Evangelism isn't everything

It's important, but...

The other day I posted a question from Think Deeper Podcast about whether Christians should boycott woke, pro-lgbt corporations like Disney and Target.

Predictably, one of the responses said we should not, because boycotts harm our outreach to the world.

But why on earth should I fear the world finding out I don’t want my kids indoctrinated into godlessness? Why would a Christian make me choose between evangelism and protecting my family?

Why, indeed.

It’s because we rarely do actual evangelism, so we have to make everything else into evangelism to cover for it.

It’s kind of like working out. When you aren’t doing any dedicated workouts but you know you want to, what do you do? Pretend everything else is a workout.

“I’ll park at the end of the Walmart lot to get extra steps. I’ll jog the last couple blocks while out with the dog.”

That’s great, but not a substitute for an actual workout.

Similarly, just because we’re bad at evangelism doesn’t mean we should try to turn everything else into evangelism.

“Ok, we’re not evangelizing… so we’ll think of our politics as evangelism.

We’ll figure out a way to make our worship services into an outreach.

We’ll watch the same tv and movies as the world to be “relevant” for the sake of evangelism.

We’ll tie a string to the dollars of our benevolence to make the effort evangelistic.

We’ll throw our children into godless indoctrination centers as bait for evangelism.”

You can be evangelistic in all of those settings. But each of them serve their own respective primary purpose, none of which is evangelism.

This is how you get theologians who will say they wouldn’t defend their family against a violent intruder because “it wouldn’t show the Gospel” to the would-be rapist.

This is how you get compromised takes on issues like abortion or sexuality, because hard-line stances “hurt our ability to reach the lost.“

This is how you get politics based on what would happen if those who hate God found out about your vote, rather than based on what vote will lead to better governance.

This is how you get churches who will close their doors for a year over a virus because the TV doctors told them they’ll be counted dangerous murderers if they stay open. And we don’t want our community thinking we’re dangerous murderers.

This is how “loving your neighbor” gets twisted to mean “capitulating to every demand they make of you.”

Notice a common thread through all of these examples: they all start with the question, “what will the lost think?”

None of them start with “what is pleasing to God?”

Instead, that has become a secondary question. We’re taking the positions we think will bring in the most people and assuming that result is what pleases God.

Holiness is the main casualty of our approach.

We refuse to be different in case somebody doesn’t like it. So we tell the world, “my beliefs aren’t so important that they require me to actually stand for anything.”

Imagine you go to your local country club and ask about a membership.

“It’ll be $500 per month. No jeans allowed. You’ll receive a locker that you’ll be expected to keep clean.”

“Ok, thanks but no thanks,” you say.

“Wait! Why not? Was it the fee? We could go to $300 for you. Maybe even $200! And we can make an exception for you on the jeans thing, really.”

“No, I think I’ll pass.”

“Ok fine, $100! And we’ll clean your locker area for you!”

Two results: one, your respect for this club just dropped exponentially. Two, if you do sign on and they later ask for more money or commitment, there’s no way you’ll give it. You know you have them in your pocket.

When churches shape their lives around the whims of the ungodly and unregenerate to do “evangelism,” our targets will never respect what we offer, and they’ll never have a reason to sacrifice for Christ.

When it’s time to evangelize, we must dedicate ourselves to it and do it well. When it’s time for one of the million other things we have to do in life, let’s do those to the glory of God, too.