the marriage of word and deed

I have a friend who is a gifted evangelist. He has such passion and zeal for Jesus. He has woo and charm. He is winsome and child-like. His heart is so big and so burdened for people to know Christ as their Savior and Lord that he is teaching an evangelism course to help train other Christ-followers how to better talk about our universal need and provision in Christ. I sat in on one of his classes on Saturday. Toward the end of the session, an unknown woman came through the doors of the church where we were sitting and joined the outskirts of the group. Within very little time, she was pouring out her brokenness. We laid hands on her and prayed as she cried out to God for forgiveness, and we were able to encourage her in the power and promises of God through Christ.

As I recount this experience, I think about the Church going into the future. We hear lately about how the Evangelical Church is dead, and how non-believers are so often turned off to Christianity because so often the Gospel has been spoken but not shown, proclaimed but not demonstrated. There's talk and writing about demonstrating and serving and being the hands and feet of Jesus out in the world. I am all about hands-on compassion and being committed to justice work, but my experience Saturday, as well as countless other experiences, reminds me that demonstration and proclamation must marry. People are dying to hear words of truth spoken into their lives...about who God is, about what He has to do with them, about what significance they bring to the world. Words of hope and life and power and love and peace that speak directly into their being. Yet, these words have to be "sticky words"...words that take on meaning because the persons speaking them flesh them out and stick around to exemplify the Word received in their own lives as well as continue in word and deed to share the Good News with those around them. It's the Holy Spirit's work that saves and grows people, but He'll use the words and deeds of His community of followers to draw others to Himself.