NYC Update #1

Our NYC trip was very very good, way beyond my expectations. There were 20 something people from our church, the majority youth, but quite a few post-youth group age folks as well, which I thought was very cool. John Hartzler from Harrisonburg did a great job of leading the group.

One of the main goals of this trip developing our own skills in sharing our faith. We enlisted Allen Roth to give us some tips on evangelism, and we spent an hour with him Saturday morning at Followers of Jesus while he talked about sharing Jesus. That was very very helpful for everyone.

One of our biggest problems in personal evangelism seems to be fear. Fear is huge for many of us. Allen addressed this difficulty almost right away and assured us that this is perfectly normal. In fact, it has been a huge struggle for him. He was desperately shy as a young person and has had to work really hard at becoming the excellent communicator he is now. And even now he normally experiences fear as he goes out to talk to people he doesn't know about Jesus. But its OK. A little fear never hurt anybody. More on his session later.

Saturday morning after the Roth session we split up and went knocking on doors and accosting innocent people in the streets. Albert and I struck up several great conversations with several of these hapless street wanderers. We talked to a young Indian lady, a Hindu, who knew very little of Jesus and the Kingdom. I tried to explain it in an understandable way, but she did not seem to comprehend too much of it. She had to leave eventually and I hope something stuck. We talked to others, a man who was not satisfied with his relationship/lack of rel. with Jesus but did not feel ready to make any changes. A Moslem lady sung the praises of Islam, but sadly could feel assured of her destination after death. She loved the religion because of the many things they do, such as praying five times a day and washing before worship and other things purely external, and I suppose they get satisfaction out of doing them faithfully and thinking it gives them merit with God.

In the afternoon we passed out tracts and sang in the subways. The passing out of the tracts, JFU's of course, is an exercise I have often considered nearly worthless. But when I saw so many taking them and reading them with obvious interest, my skepticism took a hit. People really read those things, and they must have made at least a small impression. And most importantly, they include a little section with steps to salvation, a thing that could very possibly lead a person to Jesus. And they have a phone and address of the local church, which was very valuable when talking to people, cause we could point out that address and suggest they call if they have things to talk about.

My brother Eric commented on the way home that his skepticism had been mitigated as well as he observed the response of people to them. And he said something I think is very true, something like “we need to get the gospel out there, and we need to use whatever means are available. Tracts may not be the perfect method, but it's at least something, and that is better than nothing.”

I'll try to write more and include some of Allen's tips on evangelism, and fill you in on our Sunday morning at Times Square Church.