The United Church of Christ finds itself in a serious membership crunch. In the last decade our denomination lost over 14% of its membership. In Massachusetts last year, we showed a net loss of some 750 church members . . . equivalent to a church approximately the size of our own. And in our own statistics here at Old South, as our annual report will show this afternoon, we held fairly even, with an increase in our membership from 627 to 642.

These facts, of course, put the best minds of the denomination to work devising initiatives in church development, brooding over demographic trends, immigration statistics, calculating the most viable places for church nurture and growth. This task, of course, falls under the rubric most of us would call "evangelism."

Evangelism: what is it really? Recruiting new members? Halting a statistical slide? Marketing a program, a pastor, an institution? Possibly. But the little reflection we read from John's Gospel just a moment ago offers an additional understanding of evangelism. It provides an insight into church development somewhat in contrast to our conventional reading of statistics and graphs, drifts and trends revealed in hard numbers.

Do you recall how the Gospel story begins? John the Baptist, standing among his own disciples, points out Jesus as "the Lamb of God." Andrew and another person break from John's company; they pursue Jesus, begging his attention. They gain it. "What do you seek?" Jesus asks them. "What are you looking for? What do you yearn for? Are you questing? Seeking? Searching? For what? For Whom? Do we seek a true identity? Are you Doctor or Professor, identified by your job, your income, your clothes, your address, your academic credentials, your spouse, your church? Maybe. But do they reveal the whole truth about you?"

What do you seek? Do you know what I believe people seek and why they might finally creep into a church sometimes fitfully, warily, suspiciously, but perhaps at the end of their ropes? I think it is for friendship, for hope, and for a challenge to give their lives for something that finally counts. What do you seek?

And Andrew's reply? Andrew replies with another question. "Where are you staying?" Odd? A non-sequitur? Not really. "Where are you staying? Where do you abide? What setting do you call home? What roots you? What grounds you? What ultimately determines and shapes you?"

"Come and see," replies Jesus. So Andrew and his colleague go where Jesus stays "and they remain with him that day. It is about four o'clock in the afternoon."

Four o'clock in the afternoon! The time! The time! John tells us something decisive happens during Andrew's stay with Jesus. It is pivotal. It is like saying, September 10 and September 11. A watershed. A point of no return. Things are different before and after. In Andrew's stay with Jesus, the Gospel tells us, Jesus Christ breaks through our religious searches running head-on into dead ends; Jesus Christ dissolves those fluid identities we glom onto amid the isms, ideologies and images, the structures, institutions, corporations and jingoism blanketing and buffeting us from every direction. A decisive moment!

Then Andrew dashes off to find his brother Simon. He succeeds. And as the Gospel has it, Andrew tells us, as he finds his brother Simon, "We have found Messiah." Messiah! Through this presence we are recreated citizens of a new reality, persons claimed no longer by the world's pecking order, its niches of class, or race, religion, residence or sexual orientation, but rather claimed, sustained, and driven by Love transfiguring us, enabling us to surrender and in freedom and joy to serve a wounded and suffering world.

And yes, after sharing his discovery with Simon, Andrew brings his brother Simon to Jesus. Andrew introduces Simon to the source of his new creation. Andrew brings Simon to that dynamic new reality Jesus embodies.

"And Jesus looks at Simon and says, 'You're Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, (Which is translated, 'Peter: Rock.')" Through Andrew's introducing Peter to Jesus, the Gospel introduces us to the possibility of transforming Love breaking into and infusing the core of our persons—Love transforming, grasping, turning us around, pointing us in a new direction, recasting our own lives in such as way that we might describe it only as a new identity, so new, it is as if we were named again, just as Simon, so changed when he meets Jesus he becomes Cephas, Peter. James Moffat calls him "Rock-man."

Oh, friends, I despair at cracking open the richness of John's imagery. But using what we have so far, we return to this question we began with: evangelism, what is it, how does it work?

It is as simple as Andrew bringing his brother Simon to Jesus. It is us—you and me—transmitting our joy, our hope, our friendship, our eagerness for a world renewed by the grace and in the character of Christ to other people. That is evangelism. Evangelism is not marketing our church. It is not bragging about the music, or persuading someone to buy into a set of propositions. It is not building institutions or prattling on about what religion is best. Evangelism does not compel us to speak a certain religious code. It does not invite us into a cult, a priesthood, esoteric hymns, set prayers, space surrounded with symbols and stained glass. It is not huckstering for some ideology called Christianity. It does not call us out of the world. All this can be deception and window dressing.

No, evangelism consists of introducing to, inviting or modeling for others a life grounded in the love and hope of the Gospel. It consists of assuring those who wonder whether anyone, anywhere gives a damn that, yes, at the heart of the universe there lives a Presence whose Love will risk its own life in seeking us, and who will in the face of the clutter, the stupidity, the mess we make of our own lives, never let us go. Evangelism consists of opening a community where men and women isolated, injured, social rejects, hungry for acceptance, affirmation, support and encouragement will find themselves embraced, graced and welcomed in all their God-given dignity. Evangelism introduces those who hit the wall to that real possibility promised by the prophet of making a way out of no way; of understanding that even at the foot of the Cross where hope dies, there hope against hope most explosively blossoms. And it can be that way for us too. Evangelism is beckoning someone to join us in the task of renewing this troubled yet beautiful world of God's, at the risk of what we see at this Holy Table—the risk, for Love's sake, of putting everything we have at stake. As the Gospel would have it, we join Jesus where he stays. We come and see.

And so our question of the morning—no, the question of our lives: you? me? evangelists? Oh, I pray that others might say of us: you, me, this wonderful church, something like the Gospel says of Andrew: They went and found their sisters and brothers and said to them: "We have found Messiah: the one who bears a new world." Then they brought them to Jesus. Can we do that? What greater privilege! What higher calling!

Scripture Reading
John 1:35-42

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter ).