It was time for a new car. The old rusted out gas guzzler had to go. My wife and I started shopping. We had set our expectations of the car we would buy. It had to be well built, within our price range, get forty miles to a gallon on the highway, and have a little size.
We had looked at various cars. But today we had an appointment with a salesperson. It was a lady. I had detected something in these visits to showrooms. When my wife and I came in together, a man would wait on us. If I came in alone or called asking for a salesperson, I was met by a lady. So we met this nice lady who would sell us a car.
We were told all the good features of the car in which we had an interest. We talked price. She wanted too much money. I hesitated. She came on a bit stronger. I still hesitated. She was a good salesperson and knew her stuff. She came on even stronger, writing up a contract and pressing me to sign my name to it. My resistance became even more intense. I told the lady that it was not my style to rush into a deal. I would sleep on it a couple of nights. She cautioned me that the rebate program might not last that long. It was near the end of the month. But I would still sleep on it.
On the way home I said to my wife that I was beginning to feel as if I was at an evangelistic rally. My thoughts went back to Flint, Michigan when I participated in a Ford Philpot crusade. I had been taught by them the method of leading a person to Christ. This involved pressing the claims of Christ, get them down on their knees to repeat a prayer, and get them to sign a commitment card. My thoughts also went back to Phoenix, Arizona and the Billy Graham crusade where the same thing was taught. I remember calling on some people in the area of our church who had signed these commitment cards, which had been referred to us, only to hear people say that they signed under the emotional excitement of the meeting. On second thought, they really did not want Christ and His church.
The question that came to me was: who was learning from whom? Had the church taken over the approach of the business world, or had the business world taken over the approach of the church? Which ever way it is, it was not the approach of Jesus and the apostles. Jesus challenged people to first think it over and consider the cost (Luke 14:25–35). Paul before Agrippa (Acts 26:29) as well on his other preaching events left the people with a challenge to consider. We in the Reformed faith believe that the Holy Spirit changes hearts and leads to conviction by way of the Word, not we by our presentation, argument, or strategy. I thought: if we would get back to that approach, perhaps our preaching and evangelism would be more effective and have more lasting results. Maybe we would, then, not be building churches so much around persons or a person, but around Christ.
Perhaps you are wondering about the car. We did eventually buy it from that lady, not because she was female, but because she lowered her price and outdid all the other competition. It payed to sleep on it for two weeks.
Norman B. Haan is the pastor of the First Christian Reformed Church of Waupun, Wisconsin.