Conspiracy of Kindness

I really liked this book. The title is a little off-putting, but it is certainly attention grabbing. Sjorgen wrote this whilst he was the pastor of Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati. The title a play off the long list of "conspiracies" so many Christians believe are being brought against the Church today, particularly prevalent in the charismatic circles both he and I grew up in. Nearly all of them complete boloney. So this is one he wants Christians to be on the good side of the conspiracy and be kind to bring folks to the Lord. The New Testament calls everyone to evangelize, but Christians and non-Christians have one thing in common, they both hate evangelism.

The book is focused primarily on organized Churches going out and "witnessing" by doing organized acts of kindness. Washing windshields, free car washes, handing out free pop, cleaning public toilets, etc. Just do good things. If asked, tell them, "We are doing this to show God's love in a tangible way" and that's it. It's good for the public and its good for the Christian. They found it works a lot better than preaching on the corner telling folks the end is near and to repent while they still can.

Some good things here like being open and honest, and ensuring that you don't do damage to people's property, and if it does happen you give it your all to make it better than it was beforehand. If someone says you streaked their window when you were windshield washing, you pay for a professional cleaning, etc.

He made several references about keeping politics out of evangelism. And yet my mind kept wondering on how I could use the same strategies for political purposes, exactly the opposite of what he's asking.

Made several points that are beneficial to any outreach. How a smile brings down people's guard, how to ensure that you go out with a plan including an ending point, so you don't burn out your volunteers. Only ask for the minimum amount of permission you need. If you do good things people will let you come back, if you ask for permission they'll ask you to leave. Ensure you have at least twice as much product on hand as you think you'll need to ensure you don't run out; you can always use it for the next event. Don't insist your pastor be involved. It's important, you lead it, your pastor is already busy. When you go out to do servant evangelism, sometimes the Holy Spirit will show up and sometimes He won't. That's OK. But depend on Him regardless as Steve said, "most Christians are too out of touch with the world around them to even understand their fears problems concerns or issues"

The Third Edition was revised and updated in 2008. In 2022 Sjogren left Vineyard and joined the Catholic Church. I hope he comes out with a fourth edition that focusing on a Catholic parish using the conspiracy of kindness. Not that it's not obvious, but it sure is focused on someone building a "non-denominational" movement across a big city, rather than keeping within a parish boundary, and we Catholics are even worse at evangelizing than the Protestants who aren't good at it and don't want to do it.