Evangelism today...

The lectionary passage for tomorrow concerns the woman at the well. 

Jesus took time to listen to her, to chat to her, to answer her questions. Evangelism begins not where we want people to be, but where people are.

We have to start there and it can be messy. We live in a world that doesn’t know Jesus, hasn’t a clue who he is, but I believe we are surrounded by people who are open to listen, searching for something to make them feel they are loved. We have to have the time and the skills to enter their world. It can be very different from ours.    

I see as I go round my four communities. I see it when I enter “the world” dressed like a minister and people’s hesitance to speak to me because I am frightening or abnormal.

I drove down a massive pothole on Tuesday and needed the RAC and then Kwik Fit and then the Peugeot garage because I needed a new wheel. All of the men who encountered me initially looked at me like I was some sort of alien from the planet church. This sort of thing stops when I (or the church) spend time in the world regularly. Tuesday is generally my Rye day, I do assembly, then a group in the afternoon so in between I do some visits or work in the library then I go for some lunch in the same lovely coffee shop on the High Street. I have been in there every Tuesday nearly for about six months now. Now they know me, and they chat to me like I am like them! Very interesting. I see it when I enter homes to prepare people for baptisms or marriage or funerals. One Mum last month said when I asked why she wanted her little girl baptised, “because I believe in all that stuff and that…” We spent an hour unpacking what all that stuff and that meant – it was about God’s love.

Another Mum answered the same question “because I believe in life after death. I have a mate who is a Christian who says we will come back as animals and I like that.”I did explain that might be Buddhism! But I started there.

If we want to take evangelism seriously, we have to have the capacity to answer people’s questions and have confidence in what we know about Jesus to give a correct picture of him. My church here says it wants to evangelize its community round the church. Acts of kindness and opening our door is part of that, but we also need to commend Jesus and tell his story to people. 

And one more thought:  there is a bit in the story in John 4 where Jesus talks about where to worship, on this mountain or that, and the right way to be religious. In Jesus, God shows a commitment to know and dwell among his people.

Not only is God present outside church buildings, God promises to be found there. We spend so much angst worrying about buildings, future pattern of churches, can we stay here long term, should we merge with another church, we need also to venture out in expectation that God will appear in another setting. This passage in John chapter 4 gives no support to views that say a person must come inside a church’s walls and traditions to meet God. It speaks in fact against any community that shields itself from the mysteries of a God who operates freely in all sorts of places, not exclusively on this particular mountain or in that specific temple.      

A God encountered outside the walls, encountered “in spirit and truth,” must be a God who dwells among flesh and blood. If that is so, what sort of church should we be and where are we to be church first?

Can we be like Jesus today? Can today's church show the world a way that meets our neighbours and does not avoid them? I think we are called to challenge stereotypes and expectations. Today, this week, it might meet this woman.

Will it spend time with her and offer her the living water or want to keep it for itself or offer it to someone more respectable?

Will she see in the people of God the presence of God’s grace filled love? And can they tell her about God’s love for her beginning where she is? And should they devote more time to going out and telling than to propping up and keeping on?