Jesus is NOT supposed to be a secret!

I'm always complaining that my church, my denomination, doesn't really seem to like the E word - evangelism. It is my belief that Jesus is NOT supposed to be a secret! We should tell the whole world. (In fact, He told us so in the Great Commission, but that's a whole other post).

A friend of mine, the Rev Robyn Arnold, preached a wonderful sermon a few months ago in which she said the same kind of thing. Mother Robyn's words:

"I often think of us Episcopalians as stealth Christians. We don’t like to talk about what we believe. We can have neighbors and coworkers who have been around us for years and never know we’re Christians, because we never mention it. Or we can talk all day about Church and never give any indication of what we actually believe about God. We will readily share our thoughts on the quality of the music or how the clergy should be dressed, or whether the people should stand or kneel for corporate prayer, but we rarely discuss our personal theology or how we experience God’s grace in our lives. We don’t testify—to use a good old Protestant term."

So what can we do about this? How can we start spreading the word? To use her term, can we testify? What's holding us back? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I really would. When Jesus asked Peter "Who do you say I am," Peter did not hesitate. Why should we hesitate to tell the whole world?