Can You Afford Evangelism?

Last night I had a really interesting dream. I can't remember all the details so I will make a few up, but here is the general story:

I was a counselor at Pines Bible Camp, which is a bible camp in BC where I was once a counsellor in high school.

On this day, I came across a notebook and I opened it to see who it belonged to. When I opened it I saw that this book had songs in it, that someone had made, actually it looked as though many people had contributed to the book because there were many different handwriting styles. The poor grammar and penmanship made me assume that the book must belong to some campers.

I couldn't help myself but to read some of the work. Almost immediately I was taken aback. The songs were about drugs, sex, violence and almost every second word was a swear. I couldn't help but to be surprised and disgusted. The kids at the camp were 12 years old and younger. These songs were so vivid, as though they were the songs of a drug dealer, prostitute or convict, not kids...

My eyes fell upon a name on the last page, Matty P. Coincidentally there was a kid named Matthew Prite at the camp this week. So I decided to confront him.

I found him sitting alone under a tree watching the other kids play a game in the field. "Hey Matty" I said, "whatcha doing here?". He looked up at me with stressed eyes, they were the same eyes I had seen before, but I had never noticed the heaviness before.

"I don't wanna play this stupid game, so my camp leader told me to sit here and wait until it's over".

"Why don't you want to play?" I asked.

"Because this game is for babies, I am not a baby." He whined.

"Ok, that's alright. Matty.." I hesitated, "I need to ask you something".

"Whaaaat?" He asked annoyed.

"Do you know what this is?" and I showed him the book.

"uh yeah, that's my book, I thought I lost it."

"This is your book?"

"Yeah well mine and my buddies', give it back!"

I held the book back. "Matty, I read some of the things in here.."

"You read it! You stupid B****!"

I gasped, "Matty, that's enough!" and I grabbed his arm,

He struggled, "let go! This is abuse!!"

"Matty, please, I just want to talk, I am not here to get you in trouble."

"What? Well... what do you want then?"

"I just want to talk, can you please just listen for a few minutes?"

"Well if your not going to rat me out then fine" He huffed.

"Where did these words and ideas come from?"

"Whatdya mean? I just write what I think about"

"You actually think about these things? But where did you learn about all this?"

"pssh, lady, wake up, everyone knows these things, its all we talk about at school."

"oh..... well what do you think God thinks of these things?"

"I don't know, I don't even know if he's real."

"You don't think some of the things you have learnt this week are real?"

"well maybe but everything here seems to good to be true. The world isn't so peachy"

I thought, wow, he's already worrying about the world, already affected by the horrors.. and so young.

Just then his counselor came over to us.

"Hey, what you two talking about?" Fred said in a chipper tone.

I got up and pulled him to the side. I showed him the book and explained what I was talking to matty about. I asked him if he had seen the book before.

"Yeah I did."

"You did? Did you confront him about it?"

"No, I just grabbed it and threw it away. I don't have time to deal with that."

"What do you mean you don't have time?"

"Well I am busy and our schedules are so packed, I didn't have time to talk to him alone."

"Well do you think that you could make some time later? He is in your cabin and I think it would be better to talk guy to guy about this."

"Yeah I guess I could do that but I'm going to have to charge like $30 for the time."

I was stunned. I didn't know what to say. He's not going to help this kid.

"Well I didn't know that there was a cost for salvation." And I turned my back to him and walked back to matty.

I sat down by matty and said, with tears in my eyes, "Matty, can I tell you about the moment I accepted Christ?"

Seeing my emotion and looking genuinly interested he replied, "Ok".


Now there are a couple strange things about this story, but it was a dream remember! First of all the counselors at pines are volunteers and do not have timcards or hourly rates.

But it did make me think... "I didn't know there was a price for salvation".

This could be translated into money, time, effort... how much of a price do we 'charge' when we go to talk to someone about God. Is it some kind of burden to us? Is it something that takes time away from OUR lives? Is it too much to ask of us? Is it too expensive for you? Can you afford evangelism?

Jesus paid the ultimate price. A price that we, luckily, are not required to pay everytime we talk to someone about God.

If you are making excuses, like me, then I pray that you will see them for what they are - lies.

Do you find yourself thinking anything like this:

"I am too busy to talk to him/her today, I will do it some other time"
"I'd take her/him out for coffee but I'm behind on my bills"
"I will have lots of time later to talk to someone"
"It's just too hard!"
"Someone else will do it"

The truth is, probably no one else will do it. If you feel the pull to talk to someone, it's probably because God wants you to. You are their link to heaven, are you going to take that away from them?