Evangelism through kindness and “God loves you” cards
JG wrote the following in comment #15 on Jerks for Jesus on CatE:
Details of something which I have reservations about can be found at:
I would be very interested to know how others react to this concept. How would you react if you were on the receiving end of one of these “random acts of kindness” and were then given a card saying “This is our simple way of saying God loves you” ?
(If you scroll down the page JG linked to you will see the cards he’s referring to)
July 25th, 2006 · 7 Comments
Categories: Doable Evangelism
Helen M. said
am July 25 2006 @ 6:36 am
Some people who aren’t Christians think that when Christians are kind it’s just a ’sales’ tactic - that the Christians don’t really care about them.
Giving out cards with every act of kindness may only confirm that negative stereotype to such people.
Plus, giving out a card is so like the way people give out their business cards it’s likely to encourage the association with sales.
People who aren’t Christians may also think - if I want to know why you did it I’ll ask. No need to ‘push’ that information on me.
Those are some negative responses I’d anticipate to the kindness-plus-cards evangelism method.
People who are Christians might like it but presumably they aren’t the ones who the card distributors are trying to ‘reach’.
Bruce Logue said
am July 25 2006 @ 8:16 am
Hummmm. I’ve looked at those cards before. Some I liked better than others. What I’m concluding, however, is that some folks will like them a lot and others will think they are awful. It depends, to the largest degree, on the experience they’ve had with Christians, I think.
Would it be better to just offer kind service without the cards? Maybe that would be seen as being more unconditional and sales-like.
Jim said
am July 25 2006 @ 8:19 am
Here’s a funny coincidence
I used to lead that ministry in the church that founded servant evangelism and I am very good friends with the pastor who originated the idea
In a way I have been waiting for someone to surface this more sophisticated version of evangelism
Richard Pool said
am July 25 2006 @ 8:27 am
We’ve just begun to venture out into our community to do this sort of thing. Like many folk I know, we expected all sorts of negative responses, especially here in Britain where cynicism is part of the national psyche! Guess what? No one has been hostile or negative to any great extent. We went out the other Sunday afternoon and gave away free bottles of water. I only had one person reject the offer, everyone else was very grateful for a cold drink on a hot day.
Previously at Christmas we gave away stamps to all our neigbours in the village (287 homes). I had cards and thank you’s from all sorts of people. I think we had more people at our Christmas services because of that simple act of kindness than we have because of all the invitations we,ve done before. And we didn’t even include an invitation with the stamps!
Julie Marie said
am July 25 2006 @ 10:41 am
This should not be offensive. I don’t think it would be offensive if “the lost” haven’t been handled in a hamfisted, confrontational way previously.
I think to spread the love of Jesus around now we must be sensitive to the fact that some of the best meaning folks go out and almost assault people in the name of the Lord. It makes me hyper reactive just to think about it and I’m a believer!
(however, I’ve read Steve’s blog…if someone came in and cleaned my toilets, I sure wouldn’t take offense at why they did it - wether it as for Jesus, Allah, Budda, or just because they want to MTWABP by cleaning my pottys.)
JG said
am July 25 2006 @ 11:05 am
Thanks for this Richard,
I feel far more positive about say your Christmas stamp initiative than I do about say handing out mars bars in the town centre. I struggle with the idea of linking the concept of God’s love to “random” acts of kindness.
The question raised here though is more to do with the question of the cards given out rather than the “acts of kindness” in themselves. What evidence do you have of a positive reaction to the cards? What evidence is there of a better response as a result of use of the cards?
Richard said
am July 27 2006 @ 11:29 pm
I take your point JG. The thing about the card, for me at least, is that it lets people know hat I’m not some two-headed monstor with a hidden agenda. Our cards are as simple as we can make them, with a simple message explaining that “this gift is our way of saying God loves you…” and some contact information. The kind of cards on the SE website.
I’ve not had anyone return the card or appear to be offended. In fact, when we recently gave away free bottles of water, one of our folk heard a couple sitting on a becnh remark, “God loves us,” as they read the card. To which a second couple sitting nearby said, “He loves us too.”
It seems to me that people are taken aback by the act of kindness and are genuinely interested in knowing why you’ve done whatever it is you’re doing. The card helps to explain and gives them the choice about starting a conversation or not.