tell here, but over time, He met me in very wonderful ways through His Word, teaching me how I could be more available and effective in sharing His love with those around me. The short version is that He gave me a four-part plan for becoming more intentional in this neglected area of my personal ministry.

Here’s what I learned:

1.    Identify those He has assigned you. Learn to recognize the people He has placed in the circle of your life’s influence.

2.    Intercede for them regularly. Bring them to God in prayer, asking Him to cause their hearts to be open to His gospel and your testimony.

3.    Include them in your life. Seek ways to be with them and build genuine friendships. The better they get to know you, the more of Him they’ll see.

4.    Invite them to begin a relationship with Jesus. Watch for opportunities to introduce them to His love, or ask them to accompany you to a church event where someone else can.

Since that time, as I have been actively implementing this simple strategy, I’ve found God faithful to use me – even though I am definitely not an evangelist – in very surprising ways, to point others to Him. Here are some of those stories:

In the late 1990’s, my wife and I moved to San Jose, CA for the purpose of planting a new church there. In order to support my family during the start-up phase, I took a job in the accounting department of a large high-tech Silicon Valley company. As part of my daily commute to our company’s campus, I would stop in at a gas station in our neighborhood to either fuel up or buy a muffin for breakfast.

One day, as I was paying the clerk, the Lord seemed to say to me, “I want you to take a close look at that guy behind the cash register. It’s not a mistake that I’ve arranged for him to be here every morning when you drop in.”

I hate to admit it, but I can often be rather slow to pick up on some of the most basic things God is trying to teach me. Here I was – even after all the Lord had been showing me about this stuff over the previous decade – realizing that I hadn’t been remotely aware of this precious soul. And I had been handing my money to him every morning for weeks. So when I got to the front of the line, I made my payment, made eye contact with him, introduced myself, asked for his name, and shook his hand. That was it, except that nearly everyday after that until he moved away and took a job somewhere else, I prayed for him by name before hitting the road in the morning. And let me tell you, that simple practice began to transform the way I felt toward him. I became sincerely interested in his life and especially his eternal destiny. And although our daily exchanges after that were never more than small talk, I was passionately engaged in a secret prayer campaign for his soul.

I will probably never know this side of heaven, what fruit – if any – came from my prayers for that man, but I discovered something very important through that experience. Drawing people into His saving grace is God’s business – one that He is very good at. My job is to simply be available to assist in any way He wants to use me, and that nearly always involves the first two steps outlined above: Identifying the people He’s purposely placed in the path of my life, and interceding (praying) for them consistently.

After this, I found myself starting to see people differently, like my neighbors for instance.

We have a dog that lives in our house. The problem is, I am not a dog lover. I seriously dislike everything about owning one including living with pet hair everywhere, walking them, and dealing with their poop. However, I love my wife and she LOVES dogs. So we have a dog that lives in our house.

One night, we were walking the afore-mentioned dog. We went around one block, and I had already reached the end of my dog-walking patience when my wife looked into my eyes with that lovely expression that always melts my heart and asked if we could go around one more. So I relented. But just as we were finally nearing our front door, the neighbors from two houses down were coming out to walk their dog. My wife gave me that look again and said, “Let’s go with them.”

Now, my wife loves dogs, but she deeply loves and cares about people even more. So I understood that her request was not just about extending our dog-walking. It had everything to do with attempting to make a connection with our neighbors that Jesus might be able to use for His purposes. So I haltingly agreed.

We took that walk with our new friends, and I added their names to the prayer list I was developing of the people who lived within three or four houses of us. And that initiated a cascading serious of events and encounters that resulted in one of the most wonderful experiences of my life, the day I had the privilege of baptizing four of our neighbors in a backyard pool.

I was starting to see the people I worked with differently too.

One day, my direct supervisor, Karen, stepped into my cube and asked me if as a minister I performed weddings. I said, “Yes,” and she went on to explain that she and the man she had been living with for the last ten years had decided to get married. However, since neither of them were church-goers, they had no relationship with anyone who could officiate. She then asked me if I would be willing to do so.

This caught me completely off guard, and in a split second, my mind raced through a series of thoughts. I had always prided myself on taking my ministerial participation in a wedding ceremony very seriously. I was not just a “preacher for hire.” And for that reason, I had always refused to solemnize the vows of couples unless they were believers and also attended my church.

