When you graduate from college, things change. Suddenly, you're working and often that job has little to do with your major. It seems as if all your friends live elsewhere, and you're no longer surrounded by thousands of people your age. Your sense of community becomes entirely different. Gone are the days of seeing your InterVarsity friends two, three, four times a day. You're not sharing meals with your Bible study group once a week and there aren't Large Group meetings with the follow-up community time that you once had.

If you're like me, it's not long after leaving InterVarsity that church starts to play a more significant role. Church is exciting, new, different and difficult all at once. There are friends there that remind you of InterVarsity. And soon, with God's blessing, you begin developing a strong sense of community with this new church family. There are no longer awkward silences or the general questions about the week, and you begin to have meaningful connections with brothers and sisters in the faith.

But it's not college. No more sleeping in on a Tuesday or conversations at three a.m. Time, though seemingly infinite with no homework or InterVarsity events, slowly becomes your greatest commodity. And though you do not realize it, most of it is spent at work, or cooking, or cleaning or laundering (all the things of adult day-to-day life). Time with friends becomes so precious that there is this need to spend it in the most fulfilling ways possible. I often found that I'd choose to not hang out with my coworkers or people I didn't know as well because I wanted to be around my church friends. Why? I wanted to be around those who knew me and loved me in the little time I had. After all, didn't I deserve time with close friends and people I could get advice and love from without having to put on a Christian face? (for articles about transitioning into a church after college, see Finding a Church and From Where I Stand)

Slowly and surely, almost like clockwork, it is easy to begin developing dual lives. You have your church community—your close friends—whom you trust, love and enjoy spending time with. Then you have the other categories, made up of people that you work with and live near—people who may or may not live lives very differently than you.

It's at this point that we lose all sense of evangelism. Even the very word evangelism becomes another chore and burden that we somehow need to put into our already overcrowded life. There's this overwhelming sense of should that then begins competing with the overshadowing reality of an already laden life. How do we reconcile our wants and desires to be a light in the lives of others, as well as find our need for community and love despite our ever-increasing lack of time?

I faced this reality my second year out of college. I came to realize that even though I was busy all the nights of the week, all my busyness happened within a tight-knit Christian community. I hung out—a lot—with this group. Monday night we made dinner together. Tuesday night, Bible study. Thursday night, The Office watching party. This group became my replacement InterVarsity. Our conversations, unfortunately, became more and more shallow.

We saw each other all the time, but it wasn't the deep, meaningful Christian community it once was. And I realized it was different because each person had become content in their own world and had lost a vision for bringing others to Christ. Each week it was the same crowd of people, the same conversation, but different clothes. It was comfortable—maybe too comfortable.

This is neither the community nor the purpose that God intends for us. He calls us to be his ambassadors for a reason, and it's twofold. Yes, because of the great wisdom of our Lord, and for reasons beyond our understanding, he allows us as sinful, screwed-up people to tell others of the Good News. We get to be Christ to one another. Coupled with that, the same Christ that saved us from our sinful nature also saves us from purposelessness. We are now Christ's representatives, to both those that know him and to those that don't.

Evangelism after college, then, isn't the Four Spiritual Laws, or the dorm-invite to the ice-cream social. It is everyday life lived in a way that is not compartmentalized. Your day to-day life after college is filled with interactions with pre-Christians—at your workplace, in your neighborhood, with your friends. And integrating your faith into all areas of your life gives you a purpose that is worth grasping. (See Top 10 Evangelism Tips for office life)

Now, no one wants to evangelize in the dated sense of the word—no one wants to give the pitch. Evangelism should not be this scary, one-time, serious talk about Jesus that you spit out on an unsuspecting person once a year out of obligation. And the best part is that God doesn't intend for us to do that, either. Rick Richardson suggests in his book Reimagining Evangelism that "we can recover our confidence and excitement. If we believed that God is at work everywhere and we're more like a detective discovering clues and a guide sharing wisdom, then evangelism would feel very different. We can look for God to be at work always and everywhere." We can reimagine evangelism.

One of my favorite Scripture verses means as much today as the first time I read it. Galatians 5:6b says, "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." This is our goal, this is our community, and this is our purpose. There isn't some magic formula, there's just love. Take the dual life of work friends and church friends and combine them. Invite your friends to be friends in all aspects of your life. Share your concerns and joys with those that have a different set of beliefs. Granted, they will not have the deep spiritual guidance and understanding of your believing friends, but you will be emulating the Christ that cares after the widow and the orphan, who sits among the tax collectors and shares life with the prostitutes. (See Top 10 Evangelism Tips for office life)

Rick Warren says you spell love T-I-M-E. Make time for those around you that God has already placed in your life and you’ll get to put into practice all those great InterVarsity principles you learned throughout college: It's okay to not be in control, ministry flows out of being. Return to living out the great purpose God has called us to and blessed us in. Who knew that fulfilling the Great Commission would grant a sense of community, belonging, purpose and joy?

Additional Resources:

• Reimagining Evangelism by Rick Richardson (InterVarsity Press, 2006)
• Reimagining Evangelism (DVD) by Rick Richardson (InterVarsity Press, 2008)
• Reimagining Evangelism Participant's Guide by Judy Johnson, Terry Erickson, with Rick Richardson (InterVarsity Press, 2008)