I just read Holly Ordway’s conversion story, Not God’s Type: An Atheist Lays Down Her Arms and was fascinated by it. I posted a review here, but in this post I’d like to focus on what I learned in terms of how to evangelize.
A few points to consider: Holly Ordway was not led to belief in God through a program, but a person. For her, the typical college evangelization tact of getting people together to socialize and force a conversation about your salvation did not work; it had the opposite effect of making her leery of Christians. In short, proselytizing was ineffective.
In her book, she writes, ”As we wrestled with these ideas, Josh answered my questions: not the questions that an evangelist might think I ought to have, but the ones I actually did have.”
What does this have to do with us? Are we willing to change our plan for the lesson or conversation to serve the people in front of us?
Last week I had my plan set for my meeting with a woman who is preparing to receive Communion and Confirmation in the near future. When she came into my office she was all excited and wanted to talk about the Rosary and how she had never known its full meaning or purpose and while she knew the Hail Mary and prayed it she thought the rosary itself was just jewelry (thank you Madonna). When she told her fiancé about what she had learned he was “well of course that’s what a rosary is” and how could he have not told her about it and when do kids usually learn about it and now I understand why people have them in their hands on the pane and…and… and.
It all came out, in one long breath and at first I tried to stop her and then I thought to myself, “Don’t stop her. Listen and answer her questions when she gets to them.”
And she asked questions and I answered her. I asked her if she had a rosary and she pulled out a plastic rosary enclosed in a plastic bag. She was so pleased that now she knew what to do with it. I had to leave and go get a rosary CD and pamphlet out of the closet for her.
We didn’t discuss what I had planned, but that’s okay. I answered her questions and the next time I see her we’ll get to the rest, after I listen to her and answer her questions.
If the goal is to be an effective evangelizer, then first we must listen, meeting people where they are on the journey. Not dragging them to where we think they should be walking. In ministry, I have found this mind set helps me to focus on walking with people on their faith journey. To me, that is true evangelization.
Copyright © 2014, Deanna Bartalini
