I never cease to be amazed at the way technology has created a "real-time" world that has resulted in the death of distance. People half way around the world are a mouse click away. Here is an email I received today from someone I've never met.
I am a missionary in the Czech Republic. I recently had a discussion with a dear friend about creating margins in our lives which intrigued me. I did a google search this morning and came upon your E-Votional on “Margins: Guarding your Time”. I was very gently convicted while reading it, and challenged to seek solitude with God, put the most important things back onto my calendar first and allow God the space to move in my life. Thank you for your faithfulness in putting out that devotional. It ministered to a fellow servant in the middle of Europe this morning.
As I read it I was reminded again that God works in strange and mysterious ways--even through a google search.

I spent the last two days in Colorado Springs. When I got off the plane and into my rental car I couldn't stop praying and praising God for a half hour. The mountains were absolutely majestic. I got up early Tuesday morning and the rising sun painted the mountains a pinkish-purplish hue. No wonder those very mountains inspired "America the Beautiful"--"purple mountain majesty."
Do people who live there actually get used to them? I think we tend to take our surroundings for granted. Washingtonians take the monuments for granted. Coloradians take the mountains for granted. Minnesotans take lakes for granted. For some reason it's more enchanting seeing something you usually don't see or going someplace you usually don't go. So I was praising God because of the mountains but I think most people who look there stopped double-takes a long time ago! Such is human nature. I spent six hours with pastors and church planters today. It was one of those days where you feel exhausted and energized at the end of it. My day started at 4 AM and it'll end past midnight, but I love being with pastors who are in the fray. I shared part of Sunday's message about Saul and David. We pastors are an insecure breed and I couldn't help but think about how Saul was all bent out of shape because David had better numbers. I think that is how many pastors feel. They play the numbers game or comparison game and because they only pastor hundreds and someone else pastors thousands or tens of thousands they feel insecure or insignificant or unimportant. I felt like I was speaking a language every pastor can understand. I have a feeling that this message will be one I share for years to come in pastoral circles. I presented along with Lee McFarland, the pastor of Radiant Church in Surprise, Arizona. He shared his story and it was pretty powerful. He worked for Microsoft before ministry. He went from $160,000 and 16,000 shares (at that point worth $180/share) at Microsoft to a small church making $26,000. He committed occupational suicide just like I committed academic suicide when I left the University of Chicago. You’ve got to be willing to “die to self”—your goals, your dreams, your plans. But God will give you bigger and better goals and dreams and plans. What really impacted me was the fact that Lee prayed that God would you give him one person for every share of stock he gave up! Here was my takeaway: the more you’re willing to give up the more God can use you. If you’re willing to give up everything there is no limit to how much God can use you. Abraham was willing to sacrifice the promise—His own Son. If you ever get to that point there is nothing God can’t do through you. They had 147 people at their first service in 1997. Last Easter they had 12,000 and average 4,000 on Sundays. God might do a "stock split" and give him more than 16,000!

I've had such great times of prayer this week. At the end of my prayer time today I had this thought--everything on my heart is now in Your hands.
That is such a great feeling when you feel like you've prayed through everything in your life. I feel so connected to God when I've talked with Him about everything going on in my life. That is exactly how I feel when Lora and I talk through our days--a connectedness.
Sunday
I tend to focus on "areas of improvement"--that is my personality. But Sunday was one of those days that I just had to sit back and celebrate how far God has brought us. We celebrated our first birthday at Ballston--what a milestone. And the combination of worship, message, and attendance at Union made for some powerful experiences. It was the kind of Sunday where I didn't want it to end. I love leaving wanting more!

I've been thinking about assumptions. They can make us or break us. Assumptions are really pre-decisions we've made based on past experience.
Assumptions are invaluable. They allow us to anticipate what will happen in certain situations and act accordingly.
But assumptions are incredibly dangerous. If we aren't careful we'll only see what we expect to see. And if we've made the wrong assumption it can intellectually imprison us.
The disciples made the wrong assumption in John 9:2. They assumed that the man was born blind because of his sin or his parent's sin. But that wasn't it at all. Jesus said it happened so that God could be glorified.
Jesus was always challenging the assumptions of the religious people. He said, "You have heard that it was said, but I tell you." He challenged assumptions.
