Coca-Cola Evangelism.

Coca-Cola Evangelism. 11/5/2011
Just as an aside here, I appreciate and welcome any and all comments on my Blogs. I may not respond or reply to all of them, but I do promise to take the serious ones seriously, and to at least ponder on what you say.
It is with that thought in mind that I post the following reply to my recent: "Good old Coca-Cola,” Blog. It is from an American friend currently living in South Africa and he wrote:
“It is interesting to me how successfully Coca-Cola has evangelized the world. Wherever you go in the world you will find Coke. People everywhere like it and want it. One day when we drove from our house to our church our kids identified over twenty Coke ads on the way (billboards, shops, taxis) etc. Yet Coke is just sugar and water and a few ingredients—nothing that ultimately satisfies and meets real needs.”
He is right you know! Haven’t been to the States, but we have lived for a time in South Africa, and in recent years, briefly cruised through parts of the South Pacific and parts of Europe, and Coke is available everywhere there too.
Mind you, the Christian Church has not done a bad job of evangelism either, and in all the above places that I mentioned I have visited, we have seen many churches there too. On one South pacific Island, some people from our boat went to the left and others to the right. Later , on meeting up in a McDonalds (!) one, who went to the right, asked of one who went to the left, what was there, only to be told, “Dozens of stray dogs and dozens of Churches!” Something we found, from our own observations of going to the right, was also true there too.
So yes the Christian Church, like the Coca-Cola Company, has done a good job of evangelism in the past, but? But, just like when you can go into some establishments that sell Coke, you can get Coke that is already previously watered down, or else have your cup half filled with ice, reducing the amount of Real coke that one gets, whilst thinking that we are getting the full deal, the same is true for some churches and even church Denominations too.
Don’t wish to get into an argument about that here but simply wish to point out that Christ is more substantial than Coke, but sadly many churches and self-called Christians, have in fact, not only watered Christ down, but have so done so much so, that many outside observers have never, ever experienced the real thing. Which is a terrible thing indeed!
But that is them! What about our own personal evangelism here? (And here I am talking specifically to Christians.) Yes in our own presentations of Christ to those around us, are we producing the Real Thing or just a watered down version of the original? Again, something to think on seriously! What say you?