the w word

I am going to talk about a word that strikes fear in the hearts if the strongest of men. A word that is so hated, although a secretly hatred, that people don’t want to talk about it. A word that can alienate you best friend, your family and complete strangers. The word is ( dum da dum dum ) witnessing.

The great commission verse is one of those verses in the Bible that some wish they could erase and replace with their favorite activity. Kinda like” go ye into all the world and show how to cook to every nation. Please understand that I am not trying to blaspheme, just trying to make a point .

In the concluding chapter of Colossians, Paul tells the believers how to deal with people outside the faith.

Col 4:5-6 Use your heads as you live and work among outsiders. Don’t miss a trick. Make the most of every opportunity. Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down not cut them out.

I love this scripture because it shows us that there was a time when relationship with unbelievers was valued.

I am always upset when witnessing is portrayed like going hunting. I have this view of a gun slinger that goes out and kills his man and then makes another notch on his holster. I know the great commission says we need to go to the entire world and preach the Gospel. Obviously I don’t have a problem with the preaching of the Gospel. My problem is the idea that getting “one for the team” is more important than helping people understand the importance of a life with Jesus Christ . Remember we are much more than just fire insurance sales people. To go and witness and then leave without helping them be in a place where they can grow, seems to me to be a selfish motive. Are we concerned about people having a living and breathing relationship with Jesus Christ, or are we more concerned that WE have won people. It is not just a point of semantics. Our motivation should be for the people that need to know Jesus, not for us to get brownie points.

Earlier this year there was a T V show on cable called 30 days. The premise of the show was that a person had to live “ in the shoes” of another person for 30 days. There were some interesting shows, but the one I remember the most was when a straight Christian young man had to live in the Castro district of San Francisco. What made it interesting was that the Christian man was able to understand what it was like to be viewed as a homosexual. The experience allowed him to see gay people as people not just sinners.


I do not deny that people need to repent and ask forgivness for their sins. I acknowledge the necessity for people to know Christ, to live in relationship with him and to have the promise of heaven. The question that I have is do we have to degrade them as a human being and not value them as God’s creation?

The clearest example that I have ever seen of people that devalue non believers is a group called godhatesfags.com. If you have a weak system or are susceptible to rage because of self righteous hypocritical Christian I would suggest that you don’t view the site. If you can observe something like that without getting outraged, then take a look. They are the grossest example of self proclaimed Christians that I believe w enrage God. I personally believe that Jesus weeps when he sees what they do and how they treat his creation. They will protest funerals of known gay people and shout out thing like “sodomite, that faggot will burn in hell”. Doing this kind of protesting is no longer limited to funerals of gay people. Now they have a site called godhatesamerica.com. On that site they praise the people that destroyed the twin towers and say it was God’s judgment. They are now protesting the funerals of our solders that have died in Iraq. They are shouting out that they belong to a faggot army.

How can anyone read the scripture in Colossians and see the life of Christ as portrayed in the gospels and think that God is honored by this kind of behavior? Now you may wonder why I bring them up in a blog about witnessing, well I bring them up to say this, how can they say they are followers of Christ and not preach the Gospel of grace, mercy and forgivness. They have a tremendous opportunity to show God’s love to people in terribly pain. What about the responsibility to try and show Gods love and mercy to the hurting?
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So this brings up some interesting questions: How are we to witness? What are we to say? What should our attitude be? Jesus gives a example and a clue in Matt 10:16

"Stay alert. This is hazardous work I'm assigning you. You're going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don't call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove.


We need to understand that “don’t bring attention to your selves” means that we need to do the work or sharing our faith in a non offensive way. I am not saying that we are not to talk to people boldly sometimes, but look back at the example of Jesus in scripture and you will see that the only people Jesus ever got angry with or shouted at were the religious hypocrites. The people that thought they were the righteous ones when really they were in worse shape than the out and out sinners.

The scriptures say we are to be as inoffensive as doves, we are to be gracious in our speech.The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down not cut them out.

We are not responsible to get people have to faith in Jesus Christ, we are responsible to tell them about who he is and what he has done so they can now have a right relationship with God.

I believe what I call shotgun evangelism is a thing of the past. That type of evangelism was really popular in the seventies. You know the type , walk the streets and get as many people as you possibly can to say the sinners prayer, I think the true way of reaching people is sharing your life. You know we have really great example of this type of evangelism in scripture; Jesus Christ. Jesus spent three years with the twelve. He spoke to them along the way. He spoke into their lives through his relationship with them.

Now this type of evangelism may not have immediate results but remember this, after spending all the three years in the very presences of the embodied Christ, the disciples still didn’t get it. Be patient, if you have a problem with patience, just remember how patient God is with you.