convictions

I attended a conference in Dubai this past weekend. It was techinically a conference for university aged students, but a friend invited me to go along and I'm glad I did. I've been getting extremely discouraged and frustrated working with the youth ministry in my church, and this weekend was a great source of encouragement. This group, FOCUS, is completely centered on the Gospel and sharing it with the people around them. I've never been one to evangelize much, mostly because I feel I don't know how to do it, but the Bible is very clear that spreading the Gospel is something we are called to do. One of the speakers read this quote, and I was beyond convicted. This is coming from an athiest, which makes it all the more convicting:

“… I’ve always said, you know, that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there is a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell, or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that, well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward… how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believed beyond a shadow of doubt that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe it, and that truck was bearing down on you, there’s a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that…” — Penn Gillette, (of Penn and Teller), atheist, quoted in Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine

May we all be bold and unashamed in our proclamation of the Gospel.