Tuesday, March 23rd, 2004 - God's a Better Hick Than I

I haven't been able to go to one of my Bible Studies this semester because I usually don't get out of Chi Alpha early enough to make it. Tonight, I got the impression that I should go, so I ended up not going to Chi Alpha. God totally spoke to me through the whole night, continuing to cultivate and tie in my experience at Big Break this past week.

One of the first things that our Bible Study leader said was that he received a call from the Intervarsity small group coordinator guy, and he told him that he would like him to focus on reaching out to lost people with the Gospel for this week's Bible Study. We have been going through the Gospel of Luke, and our regular study would have continued with Luke 8:4-15, the parable of the farmer scattering seed; our leader told us that this already related to evangelism, so we continued with studying this passage for our study tonight.

In the past, I have looked at this passage in the sense that we, as Christians, are the farmer. As we go out and share the Gospel message with others (scatter the seed), the various results of that planting in the parable parallel the responses of different people to the message. While this view may have some merit, God showed me a new perspective through some quality discussion tonight. Jesus explains the parable in depth upon the disciples' inquiry, but He doesn't explicitly explain what or who the farmer represents.

The farmer can be seen as God. The Father sent Jesus down to spread God's message to the people on earth, landing on different kinds of people, as explained in the parable. The soils are representative of us (evidenced by verse 15), so one of our main questions was which soil have we been most living like? Most of us admitted that we are often much more like the thorny ground than the fertile soil, easily getting caught up and distracted by school, activities, or friends. I strongly believe that my spending way too much time with close friends rather than God last year was a major reason that He needed to call me out to Duluth this year.

We continued to discuss practical ideas of reaching out to people and also certain people who we felt to reach out to. This really hit home as a reminder from God to be even more intently focused on what He wants to do through me in the remainder of the semester, in reaching guys on my floor. I also shared some insight from the week of training at Big Break that really spoke to me.

We had this booklet/manual/guide thingy at Big Break which I found to be very helpful. It underlines some general steps to take in reaching people with the Gospel:
1. "Explorer" - basically, find out where the person is at. Do they come from a churched background? Are they interested in spiritual things? Do they know that God has provided the opportunity for a personal relationship with Him?
2. "Guide" - explain the Gospel message, the path to a relationship with God, through what Jesus has done for us.
3. "Bridge Builder" - help resolve obstacles that stand between them and committing their life to following Jesus. I see the first step as "where they're at" and the second step as to "where they should go" - this third step is like building the bridge between those two points. Find out what their "hang-up" is, i.e. bad experiences with Christians in the past, science or knowledge, issues with suffering, difficulty believing in the unseen. God has an answer to every circumstance, and this step (as all of them) is completely led by the Holy Spirit speaking truth in response to the person's problem.
The fourth step is "Mentor" which involves following up and encouraging new believers after they have turned their life to Christ; this is a crucial step, but it only comes into play once a person is a Christian, so I wouldn't include it in evangelism.

I think that this general guide is helpful to keep in mind. Every conversation and situation is different, but these tips remain consistently helpful regardless of externals. The most important thing throughout it all is to be prayerfully surrendering completely to the Holy Spirit and His guiding - that is why God is the farmer instead of us. No one can effectively share the Gospel by their own strength; the Holy Spirit's empowering, leading, and counseling is the only absolute evangelistic tool, and He is sufficient. Of course, that doesn't mean that He doesn't use other means to reach lost people.

Looking back to my past view of the parable, it makes sense that I have been confused or unsure of evangelizing in the past. I was trying to be the farmer, as I explained in my post about Big Break. God really is continuing to drive it home to me that He is orchestrating everything, encouraging me to surrender and offer myself as an outlet for Him to use to reach lost people - to do His work. The harvest is great, but the workers are few (Luke 10:2) - the last thing that God needs is one less worker prancing around in his own way in his own little world. I praise God that He is keeping me in an uncomfortable life away from that kind of comfortable misdirection, which is so easy for me to slip into.

Back to Main Page