Motivation and Relationship

Over the summer someone made a fake version of our blog and posted a critique:

Transparent Motives

what if you initiated a conversation with someone as outlined in the seminars at church and they then asked you where you learned about soul cravings and then you told the truth that you had been trained to initiate conversations for the purposes of conveying your spiritual beliefs and went on to confess that you were going to go back to your church and relay the outcome of the conversation.

i would think that they would feel manipulated and devalued. i feel like it would immoral to coerce someone into spiritual conversation intentionally keeping information from them.

Mike

Someone else posted a comment and response

But aren't we as christians commanded to preach the good news to people? In season and out of season according to Paul. the difference is love and sincerity. We preach not just because we are commanded to, but out of love and concern for their eternal salvation. We can easily get hung up on the details but if you are doing something out of love, your motive is pure and you have nothing to worry about.

Paul

I think Mike makes an excellent critique worth addressing and that Paul responds well. I was so sad that these comments and this discussion did not occur on our blog that I have copied them here in order to weigh in.

Mike’s post argues that there is an element of deception and depersonalization in evangelism, particularly this kind systematized of “relationship” evangelism… and so I ask the question: Is there a deception? Does evangelism training depersonalize “the non believer”? Have I depersonalized just now with that phrase?

Paul responds with both the Biblical mandate to witness and also love. I think to expand the argument might be to say that love is always intensely personal and deeply values the beloved. But is Soul Cravings evangelism always loving?

I think the truth is that evangelism in general has in the past often not been loving and not been personal. It has been tracts and blitzes and crusades. We systematize evangelism in order to empower people to share their faith. We have coined terms like relational evangelism and yet are too often clueless and unwilling to engage in real relationships. I would suggest that training in effective relationships would be more useful than evangelism training and that if our evangelism is ineffective it is a deficiency in our love and relationships not our conversational techniques. The assumption of the training is not that people are talking to strangers but friends, real friends. It is also assumed that the friendship exists on its own and that the person is not merely a target or a project. When we enter into relationships our purpose has to be to love, not to convert. Our relationship is strengthened as we share deeply of ourselves, including our faith, and allow the other to do likewise. For the relationship to be real both parties must be impacted by the life and ideas of the other and cherish the other regardless of conversion. We must love the other not only for their likenesses to us but also our differences, which allow us to learn from and challenge each other.

Finally, this blog is not about reporting about trophy conversations but rather discussing the process, success, failure, future and present need of Christian witness in Abbotsford. How do we do it? Why? Where? What attitudes do we have? Does our culture have? How is God moving? And how is he calling us to be a part of His work in Abbotsford? Soul Cravings is not a conversion system but some language and words to help those trapped in the Christian bubble speak intelligibly about their faith to others. However, it must be more than words! If we cannot say that we have experienced God’s Intimacy and a sense of Destiny and found Meaning as a result of faith, we have no right to promise these things to others. Soul Cravings offers us non-Christianese language to describe the Christian experience, it presupposes that we have a living, vibrant and active faith that is deeply fulfilling. Soul Cravings helps remind us that we are more like others than we are different.