There is little more meaningful to a person as his, or her, own experience. We are a people who have history, not just community history but a personal one as well. Our stories give us a unique status whether they are shared or not, whether they are embarrassing or exulting from our own perspective.
Never has this been more true than among the “Now” generation of today where something has to feel right for it to be true. Something does not seem right just because it is logical it has to feel right to be accepted. Just because the old arithmetic said 2 + 2 = 4, this is no longer true, the same equation may have a result of 1, or 2 or 4. It depends on what is done with the “a” and “b” values.
This has its application in Personal Evangelism. I read a description this morning of a pastor in America who went to a barista bar and sat at a table where he erected a sign that offered “Free Coffee to everyone who will listen to my story about God. One person sat down. The following day he resumed his table but this time he offered free coffee to hear people’s stories about God and he had a line form but hardly bought a coffee.
Traditional evangelism”, which has a very strong leaning toward verse based good news, has a lot to learn from this man’s experience. John 3:16 even in its most recent paraphrase of “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.” has little significance for people today compared to,. “Why is it you feel this stuff is important?”
This is the reason why we need to have a personal narrative, or even a series of stories, that are appropriate for any possible situation. They must have the ring of truth to them or our hearers will dismiss them as dishonest and reject the movement of Holy Spirit in their life. Our story should be as free of “technical” language as possible, words like justification, sanctification, and righteousness are more like spam for people who have little or no experience of church, let alone theological concepts that we may have grown up with.
The last two paragraphs have largely ignored the main lesson of the coffee spot evangelism story. When the pastor wanted to tell his story he only got one taker but when he offered to listen to other people’s God stories, he had a line up that almost wouldn’t quit. I started with the statement that our stories are important to us and then went to the story of how important the stories of others are with the pastor. Our challenge is to recognize and accept a person’s story without judgement and empathy for their situation.
The validation of another’s history amounts to the validation of the person. By doing this we are not offering carte blanche to their lifestyle, what we need to do is to use that story to “bridge into the other’s life with the stories of Jesus, and let Him work in them.
There is no magic in this process. In fact the Bible only records two times when Jesus said “follow me” to someone on first meeting. The first was Phillip and the second was Matthew the tax collector, but other gospels have Matthew dining with Jesus and following after that meal. This is no doubt the way that others decided to join Him. Nathanial, was convinced when Jesus told him where Phillip found him. People need to see our truth to see our Master.
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