Not only about my list of yet-to-purchase Christmas gifts for my friends and family, but also about how evangelism can be a kind of gift-giving.
One of the main ways I practise evangelism is as a Street Pastor in my home of Canterbury. In Canterbury a team goes out at about 10pm every Saturday night, and heads home around 4am. Street Pastors give out many gifts. But the most important of all the gifts that a Street Pastor offers, is the gift of a listening ear.
It never fails to amaze me how people, who often have experienced deeply difficult moments in their lives, long to share their stories with you during the wee hours of the morning. It reminds me that the greatest gift we share in evangelism is always, always about relationship โ about being totally present to other people, listening to them, and loving them unconditionally.
If our evangelism is really good news, it has to be a gift with no strings attached, with no agenda or expectations โ it has to be rooted in unconditional, non-judgemental love. But how loved they are. But if evangelism is the gift of unconditional love, then this demands something of us. It means that evangelism has got to be more than a gimmick, more than a gift left somewhere for somebody to find, more than a token.
When you engage in evangelism, you walk away changed. As we receive the gift of unconditional love from God, and as we pass it on, and as we receive it from others, we enter into the beautiful, Kingdom-building, life-changing, community-transforming work of God. So, as you finish your shopping for gifts this Christmas, consider this: how are you called into evangelism to offer the gift of unconditional love to others in ? The Methodist Church is launching a new course called Everyone an Evangelist.
