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Extra – ordinary

Ever tasted a curry and found your mouth unexpectedly exploding with heat?

Ever walked through a garden at night with lights without wires showing you the way?

Ever seen a shop in the high street that was not there last month and isn’t there next month?

Ever been amazed that your phone works in the middle of nowhere?

What do these pictures have in common?

We still often think evangelism is a particular sort of activity, out of the ordinary, something we do sometimes.  But it shouldn’t be.

We still often think evangelism means we have to an extroverted, upfront and loud.  But it doesn’t.

Jesus talks about evangelism differently to what we often think.

In Matthew chapters 5 and 13 he says we should:

Be salt.  Be light.  Be seed.  Be yeast.

What do these pictures have in common?

All are ordinary pictures of ordinary life not extraordinary pictures of extraordinary life.

All have to be alongside other things to work – food, darkness, soil and flour.

All can impact the other things they are working with – to preserve them, to make them tasty, to light them up, to grow in them, to grow with them.

All can make that impact gently, gradually, quietly.

In other words, they are not how we often think of evangelism and what it means for us.

It is more how Ed Stetzer, an American pastor, describes it here :

“Ordinary people doing ordinary things with gospel intentionality.”

It is about ordinary people – like you and me not extraordinary evangelists.

It is about ordinary things – talking about the news with someone, walking in the park with someone or working with someone.  It is ironic to talk about doing ordinary things in these current extraordinary COVD – 19 times I know, but it is about whatever is ordinary for life now, even if it is on Zoom.

It is about gospel intentionality – the gospel should be why we live as we do and what we want to tell people, with our works and words, our foundation and destination.

Be salt.  Be light.  Be seed.  Be yeast. 

Or maybe in our world today more:

Be spicy. Be solar powered.  Be a popup.  Be wireless. 

Whoever you are.  Wherever you are.  Whatever you do.  Whenever you go.

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