This is a series of posts that interact with Guy Kawasaki's 10 principles of "evangelism." Refer to my February 22, 2006 post for the set up.

Principle 1:
“Create a cause. The starting point of evangelism is having a great thing to evangelize. A cause seizes the moral high ground. It is a product or service that improves the lives of people, ends bad things, or perpetuates good things. It is not simply an exchange of things/services for money.”

In the context of a Christ follower, the question of having “a cause” may be too quickly and easily answered. After all, our cause should be very clear, right?

Mark 16:15 TNIV “He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.’”

But I don’t understand the great commission as my ultimate cause. Rather, I see it as an outgrowth of something far more profound. The great commission meets the great commandment:

Deuteronomy 6:5 TNIV “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

Love is at the core of who God is. And so the cause, as I understand it, is love. It is a love that seeks to include me in the divine and triune bond of infinite love between the Son, the Father and the Spirit.

This is what I aspire to (and in fact have attained in Christ)—and this is what I must let drive me.

John 4:13 TNIV “Those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
John 6:35-37 TNIV “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

This is LIFE worth living both in the temporal and the eternal. Forget selling more fire insurance. Forget selling a more tidy and cohesive earthly life. Forget “selling” anything.

Let’s put it another way. If our 80 years of earthly life were to be all that we would ever have—no after-life in a heaven or hell of eternity, and no tangible earthly benefits—would we still choose to be bonded to Christ in love, versus a life spent apart from His love in the pursuit of our individual happiness?

Our own depravity and combatant evil powers may hold us down on this, but we can still recognize true love. You can’t sell it, but everyone knows it when they see it. And being “in love” is worth it, even without considering our own finitude. Whether we choose to respond to His love or not, we know this innately—I think because we were fashioned by Him to know this. We’re wired to want and need His love.

But do we live a life “in love” with Him, or in our evangelism are we selling something else altogether and just hoping we can develop a better, more effective marketing plan for it? Have we reduced our cause to “an exchange of things/services for money” hoping to convert as many units as we can so that we win a set of steak knives?

Indeed, this cause requires a re-think of the modern evangelism paradigm, where people are attracted by clever messaging, gathered in an auditorium for an event, presented with an entertaining sales pitch and given an opportunity to respond (with financial support, and with raised hand or repeated prayer). We ask people to come and “get saved”—but from what? And to what?

Instead, how should we best express this great love? Personally? Locally? Globally?

Love is our true cause.

As in Kawasaki’s principle of evangelism, our cause truly “ends bad things” (separation from our Creator’s love) and “perpetuates good things” (abundant life via infinite and eternal love).

I want to help save people from a life without His love, and to life made full by His love. I want to do it by following His example—His way of evangelism.

1 John 3:16-18 TNIV “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another. If any one of you has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in you? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”

You want to be a better evangelist? Here is any easy, two-step formula:
Step 1: Do love
Step 2: Repeat step one

Steve Knight, Minnesota native, blogger and long lost pal relocated to NC in the Billy Graham corporate move, pointed out a post by Guy Kawasaki last month that got my brain buzzing.

Kawasaki is an author, speaker and venture capitalist in the tech world. He came to notoriety in the 80s as the Macintosh “Evangelist” at Apple Computer—widely seen as the first role of its kind in the business world. His approach has gone on to impact how companies market their products ever since.

I preface this with a caveat about the dangers inherent in applying business principles or marketing tactics to church evangelism. I loathe applying businesses approach to church leadership, ecclesiology and outreach—put me on record. What struck me when I read Kawasaki’s post was how his 10 principles of evangelism surpassed business and marketing “tactics” and suggest an authenticity that rings true to me more than some of the ways churches are currently attempting to do evangelism.

So here goes--my first series. Take these for what they are worth. My opinions are based on my own experiences (with my own attempts at evangelism and as part of The Church at large), and as such they may be over-generalized comments or criticisms that don’t apply as broadly as I think or may be viewed as overly critical. Consider them food for thought—chew on them and spit out what you don’t like. I’m learning these principles personally as I am sharing them corporately via blog, and I definitely have a long way to grow as evangelist of any sort.