Inventors challenge assumptions. Entrepreneurs challenge assumptions. Anybody who does anything of note challenges assumptions. We make far too many assumptions when it comes to church and faith.
Jesus said if we had faith as small as a mustard seed we could move mountains. Paul said God is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine. Translation: don't assume anything.
I think our assumptions keep us from believing God for the impossible! God, forgive me for making so many false assumptions about you.

Before I share a thought here's a brief description of me. I'm a recovering perfectionist. I'm an ENFP which means in part that I have millions of ideas, but I have a tough time finishing what I start. It's tough for me to tie off the umbilical cord on anything. No matter how good a message is or how much I've worked on it, I'll keep fine tuning right up to the last minute. I can't not do it. I'm future-oriented. I have so many dreams and so many goals that I'm never satisfied. That is a blessing and a curse. I'm trying to crucify selfish ambition and vain conceit, but they keep resurrecting! I try to celebrate the past and enjoy the present, but my default setting is a future-orientation. And I often feel the acute frustration of not acheiving my goals in an expedited enough fashion.
When you combine all of that you get a snapshot of me emotionally. That's why this metaphor is so powerful to me.
I identify with Lewis Carroll's Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass. She is the one who runs so hard but never gets anywhere because everything else in the landscape is also running. She says to Alice, "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place."
It is the inflationary effect. If you're income stays the same you're losing money because of inflation. If you do nothing you'll fall behind. You have to work hard to stay where you are.
When you acheive a level of success you aren't satisfied with anything less--the baseline adjusts. Ask any athlete who's not at the top of their game anymore. Ask any CEO whose company isn't performing like it was last quarter.
So you may have thought you'd be satisfied pastoring a church of 1,000 people but once you're pastoring 1,000 people you experience the Red Queen Effect.
I think it's good and bad. We need some divine discontent. But we also need to learn to rest in who God is and what God has done for us!

Assumptions are mental routines. Routines are physical assumptions.
Routines are invaluable. They allow us to get things done without thinking about them. Can you imagine if we had to relearn how to drive a car or eat a bowl or cereal or set the alarm everyday?
But routines are dangerous--they keep us from a fresh perspective. I think many inventions are the byproduct of distupted routines.
We were in a routine at Giddings school eight years ago when that routine got disrupted. And we ended up at Union Station. Thank God for disrupted routines!
Historian Henry Hobson said, "The Americas were discovered as a by-product of the search for pepper." The Turks disrupted the land trade routes in 1470 which caused pepper to be in short supply and prices skyrocketed. The discovery of America was due in part to a disrupted routine.
God, I give you permission (like you need it) to disrupt my routine. Help me see what is there but I don't notice. Help me not to become a creature of habit. Help me make new discoveries. I know that means disrupt me!
It's so hard for us to of things for which we have no categories. The first cars where described in terms of what they weren't--horseless carriages.

Here's an article that I've written for Envoy Magazine. I think it'll be in next month's issue.
Purple Churches
In the next thirty seconds you’ll make a decision about whether or not to read this entire article. It’s a function of something called the reticular activating system. Your brain is constantly bombarded with stimuli and it’s the reticular activating system’s job to filter out the “white noise” that isn’t worth paying attention to from the information that is vital to your interests. So let me cut to the chase since I’ve got about ten seconds left. You ought to paint your church purple—figuratively speaking.
In his book, Purple Cow, Seth Godin makes an astute observation: if you've seen one brown cow you've seen them all. “My family and I were driving through France a few years ago; we were enchanted by hundreds of storybook cows grazing on picturesque pastures right next to the highway. For dozens of kilometers we gazed out the window marveling. Then within twenty minutes we started ignoring the cows. The new cows were just like the old cows, and what was once amazing was now common. Worse than common. It was boring. Cows, after you've seen them for a while, are boring. They may be perfect cows, attractive cows, cows with great personalities, cows lit by beautiful light, but they're still boring. A purple cow, though. Now that would be interesting.”
Let’s be brutally honest. Don’t take this personally unless it’s true. Many churches are boring brown cows. If you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. They look alike, act alike, sing alike, smell alike. Godin says, “Either you’re remarkable or you’re invisible.”
There are approximately 340,000 churches in the U.S. but most of them are invisible because they aren’t remarkable.
Where’s the originality, the creativity, the personality?
