so this would be part 2 of my thoughts concerning the story of natala and “marie”. i guess this post will be similar to the other one in that the story is what inspired the posts. it’s not going to be a commentary on the events or anything like that, just….trends, i guess, that i notice in the story that make me think about what’s going on in Christianity (particularly American Christianity) today.

i think i’m really kind of sick of the way that modern American Christianity does evangelism. now it’s not all bad. there are some people who do evangelism a LOT better than others. but for the most part, i think the American church is just really really bad at evangelism. a good deal of the problem is due to inefficient methods. you have groups like Campus Crusade that just throw tracts (or 4 Spiritual Laws) at people and tell them that Jesus has a wonderful plan for their life. then you also have itinerant motivational speakers like Joel Osteen (or the worse kind like Benny Hinn and all of the TBN station) who water the Gospel down so much that it’s reduced to a series of 7 or so steps that one can take in order to have a happy and better life. well correct me if i’m wrong, but i don’t think there’s any kind of promise in Scripture that Jesus is going to give us a happy and better life. if anything, all Scripture promises the believer is hardship, suffering, persecution, etc. with the promised release from all of that when one enters eternity.

aside from method, however, i think it’s pride that is the biggest thorn in the side of modern evangelism. Christians are so caught up in how many people they’ve led (or can lead) to Christ, that it becomes a game. i’ve actually heard of someone getting mad at a friend of theirs because the friend had given a Gospel presentation to someone that they had wanted to evangelize. instead of encouraging the person that had shared Christ with a mutual acquaintence, this “friend” was so angry with this person that they didn’t talk for two weeks.

i’ve also heard of many people so proud of how many people they’ve led (not how many that God has called, but how many they themselves have led) to Christ that they wear their number as some sort of merit badge and are always looking for the next lost person to attack with the Gospel. i challenged one of these people on this same idea one time and they told me that “the Bible says to boast in the cross!” well friends, robbing God of His glory by claiming even the smallest ounce of credit for a changed life and wearing people’s salvation as a badge on your arm or a notch in your belt could not be farther from “boasting in the cross”.

it is these kinds of attitudes that natala admits to having towards “marie”. natala admits to so wanting “marie’s” conversion for herself that when it wasn’t coming easy, she faded away. she stopped loving “marie” in the way that she had been because she wasn’t getting what she wanted. she held “marie’s” salvation as an idol that could give her a good story to tell people. well she got a story, and an amazing one at that, even if it wasn’t the story that she so dearly wanted.

natala got a story of what happens when we put ourselves first. of what happens when we let pride dictate our thoughts and actions instead of the glory of God. God showed her through this that things don’t always work in the way that our selfish desires would like them to work and that if anything is to happen, if anybody is to be changed, it is because of Him. not because of what we want for the other person or for ourselves. natala’s story is a powerful story of the sovereignty of God and can do wondrous things for the Kingdom of Christ.

it is my prayer that a lot of people will eventually come away from this story really thinking about evangelism. i hope people will see that we need to love people in the way that natala initially loved “marie” and to keep on loving them in that way even when the times get tough, when we’re not seeing the results we would like to, and especially when it seems that all hope is lost. it is only through this continued love, this sacrificial love, that we can even begin to understand the great love that God has for us, and the great sacrifice that Christ endured for us that we might be called children of God as adopted sons and daughters.

this is why i think methods that groups like Crusade use are so ineffective. even if they seem to work for a time, a good number of the conversions produce shallow Christians or just turn out to be false conversions (now i do know a lot of solid Christians in Crusade and that’s great. but even they have shared concerns with me over this type of “cold-contact evangelism). there just seems to be no love in this kind of evangelism. there’s no nurturing, no encouragement, no discipleship.

natala had it right in the beginning. she invested her whole being into “marie’s” life. she was a friend and someone to hold “marie’s” hand through the worst of times. natala said that she feels like she loved “marie” more as Christ loves before she had become a Christian and seems to conclude that it was becoming a Christian and being involved with the Christian community she was involved with that drove her away from “marie”. that may be true to a point, but i think there might be something deeper. i think it was the longing for a “notch on her belt” as she herself described it that would ultimately drive her away from “marie”. i think natala fell into the same trap that many “baby Christians” fall into, the trap of wanting to do for others what they believe someone did for them. a lot of new Christians believe that it was “so-and-so” that led them to Christ, failing to see that it was none other than Christ that led them to Himself! He merely used “so-and-so” to help along the process. natala may have truly wanted “marie” to find and experience the kind of saving grace and love that God had bestowed upon her and from reading the story i believe that she truly did. i believe she truly wanted Christ to rescue “marie” from destroying herself. but her desire for a great conversion story and witness story may have been a little stronger, and that would eventually drive her away from “marie”. i’ve seen this happen a lot of times and even speak from experience on this. but praise God the loving correcting that He does time and time again in our lives when we seem to lose sight of what matters most.

so i guess the point i want to make is that evangelism is not easy. it’s not about how many tracts you can give out in a day in order to make yourself feel good. it’s about how well you love the other person and about how dearly you want them to share in the amazing love of Christ that you have, apart from any of the selfish desires that we all have in our hearts. most of all it’s about the sovereign grace, love, and mercy of our Creator. we will never be able to evangelize perfectly, but i think that stories like natala’s and “marie’s” can help us learn how to do it better and remind us of Whom evangelism, ultimately, is all about.