I Was a Teenaged Evangelist

I was a teenaged evangelist.  I know, for some of you that is scarier than if I had said I was a teenaged werewolf.  But it's true.  I was a teenaged evangelist.  A street evangelist, to be more exact.  One summer, back in the late sixties, I was part of a group of high school and college aged kids who went at at nigh to witness to their faith.  We would first gather at the beachside cottage of a youth pastor named Dick and hear a word of encouragement.  Then we would pray that God would lead us to those who needed to hear the good news on that particular night.  After that we fanned out in pairs, walking up and down the boardwalk at Hampton Beach, looking for souls who looked in need of our message of salvation.  And when we had identified such a person, when we felt we were being nudged by the Spirit in a particular direction, we would walk up to them and ask if they knew about Jesus.

Fifty years later, as I look back on that summer, I am both dismayed and impressed.  I am dismayed about the nature of my theological understandings, so simplistic, so naïve, so exclusionary.  So unaware of the broadness of God's love and grace!  I assumed that if someone wasn't able to say Jesus was their personal Lord and Savior, they were doomed, and it was my job to save them from perdition.  But I am also impressed.  Impressed by that pimply faced young man who had the courage of his convictions.

Today, I can't imagine walking up to a complete stranger asking about their spiritual walk!  Even under the protection of my professional role and title I sometimes am hesitant to speak to people about such matters.  Yet I firmly believe one's relationship to the Holy is at the very core of life!

Yes, many of us are often uncomfortable with religious talk.  WE are OK talking about it in an academic way, even discussing the impact of religious diversity on American society.  But when it comes to talking about our personal beliefs and practices, many if not most of us hem and haw and change the subject.

I suspect for those of us that are mainline Protestants, progressive Roman Catholics and Jews, there are many reasons why we do that.  For some of us testifying to our own faith smacks of a fundamentalist approach to religion, and God forbid any one mistake us for one of those type of people!  For others our hesitancy is rooted in a belief that religion is a private matter--it's nobody's business what I believe!  And it's none of mine what convictions they may hold.  Still others don't speak about their faith because they feel inadequate, that they aren't up to the task.  That's they job of ministers and priests and rabbis--not a mere layperson like me, they say.

\But if people make the assumption that anyone who talks about their faith must be a fundamentalist, we have no one to blame but ourselves. If the only people who talk about their faith are those who hold literalist, ultra-orthodox beliefs, then it makes sense that people will make such an assumption!

IT is a personal matter--but that's different from being private!  And, yes, clergy have a special obligation to speak about their religious and spiritual beliefs, but that doesn't mean others can't or shouldn't.

None of that means you have to become a street evangelist--but I think it does mean we all need to rethink the matter of sharing our faith--whatever our faith may be.  Maybe we can all pray for the courage of a teenager on the beach!