Forecourt Theology and Overflow Evangelism

Yesterday I went to buy petrol. Whether it is latent patriotism, or the fact that they alone take payment by debit card, we invariably support our nearby BP garage. It was here, some months ago, that Elizabeth met Johannes, who was the inspiration for her newsletter and blog post, ‘Jesus makes me happy,’ (August 30, 2010).  We haven’t seen him for months; he has not been on duty whenever we have bought petrol, but today he was.

When he saw my car pull in to the forecourt, he made a beeline towards me with a huge ear-to-ear grin. His first words after greeting me were, “I thought you had left town,” adding, “but I’m glad to see you haven’t. I really enjoyed the book that mama gave me [John Blanchard’s Ultimate Questions] and now I have another to read each night before I sleep. It speaks about covenants.”

“Did you know,” he went on to say, “God made covenants with Adam, and then with Abraham, Moses and David and finally a New Covenant with Jesus? It’s all because we are sinful and this is how God has chosen to bless us with his salvation.”

Well, I was intrigued, but also a little concerned. There are some funny ideas doing the rounds tied up with covenants. I think he detected the unease in my face, so, to reassure me, he said, “Would you like to see the book?”

I said I would. So, asking a colleague to watch that the nozzle of the petrol hose didn’t overflow, he rushed into the staff room, rummaged in his bag, pulled out a book and hastened back. Before he reached the car I could see, much to my relief, it was a rather tatty Banner of Truth paperback of Sinclair Ferguson’s excellent, A Heart for God.  Although it had lost a good number of pages, for Johannes it was a treasure, though he wished, he said, it had been complete.

“What time do you finish,” I asked. He said 8:30. “OK, I’ll be back before you go with a complete copy and something else to read afterwards.”

I paid for the fuel and got ready to drive off but Johannes wouldn’t let me go until he had told of me how he had shared the gospel with two of his workmates. Both had become Christians. Now, he wanted them to come to our church, Club View, Free Church of Southern Africa, adding with all the solemnity and wisdom of an experienced pastor, “They are just young Christians and need to be cared for by a good church.”

An hour later I drove back with a complete copy of A Heart for God and John Chapman’s excellent Know and Tell the Gospel, (Matthias Media: 2005).

Johannes illustrates why the African church grows so rapidly. If we were to give his kind of evangelism a label we might want to call it overflow evangelism. He doesn’t share his faith in a hesitant, shyly self-conscious and carefully contrived way, nor is his message stereotyped in churchy language, least of all is he driven by duty. Johannes witnesses spontaneously, instinctively, uninhibitedly, in ordinary, everyday language, because what warms his heart, loosens his tongue. He loves the Lord, he loves the gospel, and he loves people, he therefore wants to share with them what is most important to him; ‘out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’ (Matt 12.34).

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