Ray Stedman, in his excellent series "A Pilgrim's Life in an Alien World," said, "I was struck, in reading Michael Green's book Evangelism in the Early Church, by the fact that Christians in the First Century influenced their world for Jesus Christ far more than Christians do in our day. Their world was more openly hostile to Christianity than ours, they were far fewer in number, they did not hold any influential positions, they did not have our money or our technology, yet in a span of thirty years they succeeded in spreading the Kingdom of God from Jerusalem to Antioch to Corinth to Ephesus and then to the capital of the Roman Empire itself. Christians today have more established rights, they are greater in number, they are more influential - the hold some of the most influential positions in the land - they have all the money and technology they need. Yet their influence in the world seems stifled and anemic by comparison." He goes on to say that he believes their strength was in their identity. They were "sojourners" and while we are American Christians, they were pilgrims - citizens of Heaven - on their way home. The reality of Eternity is the ultimate filter for all of our thinking. The more we become conscious of Eternity, the more nearly Christian we become.
I was having lunch with the pastor of the large Baptist church in Moscow and asked him how many members he had, to which he replied, "5600." Then I asked him, "How many attend?" and he said, "6,000." I told him that this was a little different ratio than we have here in Texas. "Yes, we have about 400 who are not ready yet to take the identity of Christian but they attend." And then he used a very interesting phrase. "In Russia we have no four-wheel Christians" - those who ride to their baptism, ride to Easter, ride to Christmas service, and ride to their funeral." At this point I wanted to change the subject and talk about whether or not you tithe gross or net, or what does he think about whether the heathens who have not had a chance to hear the Gospel will be saved.
One of the most delightful men I know is Ron Ritchie of the Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California. He is one of the least likely people you would pick in a crowd as a preacher. He was telling me how he got tired of being isolated by calling himself a preacher on airplanes and so after having been chided about his identity he finally arrived at the perfect answer when people ask him what he does. He answers "I tell people about Jesus if they want to know." Then he shuts up and lets the Spirit take over. He has had some fascinating experiences.
I have never felt that evangelism is my gift and if you want to get up a team for buttonholing the unsaved, please "include me out." However, I have found an interesting possibility that the Spirit might even use me in some small evangelization on a one-to-one basis where He wouldn't trust a big crowd to me. Each morning I tell the Lord that "today I won't duck" and if religion comes up in a natural way in a conversation I will deal with it just as I would any other subject I have found that if I duck the natural conversation about spiritual matters, I can't make up for it by coming to the church visitation program and calling on three people that the Lord didn't direct me to just to make up for the one I missed that He brought across my path. I can't get away from the fact that I am a Christian. I want it to be a natural part of who I am. I think of this as a stewardship of identity.
