An Open Apology to Those I Evangelised

If you attended Texas A&M University from 1998 until 2002, and you were ever approached by a skinny guy with dark hair saying he was taking a 'mock survey' and wanted to ask you some questions, I have something to say to you.

I'm sorry.

There was no survey. I had no idea how to share my faith with you, and I was really just trying to get you to change your mind about your beliefs. My heart was in the right place, but my motivations were more about me and less about really caring for you. To be fair, I didn't know you, and so it would have been darn near miraculous for me to muster any personal concern for you other than for your eternal soul. That's a really important thing, mind you, but there is more to you than which God (or lack thereof) you allied yourself with.

I really didn't know that the key to sharing the story of what God was doing with this world was that I first learn your story. I really should been more concerned with understanding your struggles, your needs, the things that you enjoy than I was about getting to talk to 3 people in an hour about Jesus.

See, I just didn't really have time for you in my life. At least not for anything that would have required more than twenty minutes or so. I mean, I had meetings with the ministry I was with to attend, I had Bibles to study, I had songs to sing. Real friends to be with. You were a project, maybe really just an experiment. Had you really wanted to know Jesus, I'm not sure what I would have done with you. I probably would have acted all excited, and genuinely been somewhat excited because when anyone meets Jesus it's awesome, but that excitement would have faded when you and I both realized that being rescued by Jesus means more than just praying a prayer or answering some questions in a theology quiz (or mock survey- really, really sorry about that).

See, you deserved someone that would genuinely want to befriend you for who you are- all your good, bad, and ugly. ( Or pretty, whichever you may have been. But if you were a pretty girl, I might have asked you out- but that's another Open Apology Letter in and of itself.) You deserved someone who would give of themselves to you. Someone who would truly pray for you for more than a day after meeting you. Someone who wouldn't dodge you if they saw you coming because they might have to engage you, and they didn't have a script ready. You deserved someone who wouldn't try to make you fit into their view of what a Christ Follower was. You deserve someone who was less of an elitist.

I've come to see the error of my ways. In part because I've learned to try to see you as God sees you, not as a project, but as a living, feeling person with faults and potential and desires and fears and hopes and dreams all rolled into one. I've also come to see how we Christians can be. We are very self-centered, egotistic and, yeah, elitist. We think that just because Jesus says He is the way to God and no one comes to the Father except through Him that we ourselves are better than others. Jesus is all He says He is, but we are also all He says we are. We are sick, broken, arrogant, filled with lies and false motives. We are weak and cowardly, and we cater to the Big Man On Campus of the churches and organizations around us. We seek more to please them more than Jesus. We play by man-made rules rather than God's.

If I had to do it over again, I would not invite you to join our little club, for that is often how we have viewed church. No, that is a far lesser thing to belong to. I would instead invite you to be my friend, and seek to understand you better. As we grew closer, I would hope that you see something different in me, that maybe I'm a little kinder, a little more hopeful, a little more confident- but not in myself. And I would try to see something different in you- maybe that you are artistic, or very intelligent, maybe even very compassionate- because God sees something different in you. When you asked, or when I had earned your trust, then I might share with you about God and all the amazing things He is and does. I wouldn't be sharing because I had to, I would be sharing because I cared about YOU.

So, let's start over shall we?

My name is Chad, and I want to get to know you.