FOLLOW ME AND I WILL MAKE YOU…

by Adam Harbinson

I read an interesting book a while ago entitled, Outwardly Active – Evangelism As Jesus Did It.’ The writer, David Westlake begins, ‘Evangelism feels anything but natural (to me). It feels like a game I never understood, never mastered and never wanted to play again.’ 

And he doesn’t leave things hanging in the air as it’s so easy to do when you question ‘the way we’ve always done things’. He suggests an alternative to the orthodox style of evangelising based on the way Jesus did it, and I think he has a point. His criticism is that while the word ‘evangelist’ means, ‘the bringer of good news’, some ‘The End is Nigh’ merchants we’ve all met would make a Lurgan spade look like it’s partying.

I remember one such gentleman quite well. I was running the Belfast Marathon, and there he was, happy-jack, carrying his ‘Prepare to Meet Thy Doom’ placard and roaring, ‘You can run! But you can’t escape!’

Lucky for him he was stationed near the end of the Marathon by which time everyone was exhausted, otherwise he might have found himself dispatched swiftly to the hereafter with the said placard eternally lodged where the sun don’t shine.  

Now, having said that, I’m not anti-evangelists, not at all, it’s a major part of the Christian’s role in life. However, if you define evangelism as the activities of the aforementioned preacher, or as standing on a street corner with a face like thunder, demanding that passers-by take your gospel tracts, then I’m not really interested, and for a couple of reasons.

Firstly I find it intrusive, my personal space is being invaded, often by one who looks at me as if I’m a pagan if I don’t smile sweetly and eagerly grasp his pamphlet that almost invariably tells me I’m bound for hell if I don’t meet the writer’s legalistic criteria. And secondly I can’t see Jesus doing it. He engaged with people, he shared their hopes and concerns and passions at an intimate level. Some of these guys who hog the pavement would probably have made a little paper airplane of their tract and shot it up into Zacchaeus’ tree, then trundled on their way muttering, ‘Well, I’ve done my bit. He can’t say that I didn’t warn him of impending disaster.’ What did Jesus do? He talked him down, had tea and a yarn with him, and the man’s life was changed.

But, back to Dave Westlake’s book. Its central theme is the tendency of the church to insist that people are converted, scrubbed clean, and conform to acceptable habits and dress codes before they’re allowed to take part in any meaningful religious activity. Dave sees this as back-to-front. So do I.

Let me tell you about Jimmy, a young Chinese man I met in Belfast recently. I’m involved in a jazz club in the basement of an old church in city-centre Belfast – we call it Urban Soul. Part of its purpose is to act as a soft interface between church and community, a non-threatening place where people can sit and chat, drink coffee, work on their laptops, read their newspapers – and on a Thursday night there’s live jazz in a relaxed atmosphere – and conversations flourish.

Jimmy studies music at Queens. He dropped in one night and he loved it. ‘This is the first place in Belfast where I feel safe,’ he said. ‘And it’s right under a church.’

He asked me if he could help, and I thought he meant as a performer, but he wanted to brush the floors, wipe the tables, wash dishes. And I agreed, but he told me he was Buddhist, I think expecting me to lay down some conditions, like, ‘Well, come back when you get saved!’ – or something. All I said was, ‘So what? But be warned, you’re going to meet Jesus here.’

Jimmy’s as happy as can be, and week by week he’s seeing more and more of the Jesus he’d never heard of prior to Urban Soul.

And it struck me, Jesus said, ‘Follow me, and I will make you…’, but we have turned that around. We say, ‘You can follow Jesus, after we make you into a non-smoking, non-drinking, church attending, Sunday suit wearing, conformist.’ And that is so wrong.

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