Now Meeting @ a Theater near You
The church I serve as lead pastor, National Community Church, is one church with two locations. We meet in the movie theaters @ Union Station (four blocks from the U.S. Capitol) and the movie theaters @ Ballston Common Mall in Arlington, VA. Our macro vision is to meet in movie theaters @ metro stops throughout the DC area.
One of the greatest things about “church in a theater” is that it’s a purple cow. There is a “shock value.” Unchurched people aren’t used to it, and all of our marketing plays off of that fact. Our website is our brand—www.theaterchurch.com. We do series posters that look like movie posters. Our invite cards have the moniker “Now meeting @ a Theater near you” on them. We do an annual series titled God @ the Box Office. We do trailers for almost all of our message series. And we use popcorn buckets for the offering.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that those things are gimmicks. There is a theological method to our madness.
Attention Deficit Disorder
Luke 14:23 says, “Go out into the roads and country lanes and make them come in so that my house will be full.” The KJV uses the word “compel.” It means “to urge irresistibly” or “to demand attention.” And therein lies the challenge. We've got so many things vying for our attention that most Americans suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). In their book, The Attention Economy, Thomas Davenport and John Beck cite lots of statistics, but the bottom line is this: we just don't have enough attention to go around. The church needs to compete for people's attention. Madison Avenue is awfully good at advertising. They do a better job advertising beer than we do marketing the gospel. Does that bother anybody else? I happen to believe that the greatest message deserves the greatest marketing.
Our competition is not other churches! Our competition is any alternate use of time. More specifically, our competition is the Sunday paper, the Sunday talk shows, an extra hour of sleep and whatever else people do on Sunday mornings! That's what we're competing against. And we can bemoan the fact that a majority of Americans don't go to church or we can create an experience that is so compelling that it demands people's attention!
The Middle of the Marketplace
Part of our DNA as a church is meeting in the middle of the marketplace. We have nothing against church buildings. We might build one someday. But we believe God has strategically positioned us in an urban beachhead—the movie theaters @ Union Station. Nearly 75,000 people pass through Union Station everyday! We have our own bus stop and metro stop. We even have a railroad that drops off at our front door. We think we’re where God wants us to be. We also do a monthly event at the largest nightclub in DC. We’re building a coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. And when we launched our second location @ Ballston Common Mall we choose it because malls are marketplaces.
In Acts 17, Paul walks into the Areopagus and shares the gospel. The Areopagus was the marketplace of ideas. Acts 17:21 says they “spent all their time talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” Paul walked into that arena and he competed. He wasn't afraid of head-to-head competition. Why? Because he knew that he knew the truth. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, the church needs to get in the game and compete in the marketplace of ideas.
Someone recently emailed an article titled Cinema: The New Cathedral of Hollywood. The article compared churches and theaters. “What we want from church is actually precisely what we get from film.” It's a “two-hour reprieve from the burden of self-consciousness.” Movies are “an alternate form of transcendence.” Then the author shared what for me was the clincher. She said, “Awe in the presence of a great film is something that very few people are even capable of feeling in church these days.”
When I read what she wrote it riled something so deep in me that it's tough to put into words. I have a competitive streak. I hate losing Candyland to my kids! That statement –“Awe in the presence of a great film is something that very few people are even capable of feeling in church these days”—got my competitive juices flowing. We better not compete with other churches. But we better compete in the marketplace of ideas!
Fredrick Buechner said, “Hollywood consistently beats the church at its own game.” That shouldn't be. We've got to compel people to come in. We’ve got to create experiences that people walk away from feeling I Corinthians 14:25—“God is really among them.”
Postmodern Stained Glass
One of our core values at NCC is pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on you. I spend approximately twenty hours preparing every message I preach. We invest approximately thirty hours shooting, editing, and producing our video illustrations. We invest thousands of dollars designing graphics and invite cards and series posters. Every week we invest lots of mental capital into our “big idea” meeting where we nail down message themes and creative elements. And here is the conclusion I’ve come to: there is nothing easy about creativity. Creativity is good old-fashioned hard work! It’s so much easier to do what you’ve always done, but we believe the church ought to be the most creative place on the planet. We’ve got to reflect the creativity of the Creator! According to entomologists, there are more than 250,000 species of beetles. That borders on creative overkill, but it reveals something about God. God loves variety.
