Evangelism...

My brain is full, too full. My stomach is starting to tie itself in knots, and I feel like I could cry. I am starting a new "bible" study on Sunday morning. I use the quotation marks on "bible" because I'm not sure how much of the Bible we will be getting in to...and that's something that drives me nuts too (if I'm going to lead Bible Study, I want to be in scripture ya know.) Usually I am so directed in what I'm going to teach, lead, or facilitate when it comes to Bible study...and I love doing it. I'm always comfortable in front of a group of people talking about something I'm passionate about and believe. And here I am as the new Director of Christian Outreach of a congregation preparing to teach her first official series of studies on Outreach and Evangelism and I feel like I'm grasping at straws to find something worth saying.

In light of some recent events in my life, and due to some self "searching" I have been doing brought on by the books I am reading preparing for this class, I feel like I don't even have a clue what I'm talking about. I went to school for this right? I'm supposed to be a professional...people are looking to me as an authority on this subject (a thought that makes me want to smile and laugh, and run and hide at the same time)

Here's what I know. On Sunday morning people will walk into my "classroom" and they will expect me to give them a system, or teach them a cookie cutter method that will help them share the gospel with the non-christian people they know to the end that they don't feel like idiots and their friends believe in Jesus and are saved. And instead I will tell them that there is no such method, and there is no system. I can't give them "7 things that highly effective evangelizers do" Because I don't believe that. And I feel like the church (not just the church I work at, but churches in general) have fallen pray to the "diet pill" society that we live in and are looking for a quick fix to our little problem with declining church membership...becuase that seems to be what people in the church are worried about...declining membership. I'm not trying to overgeneralize here...I know there are people out there who are genuinely concerned with the souls of the people in their lives, and those they don't know. I know there are people who are desperately seeking to live lives of Christian witness.

I just feel like there is a big moutain ahead of me...and something that usually excites me has me all confused, and is causing an internal struggle that I haven't struggled with in a while. So i guess on one side of things my brain and heart are at least focusing back on the ideas of evangelism and outreach...not subjects that were stimulated for me in previous work...so I will take that as the blessing in this whole situation, and pray that God uses me in some way shape or form through this study.