Conversations for Conversion Sake, An Ongoing Series That Will Chronicle My Experiences in Sharing the Gospel
Let me give some context. I work on a 3rd shift crew of eight other people. We drive around an airport ramp loading planes all night. It is actually a very fun job. Quick sprints between planes, loading "cans", driving belt loaders, pulling dollies with tugs. Wearing flourescent yellow smocks that have reflective stripes. As a crew we ride around in an old UPS delivery truck which has been gutted and now has van seats bolted to the floor against the side of one wall. The other side of the truck has two shelves. These are convenient and lengthy enough to hold four resting bodies. So...we spend lots of time in the truck...hurrying up to wait. This affords lots of time for conversation.
I will begin posting parts of conversations which tend toward God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I need prayers. You may or may not know me. Regardless, pray for me. I am saying to anyone who reads this, "Pray for me." Beyond and in addition to that leave comments to help me think through the conversations. That is, if you think I blew it, then tell me. If I "accidentally" said something brilliant, then give God the glory and let me know about it. If you have advice on what could have been said, or might be said in future conversation then by all means chime in.
I wonder if we did this sort of thing on Wednesday or Sunday nights if it wouldn't lead to more fruitful conversations and conversions. What would happen if on Wed night the goal was to walk through and talk through the witnessing we'd done through the week and began praying and strategising through how to continue in the next opportunity? What kind of learning and inspiration would churches begin to experience in "evangelism" if we simply started these kinds of bull sessions, brainstorming sessions, critical assessment sessions?
My goals in this ongoing series is to get prayers for them and for me. My other goal is to encourage you to be bold in your witness. The world forces its way very boldly on us and them. Why not respond with even more boldness for Christ. I am already a "Jesus Freak" to my crew. Others might argue for some milder form of "friendship evangelism" to which I would reply, "This is friendship evangelism!! I love them and they know it! I am honest. To the point. There is no second guessing whether I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I smell like death to most of them but I smell like Life to others!"
A conversation with the black man, I was talking to the young Christian about what I taught in the abstinence classes...the infamous 4 questions,1- Why do you and everything else exist? 2-What does it mean to be human? 3-Why is there Good and Evil? 4-How do you know your answers to these questions are True? I was telling young Christian that I wanted to tack on some others questions which include, 5-Why do we demand and hope for Justice? 6-What is with this deep longing for happiness? 7-What/Why is guilt? The black man at this point asked, "Have you been reading Plato?" I was pretty suprised by the question and said,"No, but why do you ask?" He said, "That sounds like what he talked about. Especially, the what is happiness question. That sounds just like him." I nodded. He asked, "Do you like Plato? Have you read him?" I said, "Yes, I enjoyed reading Plato, that is I enjoyed the dialogues with Socrates. Socrates is a lot of fun. He asks good and hard questions." He nodded but I could tell that he hadn't ever read Plato but had obviously heard about or been taught some sort of overview of Plato. So, I went on to say, "You know what interesting is that the manuscripts we have of Plato's Socratic Dialogues are miniscule compared to the New Testament." He looked interested so I went on, "Yeah, most people have no problem accepting that both Plato and Socrates both existed and what they said is contained in the writings. But, people flip out as to whether Jesus ever existed or whether He really said what the Bible says He said. There are over 5000 manuscripts which are amazingly consistent and only differing in relation to use of some words. There is not a single doctrine or truth which is called into question with any one of these differences."
