Since being out America for a bit now, there’s something I’ve been learning about Christianity as it relates to Evangelism.
One of the things I’ve been wrestling with is the question: What is Christianity?
As much as I would like to say it is the faith of Christians, from a social perspective, Christianity is not just the faith of the Christians. Christianity is also a large social system which includes people, media, buildings, culture, slang, music, etc…
And within this Christian system, you will find both people of faith and people not of faith.
The point I’m trying to make is that we can’t confuse true faith with the social system of Christianity. And with evangelism, we’re not trying to convert people into this social system, we’re trying to make people followers of Jesus.
I think this is an important point, perhaps not in America, but in other places where the culture of Christianity is resisted. For example, if I lead someone to Christ in Malawi, am I to put on him/her a Christian T-shirt, a bunch of Hillsong CD’s, make them come to a building sometimes a week, have them speak Christianies?
No, rather I think it’s more authentic and wise to let them follow and witness to Jesus amidst their culture instead of dragging them into a social system we’ve constructed.
