Exerpt from "The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne

Shouting the gospel with our lives:

Remembering the invitation that Mother Teresa always gave to curious seekers, we have from the beginning invited people to "come and see."  And people have, hundreds.  As and evangelical, the only way I know to invite people into Christian faith is to come and see.  After all, I'm not just trying to get them to sign a doctrinal statement, but to come to know love, grace, and peace in the incarnation of Jesus, and now in the incarnation of the body, Christ's church.  So if someone asked me to introduce them to Jesus, I would say, "come and see.  Let me show you Jesus with skin on."  Sometimes we have evangelicals (usually from the suburbs) who pretentiously ask how we "evangelize people."  I usually tell them that we bring folks like them here to learn the kingdom of God from the poor, and then send them out to tell the rich and powerful there is another way of life being born in the margins.  For Jesus did not seek out the rich and powerful in order to trickle down his kingdom.  Rather, he joined those at the bottom, the outcasts and undesirables, and everyone was attracted to his love for people on the margins.  (We know that we all are poor and lonely anyway, don't we?)  Then he invited everyone into a journey of downward mobility to become the least.  As the old Franciscan slogan goes, "Preach the gospel always.  And when necessary, use words."  Or as our seventy-year-old revolutionary Catholic nun, Sister Margaret, puts it, "we are trying to shout the gospel with our lives."  Many spiritual seekers have not been able to hear the words of Christians because the lives of Christians have been making so much horrible noise.  It can be hard to hear the gentle whisper of the Spirit amid the noise of Christendom.