Comments on: A Buddhist Comments on Christianity

By: Effective Evangelism

Effective Evangelism — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:37:46 +0000

[...] wrote on Saturday about an evangelistic festival I took part in and some of my complaints about such efforts. My [...]

By: Trent

Trent — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 05:32:52 +0000

To bad the kids were not told that a prayer to Jesus does not give eternal life nor does inviting him into your heart. To much of evangelizing children is unbiblical IMO. Thank you for sharing, and it was an eye opener for me as well.

Grace and Truth

Trent

John 20:30-31

By: bullet

bullet — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:40:55 +0000

“What does gang banging and gun running have to do with the gospel?”

Trust me, dude. You do NOT want to know.

By: Effective Evangelism | TILL HE COMES Blog

Effective Evangelism | TILL HE COMES Blog — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:26:52 +0000

[...] Living life on mission « A Buddhist Comments on Christianity [...]

By: Helen

Helen — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:36:08 +0000

Hi Wendy, thanks for your response. Did they tell you what all the parking (and bottled water) money they were collecting went towards? I expect you would have liked that information!

By: Jeremy Myers

Jeremy Myers — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:46:35 +0000

this is actually jeremy’s wife wendy.

Randy and Helen

I really appreciate all your comments. I just want to add to what Jeremy said as far as the event. This was all advertised as free and so we expected parking to be free as well otherwise in our minds you had to pay to get in, right? I mean every other free show we have taken our kids to in Texas has been that way. Well, it didn’t turn out that way. Before you could even get into this “free” show you were expected to fork over $20 just to park your car. So much for free in my mind. Then if that wasn’t bad enough the majority of this so called entertainment was travelling around from advertising booth to another only to register for a raffle so that you could get swamped in the next few months with tons of Christian literature!

By: Helen

Helen — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:38:55 +0000

Randy, BSF didn’t ‘specialize’ in evangelism but we were encouraged to invite people who weren’t Christians as well as Christians to join BSF. In the hope that as they studied the Bible they’d realize they needed to be Christians and do something about that.

BSF has a ‘how to get saved’ leaflet (since I was saved I didn’t ask for it so I’m not sure what it said). The weekly lectures generally included a mention at the end that “if you don’t know Jesus yet, you can come to know him – if you want more information you can pick up the leaflet after the meeting”. Aka The Invitation. Just like many evangelical sermons include The Invitation near the end. To make sure no-one goes to hell because you didn’t give it that particular week and they got in a car crash two days later. Or whatever. I’ve heard that DL Moody felt very guilty when people died in the Great Chicago Fire a few days after he preached a sermon without The Invitation in it. And after that he always included it. I don’t know whether that’s true but it sounds plausible. Since many conservative evangelicals seem to carry angst about the possibility that people might go to hell because they didn’t do enough to prevent it.

By: Helen

Helen — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:08:27 +0000

Randy, I take your point – is this the idea: as you hand over the $4 water you say “you think this is your biggest need right now but actually your biggest need is for the LIVING water that Jesus can give you – and it’s FREE!”

And then they get saved and it was all worth it.

BSF was actually very good at keeping costs low. Everyone is a volunteer except the top tier of worldwide management and it’s free to join. When we had monthly lunch fellowships the host was urged to keep things simple, serving only simple (non-alcoholic of course) drinks and no food. People brought their own box lunches so the bar wasn’t set too high for the next host, who might be put off hosting if she had to provide food as well.

So I know nothing of these Christian $4 bottles of water

By: Randy Siever

Randy Siever — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:22:48 +0000

You’ve been out of the game too long, H. But then BSF really wasn’t into the evangelism game, I guess.

And yes…you pretty much summed up my sarcasmic strategy to win souls with water (in a really hot place, of course). Not bad for an almost atheist.

By: Randy Siever

Randy Siever — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:00:20 +0000

I’ll have to admit that four-dollar water is sort of passe…old news. I mean, Starbucks has been fleecing folks for a couple years like this with bottled water that purportedly helps build clean water wells for impoverished villages around the world. Sadly, only five cents of each four-dollar bottle goes to that cause. Nobody seems to really care.

I thought Jeremy hit it right on the head:

“(I had also noticed on my way in that there were numerous signs all over the place stating that outside coolers were not allowed to be brought in to the festival for “security reasons.” When I learned that they were charging $4 for water, I began to suspect that the “security reasons” were financial security.)”

Security reasons. That’s funny. Yeah…keep out those dastardly coolers. You sure wouldn’t want anyone sneaking wine or beer or (heaven forbid) a picnic lunch into a Christian fesitival for non-christians.

And Helen, surely as a former BSF leader and conservative evangelical you must know that if just one person gets saved because of that four dollar bottle of water they were forced to buy (because it was as hot as HELL at the event and you can’t bring in your own water)…well, it’s worth it. That’s been our modus operandi as evangelicals for as long as I can remember. Make sure they know they are thirsty…make ‘em sweat…then (and only then) offer them the living water. And hey, if you can raise some money while you do it…Brilliant!

(I’m hoping you can feel the cynical sarcasm dripping from that last paragraph).