A Different Approach To Campus Evangelism

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If you feel the urge to do a little evangelism on your local college campus, there are plenty of YouTube videos available to show you how not to do it.

To save you the time of watching them, I’ll go ahead and tell you, they’re all the same – someone screaming at college students, telling them they’re all going to hell.

While, that’s one approach, here’s another.

And I kinda like it.

Not because I have plans to grab my own “Jesus Talk” t-shirt and set up shop on Yale’s campus, but because I appreciate this guy demonstrating that not all Christians who want to share their faith are completely bonkers.

Imes seeks to redeem lost time by visiting with LSU students

BY DANIELLE KELLEY
LSU student writer

“Jesus Talk” is emblazoned across his T-shirt.

Thousands of LSU students pass him daily in Free Speech Plaza, where the rules are simple: Say whatever you want, however you want to say it.

Political groups stand by colorful tri-fold boards. Volunteer groups lure students with free coozies, pens and T-shirts. Planned Parenthood offers free condoms. Students for Life hands out flyers. The occasional traveling preacher and his uniformed family shout threats of hellfire.

But Jesus Talk — as one man’s commonly known by students — is different.

He sits stoically at the end of the alley on a cushioned, fold-up, metal chair and speaks only when spoken to.

His chair faces a matching seat with a laminated paper bearing the words, “Prayer requests questions?? Email: jtalk@cox.net”.

Sometimes, his bespectacled eyes dart across newspapers and books. His wrinkled hands swim through puzzles. Relaxed in his open-air office, he prays and observes the young adults chatting, texting and darting in and out of the shade of the stately oaks.

But most of the time, Ivan Imes talks about Jesus.

“The key is, I never approach anybody,” Imes said. “They have to approach me.”

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