1. When Jews say "No thanks I'm Jewish", what they MEAN is: "I'm exempt from hearing any of this."
Why do they say this? Simply by virtue of the fact that they're JEWISH! Their self-identity is so strongly invested with the view that Jews don't believe in Jesus because that would them make them "Christians" or something other than what they are. At this point, some evangelists would give up and AGREE with them! Quite a few Jewish students attend classes at the U. of Penn campus where we have an outreach during the fall and winter. However, during a past Independence Day outreach in Philadelphia,near the Independence Visitor's Center, a Jewish man came to new faith in Christ. And in the one after that, four more at least gave us a hearing. So it does happen. Yet for a Jew to call upon Jesus as Savior, Lord or Messiah, that makes him a non-Jew in all the mainstream synagogue communities. "Messianic" Judaism is not accepted as an alternative form of their faith. At the time when the N.T. was written, this was not the problem that it is today. But in AD 90 the synagogues at the Council of Jamnia (or "Jabneh") in Roman Palestine declared all Jews who believed in Christ as heretics and "non-Jews". And this prejudice has remained until today.
2. Black women get a little bit huffy if you ask them, "Do you know what the gospel is?"
"Of COURSE I know what the gospel is!"
A prevailing view in the African-American community is that if you grew up black, then you automatically know certain things because it's how you were raised; that because gospel "culture" was all around you, you just know what it means to be saved. But it's not the case. I've had plenty of African-American people tell me that their church membership or their Christian lifestyle was the basis of their salvation. Many American black people raised as Christians have become Muslims. In the city of Philadelphia, where CHAIM Ministry to the Jews www.chaim.org does most of its missions work, we meet Muslims of all shades, all the time. While we "aim" for the Jews, it seems we reach Muslim as well. Philadelphia has one of the highest number of African-American converts to Islam of all cities in the US. 80% of these, however, were raised in the church. 2/3 of Philadelphia Muslims are now African-American. But black or white, if someone never understood the gospel originally, then they are ripe for conversion to some kind of cult, and with African-Americans, that "cult" is either the JWs, or Islam.
3. Pan-handlers are really clever with the stories they come up with.
I actually had one young man give me this fantastic tale about just being robbed, and the surprising thing was, he already had this hand-printed cardboard sign carefully printed out, saying exactly that. (Must've taken him some time to make that.) A lot of pan-handlers are very young these days: college-age.It's never a waste to talk to anyone about the gospel, but you have to keep in mind that pan-handlers have one basic thing in mind when they talk to any passer-by! I'm told that some of them make $60 a day. Clearly, begging is not a passive activity. If you want to do it right, you have to have a "work ethic".
4. Muslim college students tell you, "All religions amount to the same thing. We all believe in the same God."
MUSLIM students say this! Unbelievable! I've even said back to some of them, "The Qu'ran says differently: that all religions DON'T amount to the same thing." And they usually don't argue, or just stare back like I'm telling them something they never heard before.. Part of the problem is the wide toleration on college campuses for everything BUT intolerance. It's so pervasive that nobody wants to be seen as dogmatic about anything traditional. I'm guessing that nowhere in the entire Muslim WORLD would any self-respecting Muslim say that both Christianity and Islam amount to the same thing ... EXCEPT on the American college campus!
5. Catholics think the gospel is whatever it was they were supposed to learn in Catholic school.
Most Catholics I've spoken to treat their parochial school experience as a kind of immunization shot: you get a "dose" of religion early on, so you don't catch the "real thing" later! We ask all people if they know what the gospel actually is, even professing Christians, but many Catholics think we're talking about Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. So we explain we're talking about the message of the four gospel writers, not the books of the Bible. Others think we're talking about the Golden Rule: "Do unto others ... [etc.]". Most Catholics I've spoken to have confused religious duty with religious conversion. (Protestants too, BTW.)
6. Quite a few passers-by will thank you for what we're doing ... without really KNOWING what we're doing!
One gospel brochure we use says "Get Yourself Recycled!" on the front cover. I've had students at the U. of Penn campus take the brochure, tell me they always recycle, and then thank me for spreading the word about recycling. Others have some general idea of what we're doing, and thank us. But they won't stop long enough to find out anything specific. But occasionally, a person stops by and thanks us, and knows what we're doing. And those experiences are truly blessings!
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
The CHAIM Ministry team is looking for volunteers, street evangelists, and evangelist-trainees to help us with our various outreaches. Contact our websites, or shoot me an e-mail if you can help.
