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Book review
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In Meeting Jesus: Inspiring Stories of Modern-day Evangelism, Major Howard Webber has assembled vignettes about various people he met and influenced during a 30-year career as a Salvation Army officer in the U.K. The individuals and families range from soldiers and regular attendees at the corps, to homeless, prisoners, drug addicts, alcoholics and people in recovery—both rich and poor. He made these contacts as he went about his duties as a corps officer, offering his friendship with no strings attached. Some stories have happy, positive outcomes; others are not so satisfactorily concluded, but as Webber says in the conclusion of his book, “The story hasn’t ended.”
While these encounters arose as a consequence of his daily work as an officer, what is unusual is that Webber was alert to the opportunities to become acquainted with people and to minister to them whenever possible, in whatever situation he found them. Although some were not promising at the beginning, he stayed with them as a friend regardless of the outcome. One reviewer noted: “It is painfully honest and lists as many failures as successes, as many deaths as new lives. It documents Howard Webber’s spiritual battles too.”
The encouraging part of the message in Meeting Jesus is that evangelism can be simply offering friendship and is much easier than we often make it. “My hope and prayer,” says Webber, “is that readers, inside and outside the Army, will be stirred with a greater desire to see those around them coming to know their Savior, and to have some of this misconception about evangelism and their part in it removed.”
Meeting Jesus can be ordered online at amazon.co.uk.