We need lots of different kinds of churches because there are lots of different kinds of people. We believe that our role in the Kingdom is in the Research & Development (R & D) department. We want to experiment with new ways of doing church, news ways of doing spiritual formation, new ways of communicating ancient truth.
Every church needs to be creative in keeping with its culture. We know based on our demographics as a church (80% twenty-something and 80% single) that we’re primarily reaching postmoderns so we’ve got to speak in postmodern languages. The movie screen is postmodern stained glass. It allows us to tell the story in images to a post literate generation.
I read some fascinating research recently about the way we process information. The brain is able to process print on a page at a rate of about a hundred bits per second. But the brain can process at picture at about a billion bits per second. That means that a picture isn’t worth a thousand words! A picture is literally worth ten million words!
That’s why we hired a pastor of media before we hired a youth pastor or associate pastor or worship pastor. One of the fundamental shifts that affects postmodern ministry is the fact that people don’t process information the same way. We try to communicate in 3D/5S ways (three-dimensional/five senses).
We know that most people will visit us online before they visit us in person. That’s why we put so much time and effort into our creative efforts. Before we launched our second location @ Ballston Common Mall we produced our first trailer for our Extreme series. We knew that thousands of people who wouldn’t come to church would watch a trailer. The trailer got nearly 3,000 hits in a three week period. Our hope was that some of those hits would visit one of our physical locations.
This article wouldn’t be complete without a show-n-tell so let me invite you to visit us online @ www.theaterchurch.com to check out our video archive. If you’d like a copy of our latest invite cards, the reel NCC 2003 DVD (nineteen video illustrations) or our 2004 annual ministry report, you can email info@theaterchurch.com.
One last thought.
One of my core convictions and one of our core values as a church is this: irrelevance is irreverence. God is omni-relevant. He speaks six billion languages. He knows the number of hairs on our head. He knows every need before we verbalize it. He knows how to meet each of us exactly where we are—geographically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. No one is more relevant than God so to be like God is to be relevant. When we become irrelevant we become irreverent. Cultural relevance isn’t about cute gimmicks. It’s about incarnating the ancient truth in postmodern ways.
Let’s be reverent.
Let’s be relevant.
You can’t be one without the other.

A few random thoughts that have occured to me this week.
I think the happiest people are the most grateful people--they don't expect anything and are grateful for everything. I think right at the heart of mastering this game of life is learning to be grateful for everything.
Lora told me a story this morning about Josiah. He asked for "cheerios" but when she went to get him "cheerios" he was frustrated because it wasn't what he wanted. So she tried the next closest thing "honey graham o's." But that wasn't it. He pointed to the cabinet, but whatever he wanted wasn't in there either. A little later she opened the refrigerator and he pointed to "spaphettios" and said "cheerios." Those moments are priceless.
Seasons
I've journaled about this several times, but it seems like the Lord is confirming it in so many ways. I think "seasons are for seasoning." Anytime the Lord wants to use us in an area he builds endurance by allowing some tough circumstances. We should be encouraged by the discouragement because it means God is preparing to use us in a greater way. James says it this way, "Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds."
Several trusted people in my life have spoken into my life and said God is going to expand my sphere of ministry. In some ways that scares me. I've learned that more ministry isn't necessarily more glamorous. More ministry is more work! The reward for work well done, in the Kingdom of God, is more work.
It's sort of scary because I feel stretched so thin sometimes, but in other ways I feel a confirmation in my spirit. I think he's going to do it in two ways (of course, he may end up doing it in some totally different way). I think my ministry to church planters and my writing ministry are the two areas that the Lord really wants to use me in greater ways.
I'm on the phone or meeting with church planters almost on a weekly basis now. I hope we always have a "church planter in residence" on staff. Maybe we'll have multiple church planters on staff at some point. I'd love to be a "farm system" for church planters. I feel like NCC is called to be part of the research and development department of the Kingdom. I want to help inspire another generation of church planters by experimenting with new ways of doing church. I think we're called to make mistakes!
I'm a homebody. I love speaking to NCC and I really don't seek outside opportunities. About the only opportunities I accept are opportunities to speak to college students and church planters. I'm pretty passionate about speaking into those life stages.
I think things came too easy for two years--our staff grew from 2 to 13, the church grew from 250 to 750, and the budget grew from $500,000 to $1,500,000. We were hitting on all eight cylinders. But we hit a wall six or nine months ago. I feel like we're catching up with our body just like an eight year-old who's uncoordinated and outgrown his clothes.
