Blog Re-lauch. Why I do what I do.

Welcome to my (semi)new blog. This blog, Man on the Street, has been a long time in coming. I chose that name because I am just that, a pretty average guy like a lot of other guys you might meet in your day-to-day life. I have a normal job, a mortgage, a lovely wife and two beautiful daughters, and a couple cats. But I am also a believer in and follower of Jesus Christ, and spend a good amount of time involved in public evangelism. I talk to people about the things of God, pass out gospel tracts (cards or pamphlets with a Christian salvation message) and read the bible and preach open-air style. So, I’m an evangelist.

Most of the time that word, “evangelist,” is attached to slightly greasy-looking, overly dramatic TV preachers with fancy sets, expensive suits, and an intense desire to separate you from your hard-earned money. That is, of course, a gross generalization, since there are many pastors on TV with integrity and the purest motives, and there is nothing wrong with asking for support if you need it. However, it’s that negative image that will be immediately conjured up in most people’s minds when I say “evangelist.” As for me, I have not desire for my own TV show. I don’t collect any money. I’m not looking specifically to draw people to my church, and wouldn’t benefit in any way if they did attend (I’m not a pastor). I just want to tell people about Jesus and his amazing gift of grace. And the best place to do that, where there are plenty of people willing to engage in a polite, if sometimes intense, conversation, is out on the streets.

But it seems like just about everybody has a blog these days. Even people’s dogs and cats have blogs! And, since I have no desire to be an intellectual or emotional exhibitionist, I have tried to avoid sharing a lot of personal opinions on a lot of subjects that don’t matter, or at least where my opinions don’t matter to anyone other than me, and maybe a few of my friends. Facebook has been more than sufficient to accomplish that up to this point, so this blog has sat mostly empty.

However, through a number of different experiences over the past few years, including running events, organizing evangelistic outreaches and being asked to write a weekly blog for the purpose of encouraging believers to read the word of God in public (projectezra.blogspot.com), I have seen potential value in sharing some of my thoughts, so I will now try to re-launch this blog. For instance, I have had people tell me they have been encouraged by my posts on other sites, and by participating in the activities I have been involved in. I may or may not be gifted in encouraging others, but I certainly have a desire to encourage others in their walk with God, and since I appear to have helped a few people, I would like to continue to do so in whatever way I can. So, hopefully this blog will be encouraging to some.

Second, I have found that the process of being forced to struggle with issues, whether for writing, or for personal evangelism, or for open-air preaching, has been an incredible growing experience for me. I have learned a lot about myself through study and self-reflection, but I think self-reflection should only be a starting point. How I see myself is often not nearly as important as how I come across in expressing myself to others. I have often asked people, after sharing the gospel with them, what their impression of the conversation was. This has generated some great feedback. So, I hope by sharing my thoughts and beliefs as transparently as possible there may be an additional opportunity for me, and those who chose to read and comment on this blog, to grow.

Finally, my greatest passion in life is to see God glorified by seeing souls saved through the proclamation of His gospel. Toward that end, I hope to use this blog to encourage people to think about claims of the bible. You may not believe in God at all, or you may disagree with my views of God and salvation. But please consider this: I may be wrong about eternity, but SOMETHING is true about eternity. Someday every one of us will die, and every one of us will be dead a lot longer than we were alive, so we need to make finding out what comes next a priority. If there is some kind of conscious existence after death, we need to know now so we can prepare for it. If there is no conscious existence after death, we need to know that too, so we can do everything possible to prolong our lives and squeeze every last drop of pleasure and fulfillment out of the time we have left. So this blog will talk about men and our relationship to God, about eternity in general, and about biblical evangelism in particular.

So, I will try to post every week or two, with the first post sometime this weekend. I hope you will be encouraged in your walk with the true God. I hope what I share will be cause for self-reflection and growth. And I pray that you, and I, will gain a better understanding about what is indeed true about eternity. I look forward to hearing your comments.

All for His glory!

Dan