Selling God

Don’t do it.

unless it comes out of

your soul like a rocket,

unless being still would

drive you to madness or

suicide or murder,

don’t do it.

unless the sun inside you is

burning your gut,

don’t do it.

when it is truly time,

and if you have been chosen,

it will do it by

itself and it will keep on doing it

until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

-Charles Bukowski

We just signed up to get replacement windows in our house.  It needs done, but it's really expensive.  We knew it needed to happen when we bought the house, and we knew it was going to cost some serious coin.  We thought we would get a couple estimates, but in the end we ran into a really good sales pitch and we went with it.  The salesman really believed in his product, he had confidence that if we bought his product we would not be disappointed.  I remember sitting through his spiel and being impressed by his conviction.  I knew I was being "sold," yet I had this sort of detached appreciation for the skill with which I was being talked into spending a heck of a lot of money.  

It was exactly the right situation; Michele and I had a need, we agreed upon the need, and we know that getting our old drafty, beat up windows replaced is going to be a good investment in the long haul.  But still, we weren't quite ready to pull the trigger.  Until we were convinced in our minds and hearts that this was the best way to meet our need.  That's where the salesman is at his best, and I admired the guy who sold us our windows, because unlike so much of the advertising that saturates our world, I didn't feel pressured, hustled or outright misled.  Even though I can see through the "our product is the greatest thing in the world" dogma, even though I could chuckle to myself when he revealed the latest-greatest "discount," I felt like I was at least an honorable participant in an economic process.  Ultimately what happened seemed pretty natural, and that's a good feeling.

Which brings me to the church, as most things do (occupational hazard).  I have been reading a lot about why people come to church, why people leave the church, why people never start going to church and even some things about why people think church is more or less irrelevant to their lives.  I'm also getting ready to teach a four week study about the practice of evangelism and faith sharing here at Good Samaritan.  And I have to admit that the idea that evangelism is somehow "selling God," is a rather odious  concept.  In fact, I tend to recoil from many practices that are common to the work of the evangelist.

I know we are supposed to share the gospel with people, but my soul and my stomach turn at the idea of a Jehovah witness style door to door campaign.  I am all too ready to believe that it just wouldn't work anyway, I'm all too ready to assume that most people are just like me and don't want to be hassled about religion.  Mostly because I don't want to go out knocking on doors, I'm simply not called or gifted to do that sort of thing.

It's not that I don't  believe in the product either.  I can't imagine facing grief without faith.  I can't imagine going through life disconnected from the community of the church (even if they can rub you the wrong way sometimes).  I don't much like the idea of trying to make sense of humanity without the exemplar of Jesus of Nazareth.  But I wonder how I would sell that to other people.

That last sentence even makes me cringe.  Is that what evangelism is, selling the church?  Yes and no.  We certainly are entirely too prone to adopting the sales techniques of the commercial world.  The problem is, we're really bad at it.  Seriously, watch the TV ads that churches make, they're horrendous.  I'm sure most of the churches that make them are good places, full of genuine and loving people, but they make bad TV.  Maybe it's because, as Jesus said, "The people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of light" (Luke 16: 8 NIV).

Indeed, maybe it's because we have allowed the drive for worldly success to obscure our vision.  Maybe we have begun to drink the kool-aid and actually assume that our job is to purvey religious goods and services and that the solution is simply to offer the "best product" out there, and to diligently market that product with all the creativity and dedication we can muster.

I want no part of that, and I don't think that's at all the vision that Christ had in mind when he sent the disciples out into the world with the great commission.

I'm rather certain that Charles Bukowski would be bitterly amused to find one of his writings at the head of an article by a Presbyterian Minister musing about evangelism, but I couldn't help it.  when I read the words: "don't do it unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket," I thought, "Yes, that is what calling is all about, doing what you can't not do."  The reason why it's hard to "sell" God and church is because God doesn't want to be sold, and thus he does not call people to the task.  God calls people to witness, God calls people to serve, God calls people to shine like a city on a hill, but God does not call people to dangle the kingdom out there like a really sweet deal on a used car.

So yeah, as unlikely as it may seem, I'm going to open my series on evangelism with Bukowski...

May God have mercy on my soul.