  ok so i'm thinking about this whole evangelism / mission / impact thing and into my inbox flies this email from melisha. as far as i'm concerned, this nails it. i asked her permission to copy a ton of the content here, so here goes -- it is absolutely worth the read.
In high school, before I became a Christian, I despised most of the Christians I knew. I think a lot of that had to do with their way of evangelism, which included a I know something you don't know attitude. They were on the "right" side and I was on the "wrong" side and until I came to their side they were better than me. Those people made me not want to become a Christian. I don't know if that makes sense. Anyway, when I became a Christian, I was taught not to be friends with non-Christians because of their negative influence which didn't make sense to me completely. I wanted to know how I could ever impact people I seperated myself from. Now, I see how dumb all of it was, and I have had a fear of coming across like the people I didn't (and still don't) like. I didn't known much about evangelism but I did know I wouldn't do it the way I had seen it. I didn't want to treat people like they were a formula and if I plugged in the right numbers they would follow Jesus too. I have understood the idea of forming relationships, and that idea felt right to me. It was still just an idea, though. I didn't know what came next. I still don't but God has shown me something. I have been looking at the end product too much.
I was looking at these people who I knew needed God and thinking of the day when they found Him. There's nothing wrong with that but I realized I had to look at all of the stuff that happens before that. It is discouraging to look at someone and think I am not close enough to them to be sharing Jesus through my life. Instead, I want to see the relationship and the person as the most important thing and not be focused on what may happen because of it.
I also saw that I was spending all my time knowing a lot of people a little bit. I started praying for God to show me who I need to be pursuing a real relationship with. thanks melisha -- you still have my vote to lead the conversation sunday night. j 
