This was originally written as a pastoral passage for LRBC for March 16 2025

I would like to share some of what has happened with my first forays into evangelism using the Take Another Look website.

The main efforts have been with a 600-word post about the four Gospels that introduces and encourages people to read them.

This has been promoted in two ways.

One is using paid advertising (just a small budget) on Facebook that is centred on Henderson and the surrounding suburbs.

The other is by free posting on a series of local community group pages, that also introduce myself as a local church leader at LRBC. This is similar to how I promote my honey business.

This has provoked a mixture of responses:

• Some people have responded by hurling abuse at me—they hate seeing a Christian voice trespassing into a public space. This is the hostile end of secularism. It isn’t always rational and is in some at least some cases motivated by past grievances with religion. This teaches me that it is important to have a thick skin, to “bless those who curse you and pray for those who abuse you”, and to consider it an honour to experience this for identifying with Christ (Luke 6:28; cf. 1 Peter 4:12–19).
• Others expressed gratitude and encouraged me. They are pleased to see Jesus acknowledged and commended in a public space. Some of these come from across religious divides.
• I have had my commendation of the Gospels dismissed on the basis that the Gospels are based on spurious grounds. One person who had a lengthy discussion insisted that we don’t know who wrote them, nor do we know what they originally said, and that since it is all based on “blood sacrifices” it is all historically dubious and morally deplorable. This person made a lot more milage out of some facts than I thought was warranted, and did not have a very full grasp of other things he spoke about.
• One “progressive” Christian who talked with me a while thought the entirety of Jesus’ message could be boiled down loving one’s neighbour as yourself. In his mind Christians too often over-interpret the rest of Jesus’ teaching. Since this is the “greatest commandment” “on which hang all the Law and the prophets” (see Matthew 22:36–40; he’s slightly but significantly off the mark), everything else must be understood through this, and made to conform to it if it appears not to fit with loving others as he understood it.

These engagements have shown how everyone has a background that they bring with them, which must be respectfully engaged in evangelistic endeavours. Much of this cannot be done online.

Can I ask you to consider helping in a few ways?

1. Can you add these things to what you pray for?
   1. For open hearts and ears for the people I talk with.
   1. For me to be bold and wise and clear in how I reach out.
   1. For wisdom for me in deciding what are the best uses of time in this work.
   1. For bridging the gap between “online” to “in-person” connections.

• Be extra prepared to welcome new visitors to our church. We already get occasional visitors from other personal connections within our church, and from links with the childcare, and this may bring a few more. It is important to make the effort to meaningfully include new people who are inquiring about church and Jesus and Christian faith. This isn’t something to leave to the few “professionals” and extroverts in our church. Your role is too valuable to do that and more valuable than you think. You can help include new people in the life of the church in a way that is appropriate to their stage of faith—please welcome and invite them in!

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