These days the word evangelist is being used by lots of other people. There are care salesmen that call themselves 'BMW evangelists' or "Chevrolet evangelists.' They think, eat, drink and sleep their product. Because of this marketing usage, its actually become a positive word again.
When I'm on a plane now and a churched person asks what I do and I say, "I'm an evangelist," my response is a turnoff. But if it's a non-Christian in sales, or in any kind of business, they immediately know what I'm talking about. There's no negativity at all. They hear it as a synonym for enthusiast. But in the minds of long-time church people, it can be a negative. But I think we need to get over it. Its biblical roots are too important. When the angels announce the birth of Jesus, we see the Greek word from which we get evangelism--euangelion. So we are partners with the angels when we do evangelism. We are doing what the angels do. That's powerful.
Steve Sjogren, in an interview with Leadership Journal
(p 57, Winter 2010, Vol 31, No 1)
No comments:
Post a Comment