The Gathering

Love for the Sake of Love - Nov 2005

Have you ever found it difficult to speak to a friend about your relationship with God? Have you ever looked at "evangelism" and wondered how it works? If you have, you're not alone.

There have been thousands of books written on evangelism; how to do it, how not to do it, how to start a conversation, etc. There's been a recent trend (over the last few years) toward what is called, "friendship evangelism." Basically, "friendship evangelism" is the idea of becoming someone's friend in order to lead them to Jesus. Let me tell you why I hate this movement.

The entire idea is based on manipulation and fake love. You basically become someone's friend in order to "win them to Christ." You don't become their friend out of compassion or love, you become their friend under the condition that they accept Jesus. Usually what happens is that after awhile, if the person doesn't decide to follow Jesus, you bail on them and find a new target. I hope at this point you realize how unchristian this really is. I challenge you to find this idea in Scripture.

The gospels continually speak of eating and fraternizing with tax collectors (read: greedy, money-hungry, and corrupt), prostitutes, adulterers, lepers, and other "seedy" people. The love that Jesus had for these people is the same love he has for us: unconditional. He didn't hang out with these people and love them on the condition that they accept his message. He loved for them the sake of loving them. He recognized in these people a deep need for a better way of living, and so he showed them the better way through love.

When we begin a relationship with someone in order to convert them, we are not loving them unconditionally. I believe in the importance of expanding God's Kingdom, but I believe in the way Jesus went about it, not the way we've gone about it in the modern world. We must love those around us only for the sake of loving them. If we took this approach, maybe we would find that more people would respond to the beautiful message of God's redemption.

Brad