Love Has Its Own Agenda

One of the great pleasures of this church plant has been a new way of thinking about evangelism. Brian McLaren refers to evangelism as "developing spiritual friendships" and I am happy to be all about that.

For years, the idea of evangelism has been taught as a sort of sales pitch. A bunch of people either unsure or defensive about the validity of their product, tried to get people to buy into Jesus by presenting a slick and aggressive salesman's approach. This almost never worked.

It's a great thing to invest in people and develop friendships with no agenda. To go to lunches and grab coffee and sing songs into the night simply because you love the people you're with and want to share more of yourselves with each other.

Of course, love has its own agenda -to seek the best for the other. And here, evangelism comes full circle. Instead of selling products we're sharing goods, sharing the good that is within us, the God that within us by giving us His Spirit, with those who have yet to encounter Him.

At BookPeople, the question is often asked why the turnover isn't higher. After all, the pay is half what we could get by walking down the block and working at Barnes and Noble. But the difference is this, as corny as it may sound, at B&N they sell you a product, at BookPeople we share something with you.

Being a BookPerson has taught me a lot about what it means to be a Jesus person. BookPeople's slogan is "a community bound by books". A group of people that came together for love of words, not to sell a product. The Immanuel Community is about something similar. A group of people brought together for love of the Word, the Word who was with God and who was God. A group of people excited to share that Word with those they love.