Evangelism…it’s a bad word these days. Many of us don’t want to talk about it, let alone do it. Yet maybe we’re not afraid of evangelism itself. Maybe we’re afraid of what we think evangelism is.

Even when someone says the word evangelism, images and emotions come to mind. Maybe we think about televangelists or street preachers, or maybe we just think about a situation where someone “pushed their beliefs on somebody.” But if we pay attention to how Paul interpreted Jesus’ challenge to go and make disciples of all nations, we learn that evangelism is more like storytelling and storylistening.

We learn that, for Paul, every story is meant to be co-written with God; we’re all called to partnership with God, and the Cross says so. So, we all must be God’s storytellers/storylisteners.