Overcoming My Fear of the "E-Word"

I don't know about you, but I get a lot of people interested in surveying me.  I get emails and calls from all types of businesses and organizations asking me questions about the my satisfaction with my purchase or my experience with their company.  Surveys typically annoy the heck out of me but they can useful so I try to fill one out every so often.

I read an interesting article about surveys by Fred Reichheld, author of "The Ultimate Question." Fred contends that businesses and organizations should really care about the answer to only one survey question:

"How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?"  (0 - 10 where 10 = very likely)

How strongly someone is willing put their name and reputation on the line for you is a clear predictor of how quickly your organization will grow.  People leveraging their platforms and their networks to promote your business willingly can be significantly more potent for growth than the most creative and crafty marketing schemes.  Their willingness to recommend you is a true indicator of their loyalty. (Faithfulness?)

So, the survey question I've been playing with for myself is this:

"How likely am I to recommend Christ to a friend or colleague?"

My knee-jerk response is that I would answer, "10 - very likely" to that question, but when I look at the reality of my own track record, the numbers don't really line up with that.  Don't get me wrong, if someone walked up and asked me if I would recommend that they follow Christ and His Way I would answer, "Absolutely!" Unfortunately, no one has ever really just walked up and asked me that.

This is a big problem.  It's a problem for me, it's a problem for my church, it's a problem for those God has placed in my life who don't yet know Christ, and I'm pretty sure it's a really big problem for God.

Evangelism.

I fear it. I cringe even saying the word sometimes.  In fact, let's just call it the "E-Word" from now on.   Jesus says I need to do it, but I just don't do it often enough.  I've grow far too comfortable saying, "Evangelism is not my Spiritual Gift." And, after being in the presence of those who truly have the Evangelical Gift, I still  believe that.

However, whether I have the Gift of Evangelism or not, doesn't relieve me of my responsibility to engage in it.  And so, I'll be working on overcoming my fears and writing about my discoveries along the way.  I don't plan on buying any bullhorns or "The End is Near " signs (it's just not my style) but I'll be discovering and writing about ways I can become better at sharing the Good News with a world in desperate need of it.

The Creature Inside My Kenmore

It was a great Easter last weekend.  I was blessed that my mother and her husband, and my sister and her family were all able to come over for Easter dinner.  It was a double bonus because my mom cooked the food and brought it over this year.  Both the food and the company exceptional and we had a tremendous time.  As always, we ate and ate.  And then we ate some more.

Even still, we had an abundance of food (leftovers) that I packed into my refrigerator, filling it to capacity.  After 5 days of eating leftover ham shank morsels this week and having reached my limit of deviled eggs and fatback green beans, I decided to purge my refrigerator of its Easter feast remnants.

Upon doing so I discovered "The Creature." I'm not sure what it was, but it lived inside one of the tubs of Michigan Small Curd Cottage Cheese.  It was furry and blue-green.  "The Creature" had grown to full strength quietly and ominously on the back corner of the third shelf in my Kenmore.  Eclipsed by the mountain of other foods in front of it, I hadn't noticed it for weeks.  I had forgotten it was there.  I had even purchased a new tub of cottage cheese thinking I had none.

Sometimes when we live in an environment that's too full, we forget to notice what we already have.

You Got Five?

No one should have to feel alone.

It's true that in our hyper-connected, fast-paced world, I often seek "alone time" to decompress, relax, re-energize, and renew.  I think it's a healthy response to the pressure of living.  But it's very different than me feeling lonely or me perpetually being alone.

Genesis 1 & 2 the Bible tells us that God creates man in His Image and places him in the Garden of Eden. Later God says, "It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a suitable helper for him."

One of the first things God did with his newly-created man was reduce the potential of his loneliness.  Even in the time when man walked with Him in the Creation that He deemed "very good," God said that the man being alone was "not good."  Apparently, this issue was very important to God.

As His image-bearers, addressing the potential loneliness of others should be important to us.

This can be difficult.  I have mentioned that I have many congenial, low-density relationships and so I can sometimes fool myself into thinking I don't ever feel alone.  And yet, I can at certain times, feel lonely and unconnected.  I assume that if that can happen to me sometimes, it might be happening to others.

I've decided to do something about that.  I've decided to find five.

I'm going to find five people God has placed in the path of my life.  These are people I don't see every day or consider my "inner circle" but with whom I have some affinity or commonality.  I've committed to:

1) Pray for them regularly.
2) Reach out to them at least every few months and just ask them, "Hey, how's it going?"

It's possible that the person will not want or appreciate my presence in their life at all.  That's OK.

But it's also possible that they haven't had anyone ask them that question in a while.  It's possible something big is happening in their lives and that they just need someone talk to about it.  It's possible that they've not had a Christ-follower in their lives outside their pastor.  It's possible they just might be on the very edge.  It's possible they just need someone who's willing to listen to them.  It's possible they will speak wisdom and kindness into my life.  It's possible we might form a deep friendship.  So many possibilities.

"It's not good for the man to be alone."  It's possible for us to change that.

You love your five.  I'll love mine.  Let's see how that changes things.  Peace.