Evangelism, Calling, and Conversion

I just read this blog which was linked from an emerging church site. IT was talking about the idea of one's intentions regarding relationships in relation to conversion. (please read some teh post and some of the comments) This imediately reminds me of two things. One the movie, Big Kahuna, which is a very intelligent and well written story that bringsup this issue of salesmanship and evangelism. The other thing is teh strategy of Paul as he evangelized the GEntile Roman world. I think that everything that Paul did was to bring about a prescribed end result. Was this unethical? That's hard to pin on Paul. But there are differences in Paul from how we see many practice salsemanship evangelism. First we must look at the unique calling of God on Paul's life. He was an evangelist, an apostle. The only way hew could have been successful in his calling was to convert people (I know that ultimatle God converts people not Paul or anyone else, but you get my drift here) . So in looking at this issue, one must aske themself, "What does God want ME doing as a part of the Body?" The other rather fundamental aspect of Paul's ministry that can often be overlooked in a study of this issue, is teh reason we know much of anything about Paul's ministry. Most of the text that is the New Testament is made up of letters that Paul wrote to those that he began evangelistic realtionships with. Which means his intentions in these relationships were not just for the conversion but the discipleship and of teh believers and glorification of God in Christ. But also evident in these letters si pauls commitment to support systems. Paul new that these evangelistic endeavors needed to have have leaders to remain and care for teh converts and ongoing ministry of the body, as well as continued conversion. You can even see in Paul's writings the pain he feels some times that he cannot be th one to reamin and shepherd thos that he has seen take their first steps in to the Kingdom.
The sad reality of life and evangelism is that sometimes it isn't what God calls us to to see a particular relationship continue on. But in any relationship that begins that should be the honest intentions of teh initiators to continue that relationship until doing so would violate, or hinder teh greater call that God has on our lives........