Bumper Sticker Witness
And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” Mark 5:19
A bumper sticker I saw yesterday said, “I ♥ My Church”.
First, let me say that it is a wonderful thing when a Christian is happy in her church. Sometimes, though, I wonder if we are really conveying the most important messages when we say things like this.
I was recently visiting and chatting with an old friend. She had moved and was talking to me about her new neighbors and friends. Her assessment of everyone started with whether or not they went to church, any church. Perhaps she thought that was what was important to me.
As we talked very briefly about her opportunity to witness for Christ to these new acquaintances she went right back to church. She responded to the question of witnessing by telling me who she had invited to go to church with her.
The bumper sticker led to a discussion of what it means to witness with someone else yesterday after I had seen it. He said that as a child growing up in an evangelical church he was first taught that a good way to witness was to bring your friend to church and let your Sunday School teacher or the Pastor share the gospel with them. It wasn’t expected that they would take the child aside and speak to him/her individually but that somehow, through their presence in the lesson, they would hear the gospel and respond. I know it could happen but it seems a little haphazard to me.
If this is your thinking, that all you have to do is get your friends and family to church and the church will present the gospel, then I guess that loving your church is a good message to send. But isn’t Jesus more important? Isn’t our love for God the Father and His precious Holy Spirit far more significant in the saving grace of God than the group we gather with to worship Him?
The truth is that we have Jesus living in us and by the power of the Holy Spirit He acts through us in the words we speak and the deeds we do for others. Our friends and acquaintances are reading our behavior and words long before they read our bumper stickers. Based on that, would anyone have reason to trust our choice of churches? If we rely on the church to be our witness for us, our own witness will not seem important. This is like telling a child to do what I say not what I do.
In a world where so many fear using the name of Jesus why not tell others what He has done for you? Some say that we will not win others by our own testimony of what Christ has done for us but the Bible says that our testimony is important. These are Jesus’ words to Paul after their encounter on the Road to Damascus:
Act 26:16-18, “But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles–to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”
The Gospel of John’s words about the woman at the well that Jesus had just spoken to when she went back to town and told others what he had said to her, “Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” John 4:39
In Acts 22:14-15 Paul quotes Ananias as telling him what God had done for him. “And he said, ‘The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear a voice from his mouth; for you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard.”
What has God done for you that you could tell someone else about? Your salvation? A great provision in a time of need? Has He comforted you that you might comfort someone else with the comfort He has given you? How much more personal than inviting them to church so someone else can tell them what a great God you serve.
Once you witness to someone, please, invite them to a good Bible preaching church. There your testimony will be supported, their faith will be fed through the teaching of the Word of God, and everyone can grow more through the fellowship of other believers. Make it a church you ♥ !