Last week I met for breakfast with some men I worked with at Cummins Engine Company. All of us took early retirement back in the 1990s, but we get together every other month at a local Cracker Barrel to check on each other. The numbers vary each time, but our enjoyment of being with one another isn't influenced by how many people show up.
What makes these men so special in my life is how they influenced my decision to become a Christian. When I first met them on the assembly line I was not a Christian. These men were, and they were not ashamed of their faith. They never tried to push their beliefs on anyone, but they lived out those beliefs in all they did.
There came a time in my life when things began to get a little intense. Somehow, I knew that I needed God in my life although I wasn't sure how to verbalize that. One morning before our shift started I asked one of these men if he had anything on faith. He reached in his tool box and gave me several tracts and pamphlets. I read them all that evening, and the next day I asked for more. I began to ask questions. I did not have a Bible so one of the men gave me an old Bible he had in his tool box. Within a few short weeks I asked Jesus Christ into my life. I seldom see these men except at our bi-monthly breakfast, but I think of them often and the impact they had on my life.
After my wife and I were saved we began to attend a church where we became pretty active. After going there for about a year the pastor asked if I would teach a new adult class the church was going to start. A few months into teaching the class we traveled together for a training event. On the way he asked if I had ever felt God might be calling me into the ministry. I admitted I had but had not shared that with anyone. He encouraged me to pray about it, and a few weeks later visited my wife and I to answer any questions we might have. It was a year or so later, after he had left our church, that I finally yielded to that call of God on my life.
For the past 40 years I have been a Christian because people modeled for me what a Christian was and were willing to gently answer my questions and love me into the Kingdom. For the past 35 years I have served in the ministry because a pastor spoke into my life and encouraged me to pray about what God wanted to do in my life.
The most effective evangelistic outreach today isn't found in large crusades or church revivals. It doesn't usually happen when churches pass out tracts door-to-door. It happens through relationships. It happens when people see God's people living lives that are different from theirs and they begin to ask why. It has become a modern day cliche, but it's true: Your life may be the only Gospel some people ever read. Your life can influence others to invite Jesus Christ into their lives.
Virtually every minister I know entered the ministry because someone challenged them to consider that God might be calling them to do that. Perhaps one reason some churches now struggle to find pastors is because we've quit challenging people to pray about the possibility that God is calling them into the ministry.
Your life can influence others. In fact, I will take it a step further. Your life WILL influence others. Now for the question: What kind of influence is your life having on others?
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