Yep, I Totally Did This Creepy Evangelism Strategy

Comic showing a man at a bus stop, wearing a shirt that says "Let's talk about Jesus." He says, "It guarantees me an entire seat all to myself." Image source.

Captain Cassidy's post, J.D. Greear Wants Southern Baptists to Become Even Creepier, on the blog Roll to Disbelieve, has got me thinking about evangelism strategies I used to use. Back in the day, when I was "on fire for Jesus" and all that.

Yeah, turns out I was creepy. I don't think my "unsaved" friends were ever aware of it, or ever thought of me as creepy, but seriously, the entire concept of evangelism is creepy. We believed that all non-Christians lived unhappy lives and what they really needed was "a personal relationship with Jesus", and we tried to lead them in that direction. It didn't matter if they weren't interested in Jesus- ha, nope, we knew them better than they knew themselves. If they said they weren't interested, that just meant we needed to pray for them more and put more effort into befriending them, all while trying to subtly push them towards Jesus. We didn't take "no" for an answer. (Yep, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I say evangelical Christianity never taught me about boundaries or consent.)

In her blog post, Captain Cassidy is talking about Southern Baptist Convention President J. D. Greear's "Who's Your One?" approach to evangelism. Here's a quote from Greear:

Recently, at The Summit Church, we tried something similar. We asked each member of our congregation to identify one person they could pray for and seek to bring to Christ over the year. The phrase we kept repeating was, “Who’s your one?”

Each member of the church was supposed to pick one non-Christian friend and target them with evangelism. Yes, I totally did stuff like this, back in college. Our campus Christian group would encourage each member to choose someone, at the beginning of the semester. We would tell the members of our bible study group who our target was, and give updates as the semester went along. We would regularly pray for the target to be "open" to God, pray that we would have an "opportunity to share the gospel." We would try to invite them to Christian events- the bible study leaders would even specifically point out which events would be good ones to invite those targets to.

(The reason for targeting specific people was that it's easy for Christians to just say vague things like "we should share the gospel with our friends" and then never actually do it. If we make it into a very concrete thing, with clear steps and goals, it's more likely that our group members will actually do it. Move evangelism from "theory" to "practice.")

The whole goal was to get those people to change- to abandon whatever religious beliefs they had and join our brand of Christianity. We believed it was in their best interest. Surely every non-Christian is, at some deep level, unsatisfied with their life, and would be much better off if they became a Christian. We believed that as if it were an indisputable fact, and so we tried to change people. (Note: this is Christian supremacy.) Also, we believed non-Christians go to hell. We wanted to "save" our friends. We believed God wanted it too. It didn't matter that our targets didn't want that- their resistance was just an obstacle that the Holy Spirit was going to help us overcome.

I remember I used to keep a list of "unsaved" friends that I prayed for regularly. It was so emotionally painful for me, to pray for them again and again and to want it so bad. To pray for them for months or years and not see any progress in terms of their desire to become Christians. It hurt. I remember my friend Rachel told me not to give up- she said "I prayed for my best friend for 7 years before she became a Christian."

7 years... that's a long time. I wondered how long it would take for my friends. How many years of my devoted prayers before it "worked"? How much effort do I have to put in in order to get these people to change their religion?

Umm. No. Over here in reality, that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works at all. Over here in reality, people get to make their own decisions about religion, and it's none of my business. No matter how much work I put into it, I don't have any claim over somebody else's personal life. I'm not "owed" anything because I prayed for years and worked so hard to be a good friend and "show them Christ's love."

(Sort of reminds me of "nice guys" who complain about being "friendzoned"... as if a woman owes them a date because they spent so much time and effort being "nice" to her. We never used the term "owe" but we were discouraged when our evangelistic efforts weren't "working"- which is basically the same thing.)

But that's what evangelism is. That's what we believed in- oh I believed in it so hard. It's believing that people aren't qualified to make their own choices- their judgment is too clouded by their sinful nature- and they need us to "help" them "find Jesus." Doesn't matter what they say; we know what they actually need. If they told us to back off, we backed off just enough to make them think we were respecting their choice, and then we continued to look for more subtle ways to influence them towards Jesus.

Creepy...

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Related:
Evangelism and Deception
The things I've never let myself say about evangelism 
"My Evangelism Isn't Working" is a Very Creepy Thing to Say