Spring 1995

ARTICLE TOOLS

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I am a pastor with a terrible confession to make: I do not get excited about "soul-winning."

I can't help it. I feel guilty about it. I have tried to repent of it. I will go to therapy over it. But in the end I must honestly confess that altar calls and "Just as I Am" leave me cool if not cold.

Don't get me wrong: I have a passion for Christ, the gospel, and people. I believe that faith in Christ is essential to eternal life. But bringing people to pray to receive Christ is not what lights my ministry fire.

I can recall my student days at a leading midwestern university where, as part of a campus parachurch group, I "led fellow students to pray to receive Jesus as their Savior." What could be more exciting, right?

Why did I not share the joy my staff worker did over one more lost sheep coming into the family of God? What was wrong with me? I loved God. I was serious about following Christ. I made sacrifices and took risks living out my faith. I even went to seminary and entered the pastoral ministry.

But to this day I am not an impassioned soul-winner. To be sure, people have come to faith as a result of my ministry, but conversion experiences have never excited me--at least as I felt they should have.

It has taken nearly twenty years for me to come to terms with my condition. Here are my reflections for those who may share my lot and for others who may not be sympathetic but need to understand that I am not a lost sheep.

The early days of my spiritual life were lived under the motto, "You are either an evangelist or you need one." I had to conform to this motto.

My discomfort with this sacred cow, I'm sure, has something to do with my spiritual history: My conversion was not dramatic. My awakening to growth ...

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