Jesus Loves You, and I Have a Wonderful Plan for Your Life
Although I published this two weeks ago, as my first paid post, I forgot to hit send 🤦♂️. So, I am resending it. Sorry if you got it a second time.
When I was in university, a line I heard frequently when people shared their faith was:
“Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”
It sounds nice, but it was far more of a platitude than a well-thought-out understanding of what it means to be a Jesus follower. To me, it always sounded more like a cheesy sales pitch than a genuine conversation.
When I was pastoring a church in Ithaca and we were recruiting people for ministry teams, I would tell our congregation:
“Jesus loves you, and James (the staff member who oversaw our ministry teams) has a wonderful plan for your life.”
Being a Person
Earlier this year, I mentioned to a colleague that I was hanging out with someone from improv that evening. They asked me about my plans to evangelise this person. When I told them I didn’t have any, they said, “Oh, you must do something else.”
I said I had nothing planned, then corrected myself: the only plan was to enjoy dinner with another person. Other than getting to know them and enjoying the evening, I had no agenda.
I have a lot of respect for this colleague. They’re thoughtful, sincere, and deeply committed to Jesus. But that short exchange reminded me of similar conversations I’ve had over the years, where the expectation was that any interaction with a non-Christian should ultimately have a spiritual agenda.
And it reminded me how deeply modern evangelicalism has conditioned us to see every person outside the faith as a project.
So we look at times when we have an opportunity to hang out with someone as a chance to tell them about Jesus, and we spend the conversation looking for moments to naturally work Jesus in—regardless of how clunky the fit may be.
Even though we meet under the guise of hanging out and having an enjoyable time together, because I am an evangelical Christian, my internal programming tells me to show up with a pre-packaged gospel presentation to spring on them.
Evangelism
Before I get into the reasons why this kind of evangelism is so damaging, I want to share a definition that reflects the kind of good news I believe we’re meant to share. This quote from N.T. Wright in Surprised by Hope encapsulates it well:
“Evangelism is not simply a matter of bringing individuals to personal faith, though of course that remains central to the whole enterprise. It is a matter of confronting the world with the good, but deeply disturbing, news of a different way of living… the way of love.”
This picture of evangelism not only shows honour to the other person, it’s much more in line with what Jesus calls us to.
Friendship Evangelism
Back in the 1980s, the church I went to during university showed a film on Friendship Evangelism, which was presented as a low-pressure way to share your faith in Jesus with other people. You would spend time with someone, develop a friendship, and then use it to lead them to become a Christian.
I thought the idea was gross.
👇 The rest of this post is for paying subscribers: I share five reasons why this kind of evangelism is not only ineffective—it’s harmful.