The Witnesser

I was quietly rebellious in many ways while growing up. Witnessing was one of the very few ways in which I openly rebelled.

The witnessing incident I blogged about a few days ago made me remember of how much pressure there was from some evangelists in our churches to witness. It does make sense on an emotional level- if one believes that anyone who isn't (the right kind of...) Christian is destined to spend the afterlife in hell of course they will want to get as many people saved as possible.

Even when I more-or-less believed these things I was deeply uncomfortable with the act of witnessing. So uncomfortable, in fact, that I never actually did it.

A traveling evangelist came into town just as I squeaked into my teens. He spoke at our church on a Sunday morning and was scheduled to speak at another, larger church on Sunday night. Nearly everyone from our church was going to that evening service. In the afternoon, I accompanied a group of teens and young adults to a mall. We were suppose to hand out cards inviting Sunday shoppers to the evening service. If they weren't Christian we were also suppose to get them to become saved.

Before we went into the mall we sat it the van that had been driven there and prayed that God would give us the right words to say. And then we went into the mall. We were suppose to take turns approaching people to talk about the love of God and to invite them to this church service.

A few years later I went to a church youth group picnic at a local park. We sang worship songs, horsed around on playground equipment meant for kids half our size and ate and drank the junkiest of the junk food. The refined, high-fructose corn syrup/aspartame/trans-fat laden stuff that Mom didn't buy.

And then it was time for the word of God. Our youth group leader decided to talk about the importance of witnessing as young Christians. As he was talking, a girl about my age sped past our group on her bike.

"You should go talk to her," my youth group leader said to me. "She needs to hear about God." I was fairly certain that pedalling through a public park was not, in fact, a universal sign that one wants a stranger to help them switch religions.

In both cases I opted out of witnessing. It wasn't the kind of attention I would have welcomed had I been on the other side of it, shopping at the mall or riding my bike through the park or otherwise going through my daily routine.  I wasn't aggressive or unfriendly about my decision and I didn't tell anyone else what to do with the propagation of their religious beliefs. I had simply made up my mind and that was all there was to it. ;)

(Photo credit.)