Evangelism from St. Benedict

Norman Gregory, Building Steward

I was pondering writing an article about the work we’ve been doing to spruce up our church and make it more visible and then my mind pivoted to the topic of evangelism.

Our Evangelical brothers and sisters might say that we Episcopalians don’t do a good job of spreading the Gospel because we don’t go out and shout from the rooftops at the top of our lungs. We even self mockingly joke about being the “frozen chosen”. I think this misses the point – we are much better at whispering to get attention and sharing our message. While this may be more subtle it can be very effective.

Our rector once commented on seeing that we have Episcopal shields on our vehicles (available from Amazon) that we were doing quiet evangelizing and she was right as periodically folks will ask us what that symbol means and a conversation is started (and who knows how many people remember that the driver of a car who politely let them merge on I-5 had an interesting symbol on the back). I have argued for years that whenever Clarice and I (and several others in our congregation) give care as nurses we are sharing our belief in God’s love through our hands. Spence and his team that quietly/faithfully make Meals for Many every month are doing evangelism by sharing their love to God’s Children in need. Even just welcoming a group that spins wool and makes garments from it counts as a form of quiet evangelism.

So why did evangelism come to mind when pondering writing about our garden and sign projects? Maybe because Clarice has made a new friend with our garbage collector who comments every week about the progress he sees. Maybe because I met our neighbors across Bowker Street and next door when we got into conversations about the work being done. Maybe because of the random people who have driven by and stopped to comment about how much better our grounds look with the work we have done so far even this early in the project. Finally, maybe because people have commented that our new mock-up sign has opened their eyes to the existence of a church they never noticed before. In other words the very act of changing the look of our grounds and having parishioners outside and willing to chat has made people aware that there is a living church here and that can well be the first step in quiet evangelism.