more on mission / impact / evangelism

ok so i'm thinking about this whole evangelism / mission / impact thing and into my inbox flies this email from melisha. as far as i'm concerned, this nails it. i asked her permission to copy a ton of the content here, so here goes -- it is absolutely worth the read.

In high school, before I became a Christian, I despised most of the Christians I knew. I think a lot of that had to do with their way of evangelism, which
included a I know something you don't know attitude. They were on the
"right" side and I was on the "wrong" side and until I came to their side
they were better than me. Those people made me not want to become a
Christian. I don't know if that makes sense. Anyway, when I became a
Christian, I was taught not to be friends with non-Christians because of
their negative influence which didn't make sense to me completely. I wanted
to know how I could ever impact people I seperated myself from. Now, I see
how dumb all of it was, and I have had a fear of coming across like the
people I didn't (and still don't) like. I didn't known much about
evangelism but I did know I wouldn't do it the way I had seen it. I didn't
want to treat people like they were a formula and if I plugged in the right
numbers they would follow Jesus too.
I have understood the idea of forming relationships, and that idea felt
right to me. It was still just an idea, though. I didn't know what came
next. I still don't but God has shown me something. I have been looking at
the end product too much. I was looking at these people who I knew needed
God and thinking of the day when they found Him. There's nothing wrong with
that but I realized I had to look at all of the stuff that happens before
that. It is discouraging to look at someone and think I am not close enough
to them to be sharing Jesus through my life. Instead, I want to see the
relationship and the person as the most important thing and not be focused
on what may happen because of it. I also saw that I was spending all my
time knowing a lot of people a little bit. I started praying for God to
show me who I need to be pursuing a real relationship with.

thanks melisha -- you still have my vote to lead the conversation sunday night.
j