1. When Jews say "No thanks I'm Jewish", what they MEAN is: "I'm exempt from hearing any of this."
Why do they say this? Simply by virtue of the fact that they're JEWISH! Their self-identity is so strongly invested with the view that Jews don't believe in Jesus because that would them make them "Christians" or something other than what they are. At this point, some evangelists would give up and AGREE with them! Quite a few Jewish students attend classes at the U. of Penn campus where we have an outreach during the fall and winter. However, during a past Independence Day outreach in Philadelphia,near the Independence Visitor's Center, a Jewish man came to new faith in Christ. And in the one after that, four more at least gave us a hearing. So it does happen. Yet for a Jew to call upon Jesus as Savior, Lord or Messiah, that makes him a non-Jew in all the mainstream synagogue communities. "Messianic" Judaism is not accepted as an alternative form of their faith. At the time when the N.T. was written, this was not the problem that it is today. But in AD 90 the synagogues at the Council of Jamnia (or "Jabneh") in Roman Palestine declared all Jews who believed in Christ as heretics and "non-Jews". And this prejudice has remained until today.
2. Black women get a little bit huffy if you ask them, "Do you know what the gospel is?"
"Of COURSE I know what the gospel is!"
A prevailing view in the African-American community is that if you grew up black, then you automatically know certain things because it's how you were raised; that because gospel "culture" was all around you, you just know what it means to be saved. But it's not the case. I've had plenty of African-American people tell me that their church membership or their Christian lifestyle was the basis of their salvation. Many American black people raised as Christians have become Muslims. In the city of Philadelphia, where CHAIM Ministry to the Jews www.chaim.org does most of its missions work, we meet Muslims of all shades, all the time. While we "aim" for the Jews, it seems we reach Muslim as well. Philadelphia has one of the highest number of African-American converts to Islam of all cities in the US. 80% of these, however, were raised in the church. 2/3 of Philadelphia Muslims are now African-American. But black or white, if someone never understood the gospel originally, then they are ripe for conversion to some kind of cult, and with African-Americans, that "cult" is either the JWs, or Islam.
3. Pan-handlers are really clever with the stories they come up with.
I actually had one young man give me this fantastic tale about just being robbed, and the surprising thing was, he already had this hand-printed cardboard sign carefully printed out, saying exactly that. (Must've taken him some time to make that.) A lot of pan-handlers are very young these days: college-age.It's never a waste to talk to anyone about the gospel, but you have to keep in mind that pan-handlers have one basic thing in mind when they talk to any passer-by! I'm told that some of them make $60 a day. Clearly, begging is not a passive activity. If you want to do it right, you have to have a "work ethic".
4. Muslim college students tell you, "All religions amount to the same thing. We all believe in the same God."
MUSLIM students say this! Unbelievable! I've even said back to some of them, "The Qu'ran says differently: that all religions DON'T amount to the same thing." And they usually don't argue, or just stare back like I'm telling them something they never heard before.. Part of the problem is the wide toleration on college campuses for everything BUT intolerance. It's so pervasive that nobody wants to be seen as dogmatic about anything traditional. I'm guessing that nowhere in the entire Muslim WORLD would any self-respecting Muslim say that both Christianity and Islam amount to the same thing ... EXCEPT on the American college campus!
5. Catholics think the gospel is whatever it was they were supposed to learn in Catholic school.
Most Catholics I've spoken to treat their parochial school experience as a kind of immunization shot: you get a "dose" of religion early on, so you don't catch the "real thing" later! We ask all people if they know what the gospel actually is, even professing Christians, but many Catholics think we're talking about Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. So we explain we're talking about the message of the four gospel writers, not the books of the Bible. Others think we're talking about the Golden Rule: "Do unto others ... [etc.]". Most Catholics I've spoken to have confused religious duty with religious conversion. (Protestants too, BTW.)
6. Quite a few passers-by will thank you for what we're doing ... without really KNOWING what we're doing!
One gospel brochure we use says "Get Yourself Recycled!" on the front cover. I've had students at the U. of Penn campus take the brochure, tell me they always recycle, and then thank me for spreading the word about recycling. Others have some general idea of what we're doing, and thank us. But they won't stop long enough to find out anything specific. But occasionally, a person stops by and thanks us, and knows what we're doing. And those experiences are truly blessings!
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
The CHAIM Ministry team is looking for volunteers, street evangelists, and evangelist-trainees to help us with our various outreaches. Contact our websites, or shoot me an e-mail if you can help.
