Evangelism

How can the church community make room for all people to share their stories of faith? How can we listen to the stories of people who are not in the church?

Two keys to following Christ are to follow his example and let people know - “I see you” and “You are welcome here.” The Gospels are full of stories of Jesus meeting strangers, seeing them for who they truly are, and letting these outsiders know he welcomes them – usually by making a request of them. “Draw me a pitcher of water so I may drink.”  
 
Jesus isn’t meeting them “in church.”  He’s meeting them out in the street, going about their everyday business, before they are his disciples. This would suggest the church building isn’t the best place to meet new people. Now we’re faced with social distancing as well, and it’s difficult to get close enough to talk! This means that making room for storytelling becomes an intentional choice, and not a happy accident.

As Desmond Tutu shares in his book “The Fourfold Path to Forgiveness,” a necessary step towards healing and forgiveness is to tell one’s story to a safe person, one who will not judge or interrupt with questions, but listen attentively and intentionally to the story’s meaning and impact.

One way a church community can make room for the faith stories of others is simply to ask, and listen.  Marie notices that people shed hurt feelings all over the place—Facebook or Twitter are favorite places to complain—and a private message, “Tell me more” can open up a story that needs an audience.  Of course that means we need to cultivate a mission of listening as a spiritual practice—and avoid the temptation for judgment and fixing until and if the bearer of the story reveals whether they need to be heard or helped. Often, what the teller needs is for their listener to be safe, to know that they will not be harmed in the telling, and Christians have largely lost the reputation of being safe—we need to earn that reputation back. 

Part of making room for storytelling is asking people to walk with us in mission, as a place outside of church where such storytelling is natural. As demonstrated in the Hands and Feet Initiative, mission is something we do “with” not “to” or “for.” Arthur tells this story, 
“When I was working in California, I met Don Simmons. At that time he was doing great work with the homeless in San Francisco. One day a bus full of church people on a “mission trip” from another state drove up and stopped by a large homeless encampment under the freeway next door to the church he served. He could see the folks gawking through the window and taking pictures of the homeless. Don knocked on the bus door, climbed on board, introduced himself and asked what they were doing in the neighborhood. The church folks told him they had come to see all the mission points: the prostitutes’ alley, the gay district, the homeless camp -- and the folks said “This is terrible. What can we do?” 

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I’ll never forget Don’s response: “Get off the damn bus.”

How do we make room to hear faith stories of others not in the church? 

We get off the bus. 

We get out of the building.