the ones who have heard

A few days ago, a brother and I discussed the topic of discipleship, and he showed me this chart that was a like a roadmap of spiritual maturity. It listed various aspects of our Christian walk, and defined the characteristics of that aspect into different levels of maturity. For example, Scripture-reading is a mark of discipleship. A beginner-level Christian will read the Word every now and then; a mature Christian will read lots of it every day, and memorize it. I like the concept of detailing the different stages of maturity, but what caught my eye was the inclusion of "Evangelism" in this chart.

This was not the first time the typical evangelical position on evangelism has rubbed me the wrong way. Several of the classes we offer on developing new Christians or veteran Christians includes a section on witnessing and how to spread the Gospel to others. I am in the clear minority when I say that it is wrong to encourage Christians to evangelize the way most churches encourage witnessing. It is even worse to track maturity by the number of testimonies delivered that month, or the number of souls won over by your ability to knock on doors and hand out tracts.

Evangelism is a gifting. Eph4:11 makes it clear that God made people different in their ability to spread the Gospel effectively. We cannot all be Billy Grahams based on the number of times we share our testimonies, or get bold with strangers and acquaintances. To measure spiritual maturity based on the number of spiritual discussions with people around us recently is ridiculous. You are either gifted with evangelism, or you are not. In the end, it is the Spirit of God who creates conversations, it is the Spirit of God who opens hearts, and it is the Spirit of God who wins souls. Churches ask you the asinine question, "Well imagine what would have happened if that person wasn't obedient to God and didn't share his testimony -- all those people wouldn't have gotten saved." Really? People are that indispensable to God's plans? These are the same people that hold to the doctrine of election -- if God chose the saved, they will be saved, your participation in the event notwithstanding.

I am not saying that mature Christians don't share their faith. All Christians should share their faith as they are prompted to do so by the Holy Spirit. I am also not saying that churches shouldn't encourage believers to share their faith. They most certainly should. I am saying that not all Christians will be given the opportunity to seriously witness, and I am saying that tying evangelism to maturity is improper. Some Christians will be given more chances to share testimonies than others. Some Christians might be beginner-level in their maturity, but gifted with the ability to win over souls; while other very mature Christians will never have a testimony that affects others. There are lots of aspects of the Christian walk that can and should be tied to every believer. Myself, I don't believe that evangelism belongs in that group.