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Originally Posted by Phobia
I know the guy means well. I believe he is misguided. We're going through lessons at my church how to witness without putting people off like he does. Hopefully I'll be able to share some of my newly gained knowledge at its conclusion.
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I'm very impressed with the direction that more and more churches seem to be going these days with their witness. Being raised in a Southern Baptist church, it always seemed the focus was to just get people in the door, let them have a religious experience through a revival, then hope they'd get saved (and join/grow the church). My parents switched churches about 10 years ago, and everything changed. Now their witness basically consists (or consisted in my father's case) of doing various outreach ministries (working with the homeless, giving appreciation dinners to various community organizations like the firefighters or teachers, tutoring young kids, going on medical mission trips to 3rd world countries, etc.) During all of these outreach ministries, actually witnessing, as in sit down now and hear the obligatory 30 minute spiel about Jesus, was hardly ever done. The way my father explained it to me was that they put themselves in these opportunities, and they believed that God would then open doors to allow them to witness. This might take the form of someone asking them why they were doing what they're doing or just striking up a friendship that eventually became an opportunity to witness. The emphasis was always on the work itself with the understanding that the opportunity to bring someone to Christ would come naturally from that.