Evangelism & The Battle For My Heart

Have you ever had serious heart problems? No, I don't mean the kind that involves medication, trips to the doctor, and various forms of rehabilitation. I mean the type that affects the way you view the world of lost people. You know, heart problems!

I was confronted with this issue for the first time in the 1990s. We were in an especially busy time of ministry, having moved recently into a new building and responding to the severe learning curve of new tasks, new policies, and new forms of just about everything. At the same time, in what seemed like a wonderful blessing from God, dozens and dozens of people – actually hundreds – wanted to stop in and check out the new building and learn about our ministries. As the staff person responsible for youth ministry, that meant a crush of parents who all wanted (needed, really) to find out who they’d be entrusting their young person to – was I trustworthy, mature, responsible, Bible-savvy, Jesus-loving, and cool enough to win the heart of their teenager?

That meant hours on the phone, invitations to coffee, too many evenings in homes, extra parent meetings, long conversations after worship services, additional staff training…too much alongside all the normal ministry to be accomplished, not to mention spending quality time with Jesus and caring for the needs of our young family.

Then one day, in the midst of yet another crazy week, it hit me. At that moment, I really didn't like people, much less love them. People were demanding, time-consuming, fickle, petty, and even nosy. They asked the same questions over and over again. They wanted details they certainly didn’t need. My life, it seemed, would be much improved if there were fewer people in it. Nowadays, we'd probably say that I was close to burnout. Looking back, I wouldn’t disagree. The dream of a growing and exciting ministry certainly came with a dark side to it.

As I wrestled with those feelings and the need to learn some better time-management skills, I also had to face my heart problems. Prompted by God’s Spirit, I began to pray, "Lord, please help me to love people as you do." And I have found myself praying the same thing many times since those early days of ministry. I knew that if God didn't help my heart, I wouldn't survive ministry much longer.

Now, several decades later, I can see more clearly that no ministry, especially evangelism, can be effective if we don’t love people. If evangelism is a boat, without genuine love for people, the boat will be dead in the water. Sometimes as I hear good, conservative Bible lovers talk about lost people, it becomes apparent that I'm not alone in this struggle.

I often pray that God will help my ongoing heart problems, and you probably should too. As we interact in frustrating community settings, stand in slow-moving lines, experience poor customer service, listen to rants about things we care deeply about, hear Christians being slandered, and feel the growing cultural descent into further depravity, we are tempted to “curse the darkness” and all those we can reasonably blame for making it so.

In great contrast to us, Jesus saw the crowded masses of people as sheep without a shepherd, and He was moved with compassion, He was moved to prayer, and He was moved to action. That’s the heart we need as well. “Yes, Lord Jesus, please help us to love people as you do."

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