According to Les Hughes, Intentional Evangelism is messy.
"We are called to go to people we don’t like," said Hughes, pastor of Westwood Baptist Church, Alabaster.
The problem is that Christians want non-Christians to look and act a certain way, but that’s not necessarily the way things are going to — or should — be, he said. "Can we stop putting a condition of morality on them — how they look and how they act — before they can become a Christian?"
One of the biggest stumbling blocks to effective evangelism is majoring on the minor things, Hughes said. Using Matthew 23:23–24, he pointed out how Jesus felt about nitpicking and letting the small things get in the way of more important matters.
Hughes related a conversation he had with a former church staffer in which he asked what she missed most about her former job. Instead of telling him what she missed, she told him what she didn’t miss — the pettiness of the church.
"If insiders feel like we’re petty, what must outsiders see?" Hughes asked.
He said to change this, it is a matter of first trusting God’s Word to transform Baptists’ views of Intentional Evangelism.
Instead of being salt and light in today’s culture, Hughes said Christians have formed somewhat of a "Christian subculture" that requires few risks in terms of evangelizing.
"It’s time for us to get out of our comfort zone," he said. "God hasn’t called us to make disciples of people who look, act and talk like us. Jesus came so that we can tell people that Jesus loves them. … We are all saved by the same grace of Jesus."
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