Steven Furtick shared a funny analogy about evangelism, and how it’s a lot like giving and receiving a gift.

His first example was “re-gifting”, which is sometimes how we treat evangelism. If we receive a present that isn’t necessarily to our liking… then we know almost immediately that there’s the potential to re-gift it (this is Steven speaking, not me) such as a Kevin Costner dvd or a musical tie. And a lot of the time we sell Christianity this way:

Hey, come sit for an hour and a half or two hours every Sunday and be bored with me. We can not drink, not smoke, not have sex, not be happy, and be boring. Oh and you can join in on my 13-week class on how to get other people in on this thing.

Re-gifting – giving something that you’re not really all that excited about.

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And then, he talks about his experience with Guitar Hero (this is a sermon from 2007). He receives the game for Christmas and is suddenly amazed and enjoys it. And he doesn’t have to be told, but the first thing he does after he starts playing is calls out to his wife, and gets her in on the action. It doesn’t really matter that he doesn’t have all the answers, because he’s got something in his life that he genuinely appreciates, and wants his wife to enjoy it too.

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The easiest way to stop someone from coming to Church is to make them feel like they’re your own personal project. Instead, it’s probably a lot easier if they are convinced (and rightly so) that you have their best intentions at heart.

Sometimes we make things a lot harder than they should be.