Leadership Journal

Well, I think doing service and sharing the gospel, or one or the other are all worthy; however prayer preparation is essential. Any person or group can sincerely reach out in service to the homeless or poor, but the results of evangelism is ultimately up to the freedom of people to accept Jesus or not. We can plant seeds, but are not responsible for the results of other's decisions to believe or not to believe in the end. That's where the prayer comes in. Therefore, I think the we can choose service, apologetics to start a discussion, or evangelism. And these three ways can fit different people and different times in their life. Either way, we can go in the grace of God. It doesn't have to be completely a choice of one or the other. Without evangelizing, prayer will work wonders because we have a wonderful Creator and Lord, who draws people to him no matter what the circumstance, no matter what state or country. Just love your neighbors, pray for them, and forget about critics.

If respect is what we want or being percieved as bright, fun people, this strategy works. But for saving souls it’s a flop. Paul was run out of most towns, at Thessolonica the angry citizens said “these are they that have turned ther world upside down”. In October 2011, 300 people from 30 churches met together and had a brief morning teachiong on Evangelism. Then 150 stayed behind to intercede. The other 150, all timid novices, went out on the streets of Portland. In 4 hours 532 people were saved. They prayed out loud, repented of sin, invited Jesus in their hearts and gave names and phone numbers for followup. We simply used the old, propositional evangelism that Andrew criticizes...God has a wonderful plan for your life and 3 scriptures from Romans. So don’t tell me it doesn’t work in hip, wierd, sophisticated Portland. I wish Luis would conduct seminars in Evangelism for the churches and then send them out rather than extract a promise not to tell people about Jesus. Luis? Luis?

I think Luis knows this “evangelism” doesn’t work. When asked about results Luis says, “The pendulum seems to swing between social action and evangelism, and right now I think the pendulum has swung to social action. I worry because right now people almost sneer at the concept of evangelism.” Kevin comments, “I wish I could say, "We held a service festival which fostered a ton of relational evangelism, and the number of people accepting Christ doubled." But we can't.” In fact, the Palau team made a promise NOT to evangelize during the Season of Service. “Since the ministry pledged that Season of Service would include no proselytizing—just a goal to be an annual link between local churches and city services. On the advice of Kevin Palau, the Luis Palau Association has decided the best way to evangelize in Portland is not to evangelize at all.” Willamette Week, 5/20/09. Commissioner Nick Fish is adamant the city will tolerate no evangelism in the partnership. I live here and I love Luis.