Like Your Neighbor?: Doing Everyday Evangelism on Common Ground

by Stephen W. Sorenson

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0830832645
• ISBN13: 9780830832644
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: InterVarsity Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Convicting, inspiring, & practical.

Basic, one-to-one ministry to one's neighbors is something I've always been interested in and wanted to know better how to do. This book didn't disappoint. Sorensen goes through the common mental hurdles Christians need to get over in ministering to the lost (What if I don't know what to say? What if they try to mug me? What if they laugh at me? I'll bet they couldn't be bothered. I'd probably just alienate them because they seem happy enough. And on and on...) He debunks a lot of Christian myths about non-Christians and talks at length about our need to be human in front of them, rather than trying to keep up a facade (a facade which needs to disappear at church, too). Several chapters of, primarily, anecdotal evidence follow, dealing with initiating conversations with the unsaved, relating to them, where to find and meet them, discovering their concerns, etc. He spends the majority of his time reminding us (through anecdotes or outright commands) that Christians need to listen to unsaved people rather than just preach at them. The unsaved don't want to know why we think Christianity's right or what our theology is (certainly not our politics!). They want to know why we can have joy even in the middle of trials. Or why we can maintain a sweet spirit even when they or someone else attack us. We are then free to tell them of the Person we draw strength from. Probably a lot of the reason we'd rather just preach is that it only takes mental assent to the Gospel to preach it. We "traffic in unlived truth" as Howard Hendricks has said. But actually drawing on Christ's power and peace during a time of pain cannot be faked. The unsaved know this (Christians seem to have forgotten). If we have no spiritual power in front of the lost, even without speaking about our faith, it's because we're unspiritual, carnal Christians. A lot of Sorensen's advice about reaching the unsaved surprises me simply because I feel like what he's talking about should be as natural as breathing for the Christian. But it's usually very difficult, and Sorensen chalks that up to (at least) the fact that we have such insulated lives. We're in our Christian houses, driving in our Christian cars to a Christian workplace, listening to Christian talk radio and coming back home to that Christian house with Christian family members, playing on the Christian softball team, listening to Christian music, reading Christian books, going to a church of all Christians (not very many seekers attending most of our churches), etc. We're in a bubble unless we consciously decide to step outside of it. And we've been conditioned by the bubble to think of unsaved people as dangerous and... well, unclean. Sorensen really hits hard on this phenomenon, which was rebuking and encouraging to my own heart. We're all humans. Some of us are just forgiven. And all God's peace and power and our new life in Him are a result of His work, not ours. Sorensen also goes through a basic primer of our culture's way