The Challenge

[jaybreak]

We shouldn't "cast our pearls before swine," but we're not sure who is swine and who isn't until there's some empathetic connection, which is why I dislike "drive-by evangelism" that some people practice. Those evangelist types are actually somewhat uncommon, I think, but we notice them because they are uncontrollable extroverts and they share way too much with complete strangers, too early, and believe that this sharing is legitimate evangelism in an absolute sense. Others might play along with it because they think that's one of the only paths for doing "public relations" for God, i.e., "if you're not talking to your neighbors about Jesus you're not doing God's work."

I don't want to turn this comment into an introvert vs extrovert thing, but that's where it seems WC is at, especially America. We associate loud gregariousness with righteousness, because that's probably how we imagine Paul was in the Greek square as he helped add thousands to the church daily. Tie that into the compulsory numbers game of needing to cull lots of warm butts into church seats, and you can see why being somewhat tactful about how we communicate (aka, not obnoxious, coming from an introvert's perspective) isn't always well received.