1: A Guide on the Side

Have you ever gone birdwatching? Those who are really adept birders often bring binoculars and know all of the names of even the obscure birds. They've trained themselves to be attentive to where the birds are, and know what time of year different birds come to their area.

Chris and Katie aren't adept birders, but when they go on walks together in Aurora, they often see birds and point them out to each other. It's not uncommon for one of them to stop in the middle of a walk and say "Oh, look! There's a goldfinch!" Sometimes it flies away before the other is able to see it, but there's this hope that the bird will stay still long enough so that the other person will get to see it too.

This is a picture of what evangelism can be like in our everyday lives. When we think about evangelism, we often think about what we're saying to others, which can put a lot of pressure on us. However, it's important that we realize that we, as evangelists, are not a sage on the stage. We are a guide on the side.

We're coming alongside other people and saying, "Look! Isn't that beautiful?" We're pointing to the reality of God in Jesus Christ and hoping that they can catch a glance. This takes the pressure off of us. It's not about how perfect our words are. The point is that they see Jesus.

With this in mind, we also discover that we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously, because evangelism wasn't about us to begin with. Dallas Willard was sometimes introduced as a spiritual formation expert, and he said, "I want to fade into the wall at that point." Because there are no spiritual formation experts. All of us are learners. All of us are students. Jesus is the only true teacher. So that means that we're in a good place to help other beginners. We're in a good place to help other people who are coming to see the goodness of Jesus.

As we kick off this new series on evangelism, A Guide on the Side, we're going to talk about how to have joyful spiritual conversations. In evangelism, we are encountering Jesus for ourselves. And in that, there's joy. And as we soak up the radiance of Jesus's presence, we then look for opportunities where somebody else might be willing to come and see what Jesus is like too. We're just bringing people to Jesus. We are guides on the side, not sages on a stage.

If there's one idea about evangelism that you can take away from this, it's that you can do it. You can be a fruitful evangelist. You can be someone who proclaims the good n