This is an email I wrote the night of an extraordinary evangelism conversation on the Wildwood Boardwalk in 2013. I wrote it to my best friends back home, who had recently helped at the Chapel for a week with others from our church.
July 27th, 2013
Tonight (which is really
last night as I write at 1:30am), I had the coolest conversation with a
complete stranger. My evangelism team consisted of two shy youth
groupers and myself. We set off for the Dark Side at 11pm on the dot
with only 43 minutes to have a conversation which lasted 62 minutes. I
was on point and I approached the first convenient couple I saw: a man
and woman who looked to be about mid to late twenties. I politely asked
permission to talk with them about faith and God and they both readily
agreed to "a few minutes".
The man was instantly interested. They both
introduced themselves as "Christians" though they did not agree with the
truthfulness of the Bible. After just a few minutes, I learned that all
the man wanted to do was discuss science, and the woman needed to work
through specifics about her faith. God directed my youth groupers to talk to her while I talked with the man.
He was friendly, casual, and considered me an equal even though he
was a high school chemistry teacher who left the faith when he turned
15. He respected my beliefs, even saying, "I have my beliefs, you have
yours. You're trying to change mine, and that might happen, though I
know I won't change yours." We established early on that this
conversation was a fun discussion for the sake of the furthering of
knowledge.
The cool part is, that's not what happened. I started off the
conversation with creation, which he countered with the theory of
evolution, agreeing completely that both are theories. (70% of the time,
he was defining his beliefs, 30% I was either countering them with my
own or countering them with his own.) I was able to convince him that
evolution (from one species to a new one) has never been observed.
We
moved to fossils: I gave evidence for instant fossilization while he
hypothesized about 10 billion year old fossilization. Gradual evolution
within a species: countered with the example of the giraffe
(which he actually brought up and I actually knew about. Thank you
Grandma Bloom for elementary school chapel stories). Overpopulation countered
with increased forestation. Individual standard of the right and wrong
countered with Hitler. Beneficial chaos with the 2nd law of
thermodynamics. God gave me words and I spoke them. The crazy thing was,
every time I proved him wrong, he admitted I was right. I deconstructed
his worldview and showed him the internal consistency of my own. It was
amazing.
Also something you'll appreciate, he said "No one can know
anything for certain. All truths are relative." I replied with "that
statement is universal." Stumped him. We smiled. Such a cool moment.
19 minutes past curfew, this guy and I were still at the top of
our game when Sarah and Pastor Z came to collect us. It was then that I
gave the couple Trusting Christ tracts and got their names. I still wish
I could go back and talk to him, this time about why he can trust my
worldview and how to "adopt" it for himself. 