The day I am writing this, February 1, is national signing day. It's the day when many high school seniors put in writing who they will play football for in college. It's a day when young lives head in new, promising directions. It's also a day that sees the culmination of months, even years, of recruiting efforts by coaches. They get to see the fruit of their tireless labors.
It's often a curious thing as to what convinces a certain athlete to commit to a certain program. The proximity to an athlete's hometown; the campus environment; the team's facilities; the past success of the team; the opportunity to crack the lineup quickly — all are factors in the decision-making process. When boiled down, though, why an athlete chooses a particular program can usually be traced to the selling job done by a coach or coaches.
It is the coach's job to persuade an athlete that his program is a perfect fit for that athlete, that it will provide him with abundant opportunities, that he will be happy there. A coach will laud the advantages of his program and school, filling the recruit's ears with testimonies of how past athletes thrived there. Now, the coach certainly isn't going to mention any negative publicity the program may have received, and he may gloss over his team's struggles the previous season, and he won't talk about his rival's brand-new stadium. And given the chance, many a coach will bad-mouth other schools who are pursuing the same athlete, or at least extol his school's superiority in select areas.
What the coach often will not do is provide a complete picture. I'm not suggesting many coaches lie, but they may not tell the whole truth, because that would hurt their chances of landing a blue chipper. Their information is often incomplete, yet they manage to capture the allegiance of many an athlete.
Nothing particularly wrong with this, it's just part of the recruiting game. But I use this illustration as an example of how one person can convince another person to totally buy into something, to accept what he says as being totally true. People are being asked every day — by commercials, by sales clerks, by spam e-mails — to believe in something, be it a new car model, the latest fashion trend, or the most recent pharmaceutical advances.
Concerning more consequential matters, we are faced daily with competing philosophies about life; and like those coaches, these philosophies' proponents are coming right into our living rooms. But unlike a college recruiting scenario, there are not multiple viable options. Many philosophies claim an exclusive hold on truth (and those who don't are just plain wishy-washy). Christianity makes such steadfast claims, and of course it reaches beyond mere philosophy and into the most vital sort of realm — the spiritual.
The implications of biblical truth demand Christians' diligent recruitment, if you will, of lost souls. Actually, “recruitment” is not a term I prefer to use in this context, but the principle is the same, in that we should urgently present those we encounter with the beauty of our faith. Unlike a football coach, of course, we can present the whole picture without apology. It's essential, however, that we arm ourselves with information that supports our claims. That's called apologetics.
There is one aspect of recruiting that does transfer nicely into the world of Christian witnessing — personal touch. Coaches who enamor themselves personally of their recruits — and the recruits' parents — tend to get who they want. Christian witnessing minus genuine concern for a person comes off as fake, at best, and at worst hypocritical. Actions and words must work in harmony to attract unbelievers.
This comes from a person who is well aware of the difficulty of witnessing — it is one of my weakest areas as a Christian. An introvert by nature, I find it exceedingly hard to express my faith to others, either by word or deed. Nevertheless, I pray that Christ will use this otherwise worthless vessel to bring others into God's kingdom — before the final harvest.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press.)
