Evangelism OR Witness

I know I wrote this somewhere else, but I can't seem, oh yeah, it was my last weekly email, that was it. Anyway, I was struck the other day, when a certain clergy person made the distinction between WITNESS and EVANGELISM. We talk in the Episcopal Church left and right about how bad we are at Evangelism, and it turns out we are, but not because we don't want it. Well, that may still be the case, as we tend to value small family congregations over larger ones. Anyway, this clergy person, which I find myself surprised to be agreeing with, talked about how Evangelism is a particular spiritual gift. Not everyone has the gift of evangelizing. I think we could say fairly well, that, also, much to my surprise, I have a particular gift of evangelism, it is something I love to do, get people to come to Church. The problem is that I am the priest, and then it becomes expected that I will be the one getting people to Church.

Anyway, I digress, not everyone has the gift of evangelism, not everyone has the ability, the skills to evangelize people, yet we somehow expect everyone in the Church to be an evangelist. Our evangleism committees often are made up of people who would rather be teaching, preaching, healing or some other type of activity that is more in line with their particular charismata, than evangelizing is.

See, the big thing for me, the thing that he said that was even more an AH HA, was talking about WITNESS. We all can witness to our faith, we all can witness to Christ in our lives and God Incarnate. We all can tell our stories of faith and stories about how we have come to believe the things we happen to believe. We all can witness.

At The Garden, I have seen some powerful witnessing lately from Stewardship Ministry Team members, from members of the congregation, when I get down among you for my sermons, often there are people who are responding to parts of my sermons. We are becoming a witnessing congregation, a congregation that is learning how to share its faith with the world, and imagine how much more powerful sharing our own faith stories will be in the scheme of things that we see in our current culture. I would much rather hear a story about how something had changed a life, than how something is supposed to change my life. Catch my drift?

Fun stuff, Witness, vs. Evangelsim, not really vs, what are your spiritual gifts, what are the things God has given to you to share with the community of faith gathered and the world about us? What are your gifts, watch in the near future for opportunities to participate in these kinds of groups and exercises, uncovering more and more who we are as gifted Children of God.

Be well,
A+

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