The less scary version of Evangelism

A couple days ago John Leonard came from Westminster seminary and taught a session on evangelism. I was really convicted and found his points really helpful in a practical way. It really made me evaluate why I don’t go out of my way to value the people that I interact with on a daily basis. I think some of it is insecurity and some of it is being far too busy in my life. I get task-oriented and busy and I don’t take the time to speak to the cashier checking me out or go inside to pay when I get gas. I remember visiting some missionary friends last winter and noticing how they interacted with store owners and restaurant staff. These are the places where they made friends, where they would go back and visit, and where the Lord was opening doors for the Gospel. For a long time I have blamed my lack of effort in this area on my personality. But maybe I’m just lazy?!?

The theme of the session was Evangelism: Pastoring people to Christ. I’ll just share some main themes with you.
1. Know the Gospel for yourself
2. Pour out the overflow of grace (he made a good point here that often we only evangelize because we feel guilty that we haven’t been evangelizing… so in my guilt, I bring a Gospel of grace.. hmm)
3. Believe in the sovereignty of God in evangelism. You don’t have to share everything at once or work on your own timetable.

In the sense of personal evangelism:

1. Be more than a friend, be a pastor/mentor (love people well and be trustworthy so that you will be the person they come to when life gets hard)

2. Listen more than you speak (when you listen to people, they are giving you the context in which you can share the Gospel with them)

3. Ask questions (figure out if people even want you in their life)

4. Ask people for help (all of us really need help… don’t be afraid to ask… shows people that you value them and disarms their defenses)

5. Don’t say more than people want to hear (this goes along with the next one... don't overwhelm people or force yourself on them)

6. Raise curiosity, don’t dampen it

7. Contextualize the Gospel with examples that fit into their life and culture

8. Evangelize Christians and disciple non-Christians (Christians need to be reminded of grace as much as anyone… we tend to revert to a default setting of being works oriented. And as you disciple people and point them to the Lord and the Gospel in different areas of life, they will begin to see their need for the Lord in all of life.)

9. Sow widely and optimistically

10. Pray with your eyes open and pray often

11. Pray that God would lead you to people who He is already calling to Himself.

12. Have something to invite non-Christians to (don’t be isolated in your evangelism, invite people to join your community)

I hope this is helpful for some of you in some way!

Brussel Sprout

Thanks to Erin M. who came up with my blog title :)

Question of the day: If you were going to name your grocery store “Abba’s butt”, would you put is across the street from an elementary school?

While we’re at it, I would like to point out that one of the “symbols” of Brussels is a peeing boy statue. I don’t feel the need to post a picture for you, but feel free to look it up. I just don’t really get it to be honest with you…

Today has been great, and a little more low-key. My roommates and I have a tendency to stay up too late, leave our homework ‘till night-time, and talk too much. Sounds like college :) Except that last night we went to a pub, that’s something I never did in college. Every week we have to find a place to make cultural observations, called ethnographies… so that’s been a fun adventure. It’s a great way to gain insight into the culture, draw conclusions, and then find out later that lots of them were wrong. But you only find that out if you keep watching and paying attention and asking questions. Hmm… sounds like what I’ll be doing a lot of really soon in Central America.

The last two days of training have felt a lot like seminary. Okay, I’ve never been, but I’m taking a wild stab at it since our teacher is a seminary professor at Westminster. We had sessions on Evangelism and Contextualization. They were really good. Keep your eyes out for a post about evangelism. I was really struck by the things he said and I want to share some of them with you at a later time… or maybe immediately since the internet just went down and you don’t be getting this post ‘till later either apparently.

I have so much else to say… but I want you all to keep reading my blog and not think I’m trying to write a 700 page novel one chapter at a time… so I’m going to be done for now :)

Yay… the internet is back!
Does this mean that only moms with purses and girls with pigtails get to cross the street?

I ran into some friends while wandering through town... looks like the Luthers found Aldis!

truffles? Yes please!

The last two days have been filled with training and adventures around Belgium. Since our primary purpose here is our training, I'll start out with that.

A group of us... Abby, Liz, Jenni, Rachel, Vitaliy, Marissa, and I... were assigned to do our internship at the Korean church in Brussels. We went and met with Pastor Choi who has been the pastor there for the past 3 1/2 years. He is wonderful and had tea all laid out and waiting for us even though we were nearly 45 minutes late since we missed our train... ahh! We're still getting used to public transportation here. We will be serving the church by sharing testimonies in church every week, meeting with small groups, and also meeting with the young adult groups, the youth groups, and maybe Sunday schools. We are hoping to build relationships with some people in this congregation. We anticipate the Lord using them to teach us far more than we have to offer them. I have heard that Korean believers are passionate for the Gospel... they are prayer warriors! So I am excited to learn from them!

Other news from our training: We have been doing sessions together covering topics such as... integrating into new cultures, how to break stereotypes, how to work on a team, recognizing how you function on a team, etc. We've been using some fun activities to get us working together and it's neat to see how different people start stepping into their natural roles. I'm sure that will continue to come out as we spend time together. I'm also really enjoying leading worship... so that's been a huge plus.

