This last cold Sunday morning, my wife and I got in our car and began to navigate through small Ohio towns.   They were still mostly asleep, blanketed in snow, and desolate of activity.  The whole trip seemed like we were traveling through a lunar landscape.  

After almost two hours, we arrived at a small Ohio town that even most Ohioans have never heard of.  There, perched on a hill next to a cemetery, sat a traditional-looking rural church building.   

That’s where the small town dormancy abruptly ended.  For the elongated parking lot out front was quickly filling–practically the first sign of life we’d encountered that morning.  The congregation within was a generational mix.  Both kids and adults swarmed throughout.    

I can’t say the buzz had anything to do with me.  Though I had been invited to come, I doubt anyone knew what a “John Myer” was.  

Also, I was a bit uncertain about my selected passages, which had to do with evangelism, a topic right up there with tithing.  But as I got into it, the receptivity of the people never waned.  Somehow, tucked away in this tiny town was a group of Christians eager to hear about sharing their faith.  

It reminded me that evangelism, though sometimes pressuring and misunderstood, belongs to all believers.  It makes us nervous, and we’d like to leave it up to the professionals–pastors, preachers, ministries, etc.  But somewhere deep inside, we know we need to be part of the process. 

Romans chapter ten says, “how are they to preach unless they are sent?”  That means the qualification for preaching the gospel is not a high level education, or even a certain personality type.    Our involvement in gospel preaching begins with whether anyone has sent us.  Is there someone backing you?  Does someone in the place of supreme authority “approve this message” of Jesus rising from the dead?  Each one of the four gospels says yes.   The most comprehensive shows up in Mark:

“And he [Jesus] said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation’” (16:15).  

The “them” of verse 15 were the disciples, the followers and learners of Jesus.  If you include yourself in the subsequent legions of those who identify as such, you  share the sending of that original group.  

This includes those of us who aren’t talkers, and don’t think well on our feet.  

In fact, evangelists come in all shapes, sizes, and personality types.  Aleisha and I have very different wiring when it comes to the gospel.   For instance, while getting her haircut, she deeply wonders about the faith status of her hairdresser, looking for opportunities to share something with her.  Me?  I sit wondering if my haircut is really worth a two dollar tip.  

I warm up to gospel opportunities much more slowly, cynically, than she does.  Also, she approaches things relationally, and I, informationally.  But at the end of the day, we both arrive at feeling responsible to our Sender.  

Nor are we unusual.  We might have left our home church of evangelists for one Sunday morning, but we found another, tucked away in a tiny place.  Turns out, they have the same Sender.       

And there’s a whole lot more of these people—everywhere. 

Some of them are even reading this.