Evangelism Fears in two different cultures

A Fearless Evangelism Class

For the next few weeks, I’m teaching in a Spanish language missions school, particularly on cross cultural conversational evangelism.

Two of the opening questions I often ask are:

When I think about evangelism, I feel. . ..
When “evangelism” is mentioned, I begin to think . . .

A North American Answer

When I ask these questions to audiences in mainline denominations in North America (English speaking), the typical answers I receive are

Fear
Guilt
Scared
Anxiety
Confusion
Inadequate

and a variety of synonyms around these words. Evangelism is a chore, survival strategy for churches, and something many feel incapable of doing.

A Latin American Answer

When I have taught in a Spanish language context in both the US and Latin America, the answers to the same question have been different.

When I talk about evangelism fears that English speaking North Americans feel, I get blank stares — as if I’m missing the mark. I finally figured out why.

Last week’s Spanish speaking class answered the questions above with

Passionate
Happy in my heart
Freedom from my own guilt
Privileged to share such a message
Joy because I have received God’s grace
Sad because other’s haven’t found this grace.
Compassion for those who don’t yet know Jesus

Admittedly, the group I was teaching were students preparing for long term missions among unreached people groups. There may be a passionate slant towards evangelism.

Yet in 10 years of cross cultural ministry I have not yet encountered the same level of evangelism fears in Latin America that I find in the US among traditional mainline churches.

I find this contrast consistent enough in my experiences in conducting evangelism in both cultures and it makes sense as to why I get blank stares talking about evangelism fears.

That’s not the hindrance to personal evangelism in this culture.