I also feel like I became focused on end results--the numbers. And the Lord has brought me back to the place where I just love serving him. I think I'm back to that place where my optimism is based on the simple fact that God is doing some new things in my heart.
I think it took some setbacks. I think it took some pruning. I think it took forty days of prayer and fasting. I'm thinking I'm better able to tell church planters how to deal with discouragement which is something they will undoubtedly face at different times in ministry.
I'm also trying to enjoy the day in and day out of ministry. I put alot of pressure on myself. And I'm very future-oriented. Some people live in the past, but I definitely live in the future. I'm trying to live in the present more.
Writing
I had an interesting conversation today where I said something I'd never said before. I'm struggling so much to get my first manuscript finished. It is a labor of love, but it's more labor than love sometimes! I'm such a perfectionist it's so hard for me to tie off the umbilical cord. But I said something that surprised me when it came out of my mouth. I said that I thought the Lord would someday use me more as a writer than a pastor. I don't think I'd ever said it or thought it that way, but I think it's true.
I read something interesting in the 7 practices of Effective Ministry . It said, "The needs and interests of insiders have a tendency to determine the agenda for the organization. This is especially true of the church. Focus your efforts on those you're trying to reach rather than on those you're trying to keep."
I feel like I've gone through a season where I was "on my heels" focusing my efforts on those we're trying to keep rather than those we're trying to reach. I think one of the greatest threats any church can face is becoming ingrown. That doesn't mean we don't disciple people. It means we disciple people to disciple people! The focus is always on the Great Comission. We exist for the people who haven't been here yet. I think that has to be a dominant part of our church culture if we're going to stay healthy. Matthew 11
Matthew is an interesting insight into the human situation. It says that John the Baptist came fasting and the people found something wrong with it. Jesus came feasting and the people found something wrong with it. The bottom line is that somebody can always find something wrong with what you're doing.
Abraham Lincoln said, "You can please all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time."
I love the juxtaposition of Proverbs 26:4-5. I'll let you read it, but the principle is pretty simple. When you're dealing with a fool you're in a no win situation.

I love roundtable experiences where like-minded people with similar passions meet with a few questions as the only agenda. I hung out with about fifteen young pastors today and some of the insights were thought-provoking. I find that brainstorming allows my synapses to fire in new ways. I think one of the major challenges to postmodern ministry is that people process information differently than they did a decade ago. Most people will visit a website before visiting a church. That is not insignificant. That is why we do invites and evites and evotionals and trailers. We want to get people to our website first. We brand our website more than our name. I think one major transition in postmodern ministry is the seismic shift from print to image. We invest huge amounts of time trying to create pictures, metaphors, videos, images. I read something fascinating recently about the way we process information. The brain is able to process print on a page at a rate of about a hundred bits per second. But the brain can process at picture at about a billion bits per second. That means that a picture isn’t worth a thousand words! A picture is literally worth ten million words! Culture
I think so much of leadership is about creating and modeling a culture or climate. I can't expect people to do what I'm not doing. People will rise or fall to the level of leadership. I think Maxwell calls it "the law of the lid." Leadership will set the temperature and tone. People will pray as much as the leader prays. People will be as friendly as the leader.
Culture isn't created overnight. And it must be created with intense intentionality. That is why I weave "core values" into my messages. That is why we do videos like Praizd. There is a method to our madness!
Experiments
I think I'd like to experiment with a college-like "spiritual emphasis" week next year. It'd be a cool way to begin the New Year.
I'd also like to institute a "connection point" after services so that we have a more consistent opportunity for people to connect with NCC.
One more footnote. I heard something interesting today. In the absence of information people connect the dots in the most pathological way.

I think there are two kinds of people in the world--those who can find the best in the worst circumstances and those who can find the worst in the best circumstances.
I think I say "your focus determines your reality" more than any aphorism. Numbers 13 tells the story of the Israelites spying out the Promises Land. The moral of the story is that ten people who chose to focus on the negative infected the entire group and killed off a generation. Negativity can have devasting effects. It can keep you from fulfilling your God-given destiny. I've found that one negative person can outweight the effects of twenty positive people.
