Another Car Wash

Another Saturday, another free car wash. I wonder what impact this is having on the church community?

The whole impetus behind doing these free services is the principle of Servant Evangelism, a principle I read about in the Autumn of 2005 for those who don't know the journey so far. I hope that we will extend our acts of kindness beyond a simple programme of things we do, and towards a new culture for the way we do church, particularly evangelism. Let me explain.
I came to the conclusion some time ago that one of the reasons we don't engage in evangelism is because we've made it so very difficult for ordinary Christians to do. We've asked everyone to be an articulate and winsome evangelist. We've told them that the reason they can't do evangelism is that they don't know enough, that they are not brave enough or that they aren't committed enough.

We've also made the failure of our evangelism a virtue. When people reject our message, we say it's not our technique that's lacking, but rather it's their fault, or the devil's fault. Now there is probably some truth in this, but we can't absolve ourselves that much. We are, after all, part of the evangelism equation.

So, to get back to my question about the church community. My hope and prayer is that by introducing simple acts of kindness as a part of our evangelistic strategy (not our whole strategy), we'll begin to build evangelistic values into our culture as a community of faith. Not values of conversion, but values linked to sharing God's goodness as we experience it. Out of this, by the grace of God, people will begin to see what we've always proclaimed——God changes lives.

If servant evangelism is only a programme in our church, it only ever be a programme and eventually it will go the way of all programmes. It will either become institutionalised (we do it, but we can't quite remember why we do it?) or it will die through lack of interest and commitmentt. If it becomes part of our culturee, we will do it because it's the most natural thing for us to do.