By this all people will know

What do you think of this from Dr. Black (2/13/10 7: 00 AM)?

I am not a big fan of that method or of any method of evangelization for that matter. I once asked a man in Ethiopia what he and his fellow believers were doing to reach their neighbors for Christ. (They live in a village that is almost 100 percent Muslim.) His answer was simple and to the point. "We live holy lives before others," he said, adding, "And we love and forgive them when they persecute us." Mind you, these were the words of a man whose 8 year-old daughter had just been beheaded because her father was a Christian. Love borne of faith and the Spirit effects a breakthrough of the boundary between the two kingdoms!

I like it. I like it a lot. All of our outreach, all of our "evangelism strategies", door to door, street preaching, etc. is fine and dandy but what of the witness of our lives? When we left mormonism, the first thing that happened was a couple of Christians, one a local pastor and one who was our neighbor, stopped by our house. They didn't try to practice some sort of "Romans road" method or "Can I ask you a question?" They just were there, loved us and listened to us. On the flip side, a lot of our efforts at evangelism are undone by the lack of a witness in our lives. We spend lots of time trying to get people to "come to church" and what they often get there is not a loving community but an interruption in our lives for a few hours. Why not invite people, not to church, but to your home? Or out for coffee? Are we afraid that we won't be as slick in evangelizing them or that it is something only ministers can do? That in a church building is the only legitimate place to present the Gospel? Think about how ineffective most outreach events are and then ponder what would happen if every Christian was a witness to the world in our love and our lives.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35)

All people will know that we are His disciples because we love one another. Not because we "go to church" together, because we love one another and love one another in a different way than the world. Our very lives ought to be a witness to the world, that we are different from the world. Not that we are religious but that we are different, our lives are motivated by something completely different from what the world says we should focus on.