But this time, I distinctly felt the Lord nudging me to lay aside my previous stand in this regard. I found myself agreeing to marry my boss and her boyfriend on one condition. I told her I would require them to have four, one-hour, pre-marital counseling sessions with me before the wedding.

She said they would be happy to do so, and I was suddenly in uncharted ecclesiastical territory. How do I provide Christian premarital counseling for people who (1) aren’t Christians and (2) have already been living together for a decade?

I’ll spare you the details, but even though our sessions were somewhat awkward at first, I was able to develop a genuine relationship with this couple. And by the time their wedding day came, they had heard from me about the God who loved them, sacrificed His Son for them, and had extended to them the offer of His forgiveness. I stood before them and their guests on that day representing the loving and friendly face of a God who was calling them to Himself.

Again, I probably will not know the ultimate fruit of all that until Heaven, but I was able to trust God knowing I had extended His love to these lost lambs with authentic compassion and done what He had asked of me. The rest is – as always – up to Him.

When Karen asked me to perform her wedding, it was like a wake up call. It suddenly dawned on me that the people God had surrounded my life with in my work environment were probably not there by accident. I felt the Lord inviting me to start praying for all the people who spent their workdays in cubicles and offices surrounding mine. So I added their names to the growing list of people I was praying for. And as I regularly brought their names before Him, I found God was giving me a sincere, heart-felt concern for each one. I began to catch myself wondering what their lives were like, what kind of struggles they faced, and what kind of spiritual hungers they might have.

Then a woman named, Roz, was moved to the cube directly connected to mine even though she worked in another department. This was unusual because we didn’t really work together. But I added her name to my prayer list because I was taking the proximity thing seriously and she now spent her days right outside the entrance to my cube. This was clearly a case of being geographically in the “circle” of my influence.

Within a few days, she literally stormed into my workspace, sat down on my desk, said someone told her I had performed Karen’s wedding, and asked me if I was a “real” minister. I acknowledged that I was. Then her eyes filled with tears, her voice tightened with emotion, and she asked me if I would pray for her. She said she felt as though she was on the verge of a mental and emotional breakdown and had nowhere else to turn.

Remember, this was taking place during work hours in a cubicle environment where there was absolutely zero privacy. But I just forged ahead – beginning to be slightly more comfortable with these divine interruptions in my well-ordered life. I took her hand and offered a simple prayer inviting God to surround her in the embrace of His love and to draw her to Himself, the only source of the peace she was looking for.

Within minutes, we were both back at work doing our jobs. But the story didn’t end there. She stopped in to see my a few days later to ask for some information about the church I pastored. Then, she showed up at our service the next Sunday where she gave her heart to Jesus.

As her life began to be changed by the power of God, others in her circle of influence began to notice the difference and several of them began attending church with her including her husband and children. Among them was a woman named, Ida, who had been Roz’s life-long friend. Soon Ida’s husband, Le, started showing up too, and they both received Christ.

Sadly, within a relatively short time, Le died in a tragic car accident. But I was able to stand before a large crowd of his family and friends – who were gathered for the funeral – and declare to them that I could say with certainty Le was in heaven at that very moment enjoying an eternity with the One he had come to know as Savior.

After the funeral, Ida’s sister, Donna, sought me out to say she had been moved by what I had to say and indicated she would like to hear more. I told her about our church, and a few weeks later, she visited. Before long, she abandoned her Buddhism and committed her life to Christ along with her two children.

Meanwhile, back at work, God was continuing to open surprising doors.

Once, I was conducting an interview with a woman who had been working as a temp in our department and had applied for a permanent job with the company. As we were concluding, she asked if I would mind answering a personal question. I stalled for a moment while I thought that through. I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate in the highly litigious environment of today’s business world for me to agree, not knowing what she might ask. But I felt that now-familiar prompting of the Lord urging me to move forward and trust Him.

The door to the office we were using was closed, so I turned to make sure the interior blinds were wide open so others could easily see inside. That made me feel less anxious about what might happen next. So I invited her to go ahead and ask her question.

She said she had heard – I have no idea how – that I was a minister and wanted to know if that was true. I haltingly affirmed that it was. She then told me she was the single mother of a little girl and had begun feeling the need to do something spiritual for her daughter’s sake, but she wasn’t sure what or how to go about it.

What an unexpected gift! I could only take a couple of minutes, but I had the awesome privilege of being able to tell that young mother about the One who was calling to her through her motherly love and drawing her to His father-heart. Wow!

