I know what you’re thinking my answer to this question is going to be: sports. Well, yes and no. Obviously sports is a part of the answer (this is, after all, the Church Sports Outreach blog) but it’s not the complete answer. Sports proves to be a great bridge to meet
and develop relationships with non-believers but there’s a next step.
I’ll let David Mathis explain via the DesiringGod blog:
“You know what the key to evangelism in the 21st-century will be, don’t you?”
He wasn’t talking Global South, but the Western hemisphere — and America in particular.
I’m sure he could see on our faces how eager we were for his answer. Wow, the key, we were thinking. This is huge.
He paused and smiled that memorable Steve Childers world-evangelism grin. He waited. Still waiting. Still paused. Still nothing. Hold it . . . hold it. I was almost ready to burst with, “Just c’mon already!”
Finally he lifted the curtain.
“Hospitality.”
Then another long pause to let it sink it.
Hospitality and Post-Christendom
In a progressively post-Christian society, the importance of hospitality as an evangelistic asset is growing rapidly. Increasingly, the most strategic turf on which to engage the unbelieving with the good news of Jesus may be the turf of our own homes.
When people don’t gather in droves for stadium crusades, or tarry long enough on the sidewalk to hear your gospel spiel, what will you do? Where will you interact with the unbelieving about the things that matter most?
Invite them to dinner.
For several of us in Childers’s class, the lights went on after his dramatic revelation. Biblical texts on hospitality were springing to mind. A theme we’d previously thought of as a secondary fellowship-type-thing was taking shape as a significant strategy for evangelism in a post-Christian milieu.
Like I said, sports is great for initiating and deepening a relationship but if you are going to have conversations of any depth (gospel conversations for example), there needs to be
trust, vulnerability, and comfort. What does this take? Time but also, some good ‘ole fashion hospitality.