I've really enjoyed meeting the people here at the OM center. I haven't gotten to talk much with the workers here, but they are great and so willing to serve us. I've gotten to talk some with other MTW missionaries who are just passing through. What a blessing to get to talk to people who are on the field laboring for the Lord. It's so encouraging and reminds me again of how the great the need is and how faithful the Lord is to use His people to be part of His work.

We did get some fun pictures on our way to and from the Korean church, with a little detour into the city on the way home.

The train station in Schaarbeek on the way to the church. After taking the train and two trams (a two hour trip), we discovered we can take the bus directly there in 25 minutes.

Just a cool house and fun playing with my camera

That's right... a chocolate shop! We got awesome truffles here.

My European favorite... 4 fromages pizza! Yum!

On the right side of the tracks... literally!

We are staying a town called Zaventem right next to Brussels. Yesterday my roommates, Jenni(going to Ukraine) and Abby(going to Peru), and I went adventuring through the town and found very little interesting and not much that was open. Turns out we were on the wrong side of the railroad tracks.

Today we went out again in the snow and found our way to the right part of town where we got treats from a bakery, found an ATM and a grocery store!

I have more pictures from our short, and cold, adventure. But first a ministry update. Today we started training officially. We had orientation and our group assignements. I am part of the worship team for our training times here at the center (first out of comfort zone experience: I'm playing piano instead of guitar... it's been awhile!) and then I am assigned with 6 others to the Korean church in the heart of Brussels. We go tomorrow to meet with the pastor to see what our time there will look like. Pre-field training has recently been renamed "Cross-Cultural Ministry Internship" and that is exactly what we'll be doing. We will be interns with that church for the next 4 weeks and learning ministry principles that will apply to our own fields in the future. I'm looking forward to really getting started. We're slowly learning a little more about what our time here will look like... sounds like they will keep up really busy!

Okay... more pictures :)

The building on the left is the OM ZavCenter where we are staying. OM is a non-denominational ministry around the world and we are using their building while we're here.

This restaurant was our first "dining out" experience. Nope, not waffles, french fries! Apparently these are also a Belgium delicacy.

Just some random pictures from our walk!

Brussels

After the easiest overseas travel experience I may have ever had, I am safely in Brussels staying at the Zavcenter here in the city.

I had great news this morning at the airport that I would not have to pay for my guitar, but the airline I was flying lets you have two checked bags! Yay for Jet Airways from India. I had awesome Indian food for dinner, sat next to a guy from Raleigh, smiled a lot at my other seat neighbor who didn't speak lots of English, watched almost the whole first season of Prison Break, and didn't sleep at all :) So... now I'm about to crash since it's 4am in the US and I have yet to even close my eyes. I met one other family who is here and I love them already... I think I'm going to love my time here.

I'm so thankful that the Lord is making my heart excited for this time. I have been praying about that the past couple days because it was hard to think about leaving home this time because it makes the fact that I'm leaving again soon so much more real. But once I got on the plane it was so much easier to remember that this is what the Lord has given me a passion and a heart for and I am so excited to begin this adventure and be a part of what He is doing all over the world!

Keep praying... :)

Tactic: London Avoidance

Today consisted of...
* 1 1/2 hours on hold with British Airways
* 2 Cancelled flights to London
* Maggie fighting with the Expedia man while pretending to be me
* One super mean airline employee who bullied me into a new flight that than also got cancelled
* One super nice and helpful airline employee who helped me get my money back
* A growing distaste for electronic voice recordings
* A disdain for elevator music
* A new ticket
* Chick-fil-A
* A movie
* Fun and very helpful friends :)

The end result is a new itinerary straight from RDU to Brussels leaving Monday afternoon! Jenni and I will skip our short Amsterdam excursion and still arrive with everyone else... yay :) Good results in the end. What an adventure!

The great news is I'm packed and ready to go... the bad news is I already said goodbye to everyone and I'm not happy about doing that again. So the plan is to lay low and pretend I'm already gone :)

Travel Hiccup

Dear snow in London,
You are complicating my life!
Love,
Shannon

Woke up this morning ready to make last second additions to my bag, threw everything in the car and headed to Maggie's house. The plan was to drive to to ATL today and get on a plane tomorrow for Cross-cultural training for MTW. Thankfully I checked my email at the last second to find out my flight is cancelled... awesome! :)

Honestly, it's no big deal... I'm getting good quality time with the Haigh family... cheesy TV ("Bring it On" gymnastics style), oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, spaghetti (yum!), flight searches (you can go to austin, TX for $252 if anyone is interested), speed lunch for Jamie, and patiently waiting to get ahold of British Airways.... and by patiently I mean I'm calling them every twenty minutes just to listen to their dialtone:) The good news is that when you get the automated voice feature, at least the man has a great accent! It's good to have a soothing voice tell you that there is no way that they can get to your call due to the vast amounts of call volume they are recieving. Thanks sir... I know it's not your fault... and you told me so nicely that I can't even be mad...

So... more updates to come! Hopefully next travel update I'll actually be out of Cary!