Where is the bread?

"We are all just poor beggars showing other poor beggars where there is bread." - DA Carson

What is harder?

Witnessing to an Atheist? Witnessing to a Catholic? Witnessing to a Homosexual?

...or is it convincing/encouraging/convicting your fellow church folk that everyone in the "church" has a responsibility to bare witness with their mouths at every possible opportunity?

I've been wrestling with this for a while now. The conversations I have with abject non-believers are much, much easier than the ones I have with proud church members who fight so freaking HARD against the idea and the obligation of simple conversational witnessing.

I've tried to lean on scripture in these "church" conversations...the great commission, much of Paul's writings ("woe to me if I don't preach the Gospel", etc) What happens? Excuses, excuses, excuses...and if you work hard enough at it you'll even get called legalistic.

I've tried simply trying to explain how...if you must just throw out the fact that we are commanded to do it, then shouldn't it at least me core to who we are as "believers" - if we so deeply LOVE those around us as we claim to...

I've even tried some Cahill'esque approaches, ie "Do you care about your neighbors, family, co-workers? Do you care about their lives, their hearts and their eternal destinies? Do you care enough to do something about it? Because if you don't care enough to do something about it...then YOU DO NOT CARE."

Well...I have an MP3 player and I've been downloading huge numbers of MP3s on Evangelism and Reformed Theology. So many that I'm not sure I'll ever listen to them all. A few days ago, I picked a speaker that I didn't recognize...didn't even know who he was.

DA Carson?

I was listening yesterday again...and had to choke back tears while driving down the road, because he explains it in such stark and easy to understand terms...

Please give it a listen...
DA Carson - Where is the bread? 55 minutes (right click, save as, play from your computer)

What is the "motivation" for "doing" this personal witness/evangelism thing? For that matter...what is it about your life that makes you tick? Is there something that makes you different or isn't there?