A High Found Outside the Church

When I went to Publix today I had a very short but powerful evangelistic encounter. At the checkout counter I asked the cashier for a book of stamps. 

The bagboy, as we used to call them before things got politically correct, asked the cashier if I was trying to buy cigarettes. I felt a flash of unashamed boldness rise up in me, and I said “Jesus took away my desire to smoke thirty years ago.” I briefly recounted how by simple prayer God had changed the desire of my heart and in one day freed me from fifteen years of smoking. The cashier was sincerely amazed. I had a chance to share a bit more with them before I had to go.

Evangelism in Africa is a lot easier than in the USA. I must say however that there is a high and an excitement that evangelism brings that will never be found in church.

I don’t have an answer or formula for successful evangelism. I do not like evangelizing in the states. On Sunday I gave a card of our church services to the guy making me the sandwich at Subways. He glanced at it and summarily and seemingly disinterested put it down. Yet, I do not know if he picked it up later.

I don’t have an easy solution for evangelism in America.  All I know is that a fire and a high will come into you when you do it. You will never find it inside the walls of the church.

When you feel that tinge of unashamed boldness hit you, go for it. I will be trying it more, though my mind wished that I was back in Africa.