One of the common experiences of growing up in a Baptist church in the south was hearing preachers tell stories of their recent evangelistic conversations. The stories would generally begin with the preacher telling how he met someone in a restaurant or on a plane. The stories tended to have similar arcs. They would begin by describing the other person as someone the preacher was unlikely to run into in their daily activities. The conversation was begun with an intriguing question and eventually ended with the person praying to receive Christ as their savior. At their best, these stories were intended to encourage the church to take every opportunity to share Jesus wherever they went and with whomever they encountered. At their worst, these stories were thinly veiled boasts of spiritual greatness and had the effect of creating the feeling of inferiority and ineptitude in those listening in the pews. I genuinely believe the stories were true, yet I suspect the presentation was skewed. Skewed, in that, intended or not, the way these stories were told seemed to communicate that every conversation the preacher had ended in a successful conversion story. I doubt that was the reality for the preachers of my youth, and it has certainly not been true for me in my experience.

I do try to take every opportunity to share Jesus wherever I go and with whomever I encounter. This has indeed led to unexpected opportunities to share Jesus with strangers. And I have experienced great joy when these encounters have led to someone confessing in faith Jesus as their Lord. But the truth is that most of these encounters have not ended in a sermon illustration-worthy confession of faith but rather a rejection of my plea to come and know Jesus. What follows is the account of just such an encounter and how it has changed how I think about evangelism.

My first solo hospital visit as a pastor did not go as planned. In fact, it went so badly that I hoped that the lady, whom I was visiting, did not remember the visit. I never even told her that I came to see her that day.

I was serving as an associate pastor of a little church while attending seminary. I was primarily responsible for student ministry. But on this occasion, our pastor was out of town, and I was covering the hospital visits. This was to be my first official pastoral visit. Sure, I had visited the hospital before, as well as gone with other pastors on such visits, but this was to be my first solo visit. I had no worries, why should I? Every other such visit I had been a part of seemed easy and tame. How could I have imagined that on that day, my experience would leave an indelible mark on my memory but one I would never reveal to the person I was visiting.