Then came the day I was invited to a baby shower for one of the women in our department.

I worked with a group of about thirty people and ninety percent of them were women. So I guess they felt obligated to invite me even though I’m sure they never thought I’d accept. Neither did I, until I sensed that pinging in my soul that alerts me to the prospect that God might be up to something.

I had quite an argument with the Lord about that. Truly, one of the last things I would have ever voluntarily agreed to do was attend a baby shower. I had never been that far inside the other camp – so to speak. I had no idea what went on in that part of the world of women, and I had no desire to find out. But the Lord seemed to be insisting I go. So I emailed my RSVP.

I didn’t know what to bring to a baby shower, so I brought a pizza. A PIZZA! Talk about “a fish out of water,” I felt like I had landed on another planet. It was as though these ladies had their own private language which I could not comprehend. They were discussing “labor,” “breast milk,” “dilating,” and “contractions.” Lord help me!

As soon as I could find a way to gracefully escape, I literally ran from the conference room where they had held the event, retreated to the safety of my cube, and sat there making male grunting noises in an attempt to regain my masculinity before it was too late.

But in the days and weeks that followed, a very unusual thing began to happen. Many of the women from that shower started to open up to me about their spiritual longings. It was as if my having been willing to visit their world had caused them to believe I could be trusted with the delicate issues of their hearts.

One of them, an immigrant from India – someone I had previously had almost no personal interaction with – stopped me in the hall. And without any context, just blurted out, “Can you get me a Bible in my native dialect of Punjabi?” My jaw dropped, and although I had no idea how I would go about it, I told her I would. And within a week or so, I was able to present her with a Punjabi Bible I had tracked down though the International Bible Society.

Another time, two other ladies barged into my cube with an open Bible and asked, “Can you help us understand this?”

A Filipino woman who was raised Catholic but had left her faith behind along with her childhood, slipped me a note one day to say that she had been reminded of Christ’s love though the testimony of my life. She went on to tell me that as a result, both she and her husband had recently found their way into a solid, Bible-teaching church and were pursuing the Lord with all their hearts.

Again and again I found myself being sought out to offer prayer or spiritual counsel to ladies who were not only my coworkers, but dear ones of the Dearest One. And all it took to open that door was a willingness to spend a few minutes at a baby shower. God, you are good!

The day eventually came for me to leave that job, and since I no longer work outside the church, my evangelistic mission field has changed complexion. Lately I’ve found the Lord directing my focus to the Baristas at my local Starbucks.

Like many of us, I’ve developed a daily coffee habit. And I quickly noticed that the partners at Starbucks make a point of remembering the names of their regular customers. The Lord impressed on me one day that I should return the favor and add the baristas’ names to my prayer list. Once again, He was helping me see people differently. These men and women were not just incidental to my life. They had been placed in the circle of my influence on purpose by God. What a humbling thought and awesome responsibility!

I started casually introducing myself to the store’s staff and asking their names. Then, I started the process of bringing them by name before the Lord in prayer about three times a week. But I felt the Lord “upping the ante.” I sensed that He was “assigning” me that store. So I started making a point of varying the time of day a stopped by in order to be able to meet partners who work different shifts, and I added them to my prayer list as well.

So far, I’ve haven’t found it very easy in the hustle of that environment to engage in spiritual conversations with any of them. However, through prayer, my heart has become “invested” in the lives of Tim, Connie, Jen, Chris, Norm, France, and Amanda. And I have been asking the Lord to use me in any way He desires.

Recently, before leaving for a ministry trip to Taiwan, I felt the Lord prompting me to have a balloon bouquet delivered to the store with a card acknowledging that I would not be in for my daily visit for a while and would be missing their great service while out of the country. After returning home, I discovered that this small gesture had made a deep impression on all the Starbucks partners and it has allowed for our relationships to expand. I’m not sure where all this will eventually lead, but I know the Lord loves each of them, and I want to be in a position to point them to Him as the He gives me opportunities.

We’ll, I’ve been rambling on for quite a while now, so I think I’ll give it a rest. But my hope is that perhaps these few stories from my life as a reluctant evangelist might inspire you to give it a go. Let me tell you, there is nothing – and I mean absolutely NOTHING – that compares to the core-of-your-being thrill and overwhelming awe that overtakes your life when you find yourself stumbling into those divine appointments where the God of Heaven has invited you to have a part in affecting another person’s eternal destiny.

Lord, sign me up!