The Confessions of a Recovering Evangelist

By amazon Saturday, January 18, 2020 Comment Edit

In a society full of people who would rather speak than listen, people are starving for someone who is willing to offer them their ears.

Years ago, I flew to Colorado to help people increase the quantity and the quality of their God conversations in a church in Colorado Springs. On the shuttle ride over from the Denver airport to my rental car company, I struck up a conversation with a young man in his early twenties. He had just flown back into the U.S. after a year of graduate study abroad. We started talking about his career aspirations after his studies were finished.

We got off the shuttle bus and headed to the counter to pick up our rental cars. As I was getting my rental car, I couldn’t help but overhear the bad news this young man was getting about his. Unbeknownst to him, his driver’s license had expired while he was out of the country. Nudged by the Holy Spirit, I offered him a ride. He was totally taken back by my seemingly small offer of kindness.

As we headed into Denver, he asked me what I did for a living. I had a “holy hunch” that if I told him I was an evangelist, our conversation might have ended quickly and awkwardly.

So I told him I was an author and speaker. He quickly asked me what I write about and I responded that he could actually help me with what I was writing about. Intrigued, he asked, “How can I do that?” Here was my response: “I’m on my way to speak at one of the largest churches in Colorado. If I gave you 30 minutes to tell these Christians what not to do to have a spiritual conversation with you, what would you tell them?””

Without any hesitation, he said, “I’d tell them if you are not willing to listen to me, I am not going to listen to you. Every conversation I’ve ever had with Christians has been one-sided. They always want to do all the talking and ...