BCP - proclaim it freely

But [the leper] went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly.

At St. James' we talk a lot about evangelism. Two blocks down the road there are over 600 units of highrise apt and condo buildings being built, and nobody knows what to do about them. The evangelism commission has spent hours talking about this strategy and that strategy to bring this new group of people into the church. I have not been privy to this conversation as it isn't within my learning goals for the semester, but I can imagine what they sounded like.

- We should advertise in the local paper.
- Our signage needs to be updated
- We should post flyers in the supermarket
- etc.

I've heard these strategies a thousand times. We should do this or that to bring people into the church. But I can't help but wonder with the old cliche' "What Would Jesus Do?"

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus uses miraculous acts to prove his authority, just as his teaching proved his acts to not be that of a traveling magician. Here he chooses to heal the leper out of pity for one man. This one man, in turn, is moved to "proclaim freely" what Jesus has done out of his personal experience on that day. What about my personal experience with Jesus? Why am I so reluctant to draw on that as I go into the world. Why am I not proclaiming Jesus in such a way that I can't walk about town without someone stopping me to learn more about this Jesus I know and love?