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Perhaps, like mine, your church leaders are fond of telling you that “Christmas is the biggest opportunity of the year for evangelism.”
Perhaps, like me, Christmas is the biggest opportunity for evangelism guilt.
And although it’s only mid-November, they’ve already started cranking up the pressure (sorry, I mean, encouragement) at my church.
Because you know how the next six weeks go, right?
Welcome to the inside of my head…
First Sunday: the guy at the front of church waves the invites to the Christmas events, tells you to invite your friends.
Second Sunday: the guy at the front of church waves the invites to the Christmas events, tells you to invite your friends.
Third Sunday: the guy at the front of church waves the invites to the Christmas events, tells you to invite your friends.
Ok, ok, I’ll invite someone.
You send a text. (The coward’s invite.)
The agonising wait for them to reply.
They say “no”—you’re crushed.
Or even worse, they say “yes”—and the whole tortuous process continues…
Maybe they’ll bail.
I hope they don’t bail.
Maybe it would be better if they did bail.
They don’t bail. They actually come.
You sit through the event analysing every sentence spoken from the front.
I wish he hadn’t chosen that illustration.
Oh boy I wish Christians were Just. Less. Weird.
You cast a sidelong look at your guest during the talk.
Is he listening? He’s staring into space. Is he bored or contemplating the meaning of life?
You quickly turn back to the speaker and try and look like you’re listening yourself.
The talk ends. You breathe a sigh of relief.
The preacher landed that well. Nailed it.
But now you want time to slow down so that the service never ends.
You need more time to build up to the big moment.
The service is over. The moment is now.
You turn to your guest, and sheepishly ask:
“So, err… what did you think?”
With the prospect of that fraught internal monologue, it’s no surprise that mention of Christmas outreach at church is already giving me a slight sinking feeling.
So what’s the solution to Christmas evangelism guilt—or any evangelism guilt, for that matter?
We’ve published books. We’ve produced courses. But really, what I most need is to be reminded just how good the news about Jesus is. It’s the best thing I can hear this Christmas, and it’s the best thing my friends and family can hear.
December needs to start with the evangel first and evangelism second. Because it’s the truth about Jesus that can drown out my insecurity and guilt, and get me to invite people to Christmas services not because I ought to, but because I want to.
December needs to start with the evangel first and evangelism second.
And of course, the gospel is also the antidote to all the other fraught internal monologues that plague us during the Christmas season. The I really don’t know what gift to get this person angst; the Life would be better if I had more money deception; the Christmas parties make me nervous thoughts, and perhaps worst of all, the Is that really another year of my life gone already? vortex.
Most of us need help to refocus our hearts. And church leaders can play their part. Kathryn Jackson explained what they did at Cornerstone Church in Nottingham in a recent blog:
“On the first Sunday in December we gave each household at church a gift. We’d wrapped up copies of Tim Chester’s Advent devotional The One True Light and as a church we read through it in December."
"Why did we do this? Because in the midst of all the excitement and encouragement for evangelism we didn’t want our members to miss out on the opportunity to once again marvel at the God who became flesh and dwelt among us."
"Our prayer was that with our eyes fixed on Christ and on the beauty of the incarnation we might be bolder with our invitations and more winsome with our words. And God was good. In 2015 we had a 40% increase in numbers at our carol services in comparison to 2014."
Our new devotional for this Advent is called The One True Story. I can’t wait to use it, and, I hope—enjoy a guilt-free December.
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Rachel Jones is the author of A Brief Theology of Periods (Yes, Really), Is This It? and several books in the award-winning Five Things to Pray series, and serves as Vice President (Editorial) at The Good Book Company. She helps teach kids at her church, King's Church Chessington, in Surrey, UK.
