HAYDENVILLE - Over the years, a failing of my ministry has been my inability to evangelize. I seem to be incapable of preaching the Gospel to people outside my own church - I am a wash-out at recruiting people to join the flock. However, this may all be changing. I am suddenly feeling a new calling in my ministry - I am experiencing a need and desire to convert Christians to Christianity.

This new campaign emerged when I read about Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., and his plan to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks - an idea he may or may not have now abandoned.

I realized when I read about Mr. Jones's intention to burn the Koran that I wanted to reach out to him and others like him who call themselves Christians but behave in ways antithetical to Christian values, tenets and principles.

Maybe I could be useful converting Christians to true Christianity.

There is a range of opinions and beliefs in the Christian community about whether Christ's rising from the dead involved the resurrection of a physical body or if it was a spiritual or metaphorical rising and conquering of death. However, there is little controversy among Christians that a charismatic itinerant preacher named Jesus from a village called Nazareth walked through the ancient world teaching and gathering followers along the way.

That man, who most Christians emulate and love, was a radical who preached not only loving one's neighbor but praying for one's enemies, a revolutionary who stood up to the Roman system of domination, and a rebel who reached to the margins of society and touched, socialized and ate with outcasts considered "unclean."

Jesus' friends and followers were poor people, women, tax collectors, lepers, prostitutes, children and Gentiles. All were "unacceptable" for him to befriend, in the view of many at the time. Jesus did many things in his lifetime, but one thing he did not do was to say: "You're OK, but you, over there, you're not OK."

The hallmark of Jesus' ministry is that he was radically inclusive. He confronted and reversed the social order of his time, preaching that the poor are especially blessed, the meek shall inherit the earth and the first shall be last and the last first. He redrew the boundary of the kingdom of God making the circle wider and wider, and more and more welcoming with each sermon.

And so my hunch is that if Jesus were among us today, he would be dining with his Muslim brothers and sisters and inviting them into conversation about religion, faith and politics. I feel very certain he would not be burning their sacred text.

And so who is the Jesus that Mr. Jones claims to follow? I understand Christians to be individuals who seek to be true Christ-followers - we strive to embrace Jesus' commitment to nonviolence, his love for humanity, his compassion for those in pain and in need, and his dream of a world where justice reigns. I don't recognize the Jesus that Pastor Jones claims to follow, nor do I recognize his form of Christianity. Mr. Jones has wanted to burn the Koran - a gesture that can only be rooted in hate and bigotry. Those are not Christian values.

A State Department spokesman called Mr. Jones's plan "un-American." I would agree and add that it is un-Christian. As a fellow member of the clergy, I would like to reach out to Mr. Jones and talk to him about the life and message of the teacher, savior and friend we both claim to follow - Jesus of Nazareth. Maybe I could covert the good pastor to Christianity. It is a struggle worth trying, a new campaign for the next phase of my ministry.

The Rev. Andrea Ayvazian, pastor of the Haydenville Congregational Church, writes a monthly column on faith, culture and politics. She can be reached at newsroom@gazettenet.com.