NUDGERS AND BURNING BUSHES

      For the past several months, I have been reading and re-reading a fascinating book, “Nudge, Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There,” by Leonard Sweet. This writing has been out since 2010, but I just recently discovered Sweet’s easily understandable writing style alongside of his innovative perspectives on the unmistakable connection between evangelism and discipleship. Sweet says, “Evangelism is discipleship, and what connects the two is the spiritual practice of paying attention to life, and to God.”

      Sweet writes, “‘Nudge evangelism’ is all about the human contact, the meeting of the eyes, the sharing of the space, the entanglement of words, and the sense of bodily contact. It is to the soul what blood is to the body. The purpose of nudging is to be with someone in a moment and wishing them to join you in recognizing a God-moment. Nudges take place in proximity of relationships.” Disciples being made, one conversation at a time.

      Sweet talks about paying attention to people, the situations that surround each of us, and to the movement of God in the world. In his book, there are references to “God-soundings, Jesus-sightings, and “burning bushings.” The questions we are left to answer, as we wonder why we are so ineffective in personal, invitational evangelism, are especially soul searching.

      God speaks in so many ways to us, why can we not hear his voice? He speaks, maybe not in an audible voice, but in the “nudging of his spirit.” Jesus shows himself in the faces of many people, the brokenness, the hurts, the hungry, and the oppressed. Remember Matthew 25, “I was hungry…I was thirsty…I was a stranger…etc.” Why can we not see him? Then there are the “burning bushes,” the signs and the attempts by God to get our attention as he did Moses in the desert. Even with a burning bush, we sometimes fail to turn aside from our “busyness” and see what God wants with us, how he wants to use us for the sake of others.

      Just as God nudges us, through the gift of prevenient grace toward salvation and holy living, his spirit nudges us toward others. We become “nudgers” for God. Nudge evangelism plants seeds in places where others seem skeptical of success. Seeds are sown with extravagant generosity, with abundant love, and with passionate expectancy. Nudgers meet people in out-of-the way places within their context and find ways to nourish their souls. Within nudge evangelism, nudgers have the freedom to invest without reservation in the lives of others. “Burning bushes,” signs of God’s direction and mission, are seen as beacons that mark the way toward effective witness.

      Does this way of “doing” evangelism make sense to you and me? Are we willing to take the time to “sit at the well” as Jesus did with the woman, to form relationships? Can you see yourself as a potential “nudger?”

Rev Tim McConnell, Long’s Chapel UMC, June 2, 2013