I’ll begin by bringing in the complete text from Kawasaki’s January 12 post, The Art of Evangelism (at the risk of not having official permission). Then, I’ll post an interaction with or reflection on each of them in a series of posts. Check back from time to time under the title: Rediscovering the lost art of evangelism.

Here is the original post by Kawasaki:

Out of curiosity, I went to SimplyHired, a vertical search engine for jobs, and looked for openings containing the keyword “evangelist.” Amazingly, there were 611 matches--and none were for churches. It seems that “evangelist” is now a secular, mainstream job title. Indeed, the first eight matches were for evangelist jobs at Microsoft--go figure.

As people hit the streets with this title, they need a foundation of the fundamental principles of evangelism. Fulfilling this need is the purpose of today's blog.

Create a cause. As the previous blog called “Guy's Golden Touch” explained, the starting point of evangelism is having a great thing to evangelize. A cause seizes the moral high ground. It is a product or service that improves the lives of people, ends bad things, or perpetuates good things. It is not simply an exchange of things/services for money.

Love the cause. “Evangelist” isn't simply a job title. It's a way of life. It means that the evangelist totally loves the product and sees it as a way to bring the “good news.” A love of the cause is the second most important determinant of the success of an evangelist--second only to the quality of the cause itself. No matter how great the person, if he doesn't love the cause, he cannot be a good evangelist for it.

Look for agnostics, ignore atheists. A good evangelist can usually tell if people understand and like a product in five minutes. If they don't, cut your losses and avoid them. It is very hard to convert someone to a new religion (ie, product) when he believes in another god (ie, another product). It's much easier to convert a person who has no proof about the goodness or badness of the evangelist's product.

Localize the pain. No matter how revolutionary your product, don't describe it using lofty, flowery terms like “revolutionary,” “paradigm shifting,” and “curve jumping.” Macintosh wasn't positioned as the third paradigm in personal computing; instead, it increased the productivity and creativity of one person with one computer. People don't buy “revolutions.” They buy “aspirins” to fix the pain or “vitamins” to supplement their lives.

Let people test drive the cause. Essentially, say to people, “We think you are smart. Therefore, we aren't going to bludgeon you into becoming our customer. Try our product, take it home, download it, and then decide if it's right for you.” A test drive is much more powerful than an ad.

Learn to give a demo. An “evangelist who cannot give a great demo” is an oxymoron. A person simply cannot be an evangelist if she cannot demo the product. If a person cannot give a demo that quickens the pulse of everyone in the audience, he should stay in sales or in marketing.

Provide a safe first step. The path to adopting a cause should have a slippery slope. There shouldn't be large barriers like revamping the entire IT infrastructure. For example, the safe first step to recruit an evangelist for the environment is not requiring that she chain herself to a tree; it’s to ask her to start recycling and taking shorter showers.

Ignore pedigrees. Good evangelists aren't proud. They don’t focus on the people with big titles and big reputations. Frankly, they'll meet with, and help, anyone who “gets it” and is willing to help them. This is much more likely to be the database administrator or secretary than the CIO.

Never tell a lie. Very simply, lying is morally and ethically wrong. It also takes more energy because if one lies, then it is necessary to keep track of the lies. If one always tells the truth, then there's nothing to keep track of. Evangelists know their stuff, so they never have to tell a lie to cover their ignorance.

Remember your friends. Be nice to the people on the way up because one is likely to see them again on the way down. Once an evangelist has achieved success, he shouldn't think that he'll never need those folks again. One of the most likely people to buy a Macintosh was an Apple II owner. One of the most likely people to buy an iPod was a Macintosh owner. One of the most likely people to buy whatever Apple puts out next is an iPod owner. And so it goes.

I know. I may be a Mac fanatic, but at least I'm trying to channel it into something with more eternal significance. Thank you for putting up with it. Look for the first in the series soon. My apologies in advance to Mr. Kawasaki.

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