WHAT IS EVANGELISM?
May 2005
article for The Collect, publication for St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
Medina
When I was 16, I started dating a 14-year-old girl named Brooke. She was a two-time runaway, barely scraping from grade to grade, from a home that had known its share of hard times and lack of opportunity. She later confided in me that she had been a rape victim at the age of five.
But there were other things about Brooke—amazing things. She wrote music, which she played for me on her little Casio keyboard. She wrote poems—not poet laureate quality, but heartfelt and sensitive teenage musings. We used to call each other on the phone to trade poetic thoughts. She had a delightful laugh and a real sense of wonder about life.
I don’t know what convinced me to ask Brooke, “Hey, would you like to come to church with me this week?” We didn’t have a youth group; in fact, my brother and I were the only two kids in the congregation. There wasn’t anything there that should excite a teenage runaway: just a small group of sincere retirees, my family, and myself. And, oh yes—I guess God must have been there, too. How else could you explain everything that happened?
Brooke showed up at church the first week of Advent. The congregation fell in love with her, and they let her know it. Every Sunday, my family offered to drive miles out of town to pick her up. She didn’t attend every week, but she came occasionally, then more and more often. And then, one day in the spring, Brooke brought her mom to church.
Linda was an underprivileged but vibrant woman. She had been divorced from Brooke’s dad for a long time. The congregation welcomed her with open arms, too, and it wasn’t long before Linda’s live-in boyfriend, Jim, also started attending.
It’s barely worth mentioning that Brooke and I broke up. We only officially dated for five weeks, and I’m sure our breakup had something to do with her lingering memories of rape. But our relationship deepened as she and her family continued to attend church. I started seeing Brooke as a little sister. Eventually, she asked about baptism. So did Linda. And Linda and Jim asked about marriage.
I regret that I had to miss Brooke and Linda’s baptism; it was slated for my first weekend away at college. I don’t recall Linda and Jim’s wedding, either, so that must also have happened while I was at school. I do remember sending Brooke a set of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia as a baptism gift. And I remember that Brooke attended Happening, a weekend youth retreat not unlike our HYC. All this happened within two years of my first invitation to Brooke.
Where is Brooke now? I wish I knew. She stopped attending church; maybe I was the glue that held her there, and once I was in college, she lost interest. I did occasionally see her when I came home from college, but eventually, I lost track of her. But wherever she is now, I have a feeling that little stint at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church was pretty important, and I bet it still guides her from time to time.
So what is evangelism? Is it standing on a street corner, shouting your perception of Truth at the top of your lungs in a desperate effort to keep sinners from going to hell? Or is it simply asking, “Hey, would you like to come to church with me this week?”