I have a zero tolerance policy on some issues--among them are loyalty, integrity, and negativity. I think negativity is a cancer. There is a time and place for constructive criticism--criticism that is shared in a genuine spirit of humility and a desire to help. It is the motive and the track record that determine how much you listen to people. I don't lend much weight to people I don't know. I think one problem with negative people is their abiltity to point out negative things and their unwillingness to do anything about it. Erwin McManus said, "Never let an arrow pierce your heart unless it first passes through the filter of Scripture." Ed Young says, "Negative people have their wires crossed." If you cross the wires when you jump the batteries you're in trouble, you're going to have problems. Negative people try to negate what God is doing or wants to do. Here's a rule of thumb on criticism: if there is nothing redemptive, if there is no signature, if you perceive a devisive or critical spirit, don't let it get into your spirit. It's not worth it. And don't handle the negative stuff in a public forum--one negative person can deflate an entire meeting. You've got to isolate and quarantine the negativity. Don't give negative people a microphone or platform--period. Unfortunately, the ten spies "leaked" their negative report to the "media" and an entire nation felt the effects. I heard Ed Young talk about negativity recently. He said you can lead like Bill Hybels and preach like T.D. Jakes. You can have Beth Moore as your woman's pastor or Gary Smalley as your couples pastor. It doesn't matter. You'll always have people who will find something negative no matter what.
Ed Young said it doesn't matter how great a preacher you are--people leave churches pastored by the greatest preachers because the preaching "isn't deep enough" and they are being "fed." Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, preaching is perceived differently by different people. I think part of it depends on "learning preferences."
Somehow Moses kept his cool. Nehemiah is another leader who dealt with lots of negativity, but he stayed above the fray. He didn't waste his time going into the valley of Ono. It's not a good investment of time and energy. Don't give negative people access. Negativity is like wearing a fifty pound backpack around. It just makes you feel heavy! You've got to stay the course. Know who you're not. Know who you're called to be. Right before a breakthrough you're bound to experience pruning. You need to get rid of the dead weight (negative people with a critical spirit) so that you can run farther and faster. I think you've got to go back to the original vision and original promise all the time. I go back to the gym at Results where we met as a core group of 19 people. It's my Bethel. The ten spies lost sight of the original vision. Their negativity was the byproduct on focusing on their external circumstances instead of the promises of God.
Nothing has changed.

I read an interesting article on evangelism this week. I think we need a paradigm shift. Only 1% of Christians have ever had the joy of leading someone to Christ. Why? I think it traces back to the wrong mindset. We've used the wrong metaphor for sharing our faith. And the wrong metaphors create the wrong mindsets and result in false guilt or false expectations.
Spencer Burke shares an interesting paradigm in his article "Swords into Plowshares." He makes a distinction between military and agricultural approaches to evangelism. "Warriors take territory by force; gardeners faithfully till and water the soil. While warriors are busy attacking, gardeners plant and fertilize."
We get too focused on end-results instead of finding joy on the front-end--planting seeds and watering. It's amazing how many times in recent weeks I've come back to the agricultural metaphors. They are process-oriented not result-oriented. I've never "made a seed." All I can do is plant seeds and water them. God is the one who makes things grow--it takes all the pressure off of me.
I don't "create" opportunties. All I can do is "recognize" opportunities. But I've got to be looking for them. It all comes back to the reticular activating system. If we're looking for opportunities to share our faith we'll find them everyday. It may be as simple as a kind word or smile. It may be sharing my story. It may be praying silently or verbally for someone. One way or the other I'm called to "represent." I'm always "on duty." And when the opportunity presents itself I plant seeds and trust the Holy Spirit.
I spent 90 minutes with someone today who is in what I would call "seeking mode." They are earnestly seeking God and I believe that God rewards that. My primary job is to listen and trust the Holy Spirit to work in people's hearts. I think the prayer I pray more than any other prayer is "help me help people." When that is our motivation we can't go wrong. I'm not trying to manipulate anyone. I'm not even trying to "convert" anyone. I'm trying to help them discover what I've discovered.
I've been so much more proactive about sharing my faith lately. I think that is the byproduct of a few things. The better we're doing spiritually the more we want to give what we have. It becomes more natural. Evangelism is the natural overflow of what God is doing in our hearts. I don't think that means we have to be doing great spiritually to share our faith. I think that sometimes the greatest time to share our faith is when we're going through a tough time. I think evangelism from weakness can be pretty powerful!