by Randy Siever

This past weekend Jim Henderson and I presented the Doable Evangelism (DE) Seminar to about 70 Southern Baptist pastors, church planters and leaders in Baltimore, MD.  We were invited by Thom Thornton, who has the interesting title, “Missionary” and is responsible for the areas of evangelism and collegiate ministry in the Maryland and Delaware region of the Southern Baptist Convention.  We were joined for this particular event by pastor Gary Cymbaluk from Toronto, who came out to see how a DE Seminar works.  He’s quite interested in becoming the Canadian distributor of DE, and after spending a couple of nights with him in my hotel room (and sharing a few good beers…a Canadian cultural tradition I happen to respect deeply), I think he just might be able to pull that off.  More about this in a moment.

I wasn’t sure about how to act/dress/speak in front of a Southern Baptist pastor crowd.  I spent a few years in Texas, and actually joined the local Southern Baptist (prounouced, “bab-dist” there) church for about a year and a half.  This is partly why I was a bit nervous, but it turned out the northern version of Southern Baptists are a little less, uh…traditionally Southern Baptist.  I felt very comfortable with them all and even though I said “crap” from up front once, don’t think I offended too many of them during the day.  Thom Thornton was a blast to hang out with and he even took us to a fantastic Irish Pub for dinner after the seminar.  This was a very pleasant but somewhat unexpected gift.  Best corned beef I’ve ever had…period.  The beer recommendation (Smithwick’s) was the perfect compliment to the decidedly Irish fare as well.

We found out that this particular SB group was planting about 40 new churches a year in the Baltimore and Delaware area.  These are being planted by a host of very young, wonderfully non-traditional leaders who seem to be changing the face of church in this area.  Most of these young leaders actually are practicing the spiritual practices of DE already, so this event was more of an affirmation than an education for them.  They were a great encouragement to the rest of us.

Our “lost” interviewees were once again quite interesting.  We only had two, and it turned out they were married to one another (only for three months so far).  Derrin was 40 and African American,  and his wife Heather was 38 and caucasian.   They both had church backgrounds and both chose (with their parents permission) to leave the church at age 16.  They’ve not rejoined since, although Heather is hoping to find a place where she feels comfortable (aka: unjudged).  Derrin actually explored becoming a Muslim for a while, but discovered the same kind of judgemental system there that he experienced in his childhood Baptist church.  Both of these “consultants” were very kind, and honest, in their advice to us:  “Please be less judgemental and less preachy.  Listen to us and we will listen to you.”  It’s almost as if we scripted it, but we didn’t.  Very cool how God works.

The White Marsh Baptist Church hosted us, and they had a fantastic and helpful crew serving the event.  I felt honored to be with them and felt very loved and cared for during our time there.  It is my hope and prayer that these pastors will find a way to spread the spiritual practice of evangelism in their sphere of influence, initially by practicing themselves and then by celebrating the ordinary attempts of the folks they lead.  I think some of them really will. 

So back to my new Canadian friend, Gary.  He emailed and called me wanting to join us at this particular event.  He said he was coming because he had read the book (Evangelism Without Additives, formerly titled, “AKA:Lost”) and wanted to bring this kind of evangelism to Canada (which I though sounded quite ambitious at the time, but intriguing nonetheless).  I offered to put him up in my hotel room if he’d pay for a ticket to fly down and help us put this event on.  Done deal.  Gary is 37, married with two young kids, and is the outreach pastor at a fairly large church near Toronto.  He’s highly energetic, eager to learn, and pretty darn smart (he reads a LOT).  And he’s a Mac guy (double smart). 

He jumped right in with us and felt immediately like part of the team.  It was very fun to hang out with him, but even more fun to think about how we might make Gary’s goal happen.  To start, I officially swore him in as our new DE representitive in Canada (we did this somewhat informally over breakfast in the hotel, using apple juice and some hand motions) and then gave him his first assignment:  Set up and work a table display for DE at the upcoming Cataylst conference in Atlanta.  I won’t be there, but Jim Henderson and Matt Casper are presenting for one day, so we’re going to get a LOT of exposure and hand out a ton of information at one of the largest leadership conventions in the Christian world…because GARY will be there at the table answering questions and handing out materials. He will then put together a short DE Workshop for pastors in his home community, which he will lead on his own.  And ultimately we’re hoping to get him to present the DE Seminar to churches across Canada.  He thinks this is exactly what Canada needs right now.  I think he’s probably right (did I mention how smart he is?). 

DE just went international.  Wow.

Finally, I had a conversation with one of the pastors attending the DE Seminar in the church men’s room (this wasn’t as weird as it sounds right now…there was actually a line in there).  He said that this seminar affirmed him in what he had been doing all his life, and that the “other” kind of evangelism had been virtually impossible for him.  He kind of teared up and said, “I’ve always felt like a failure when it came to that other kind of evangelism, and therefore like a failure to Jesus.  I can do this new kind of evangelism.  I have been doing it my whole life.  Thank you.”  And then he hugged me. Right there in the men’s room. 

That was the highlight of my weekend in Baltimore.  Thanks be to God.