Forgiveness, Acceptance, Love and Friendships (sickening isn't it?)

Ok I am encouraged.  First of all I had a series of nice comments from one of the pastors at my church about my blog posts and next I found this blog entry from a church blog in Las Cruces, NM (I grew up in Albuquerque). 

Link to thechurchblog » What are you tired of?

Recently I ranted a bit about another post, of course I was only ranting about that one post by a pastor.  I have been reading other posts by the same author and very much enjoyed them.  I wasn't criticizing the person only that one particular delivery of a message.  In my rant luckily I did mention that the role of Love and Acceptance were extremely important.  Seems like the good book places some pretty high value on Love.  The pastor at my church who wrote a comment mentioned that Forgiveness would be a nice add to the three.  Most likely that is because without that third leg the stool is difficult to sit on much less stand to reach for higher goals.

In the blog entry "What are you tired of?" this blogger talks about a form of spreading the message (evangelism) that is revolutionary.  That's sad because it shouldn't be.  This should be common sense.  Become a friend to people.  A true friend.  To do that you are probably going to have to forgive people for a few mistakes.  I don't know about you but I have often had to forgive my friends. Luckily not nearly as much as they have had to forgive me.  That's part of friendship.  Forgiveness is so important you should actually begin by applying it to yourself.  That's right forgive yourself FIRST!  Go ahead do it right now. Ok, now that you realize you can forgive yourself even though you are a big time screw up you can apply the same forgiveness to others.  Then accept them and finally apply the Love.  Now doesn't that feel good?

This approach is a lot better than the classical approach to evangelism.  The salesman approach.  Qualify your target, next deliver your pitch and finally deal with every objection they can come up with and bingo you have yourself a new convert.  Of course to do this you have to win every argument they can throw at you.  So you better really study your Bible and when you are studying you should make notes maybe on cards that you can carry with you.  These cards should describe all the ways people mess up and how that really ticks off God, but that Jesus died on the cross for your sins.  This sounds good doesn't it???? Not really.  The only part I like about it is that the end part is true.  Before I point fingers at others, it's true that Jesus died for the screw ups that I have committed.  But I accept that fact because of the radical difference I have seen in others and now the radical change and comfort that has provided in my life.  I didn't come to that because somebody won the argument with me or signed me up in their down-line of salvations to secure bigger diamonds in heaven.  (This is a bad reference to Multi-Level-Marketing which I wholeheartedly support in commerce just on in evangelism.)

The problem with the salesman approach is the same problem that salesmen have, it's called Buyer's remorse.  Just because you appeared to make a sale didn't mean you made a convert.  That is true in sales and it is true in evangelism. In both cases, you the salesmen can't tell which one you have but if you make a friend you usually know it.  If you are there for them and they are there for you in good times and bad you have a friend.  If you have a belief your friend can't help but respect that belief, and maybe someday embrace the belief themselves. 

If you have a biblically based faith forget about conquest go out and make friends.  You will feel much better about yourself.