I spent some time in Sheffield with family this week – not enough time. It was a delight to collect my niece and her youngest brother from school. When we got to their home, my niece quickly ran upstairs and came down brandishing a piece of paper.

‘Uncle Kevin’, she proclaimed, ‘I have been learning Welsh’. Sure enough written in her own hand were words like ‘helo’, ‘hywl fawr’, ‘s’mae’… and we practiced them together. I enjoyed it and so did she. Why had she gone to all this trouble? I am not sure that my brother knew what she was doing.

I think she was learning Welsh because she knows that I am, and when she and her brothers come to visit, I do some Welsh pronunciation with them. I think she knew something was important to me, and wanted to share it. It was a moment of shared gift.

I am a strange creature – don’t all rush to disagree with me at once. I actually like evangelism. It is an amazing task. I have bodged it a lot. I have though got it gloriously right both in the context of a cold call or in a longstanding friendship.

I well remember Tracy and Mike (not their real names actually). Tracy was a churchgoer and Mike not. Mike knew that I was a Christian (long before I was even an ordinand). I seem to remember he even helped me with some power points for training in evangelism (power points were all the rage once), but we hardly ever mentioned Jesus.

Then there was a glorious moment, when he almost yelled. ‘I know Jesus is important to you, and if I am important to you, you must tell me about him’.

Evangelism was a gift just like my niece learning Welsh.

I need to do some more thinking about this.