Reinventing Evangelism, part 8

8. We must invite people to become involved in a community of believers as the first step to believing.
Among people who are hungry for authentic relationships and who are resistant to advertising claims, the gospel has to be lived out in order to raise interest levels and raise questions. The sequence for many people coming to faith today is, first, they belong to a faith community that welcomes them and treats them as one of their own, then they come to believe. Perhaps this is what the Church fathers were emphasizing in their insistence that outside the Church there is no salvation (ad extra ecclesiam nulla salus) because participation in the life-giving and salvation-conveying Spirit of God could not be understood apart from direct participation in the life of the believing community. Being in Christ entails being in the body of Christ. This is a vital theological truth to grasp in our hyper-individualistic society, in which so many Church members have, at best, a contractual relationship with the Church, rather than seeing it as a covenant relationship. Many Christians in the Emerging Church movement understand the Church to be a way of life, seven days a week, and not a 90-minute gathering once a week. For them you don’t go to church, you are the Church. Put simply, “the gospel will be perceived as a feasible alternative when those who do not know God have some positive experiences with people who do know God.”

If there is any one of these that I would put as a number 1, then it would be this one. I have often been fascinated with the “saved and added” theory based on Acts 2 - and often have heard people say about doing the saved bit but not the added bit. I think this is barking up the wrong tree. Gordon Fee asks whether fromt he bibles point of view, you can know you are ’saved’ if you are not part of a community of believers. But this goes further, and this is why it is important. This is not a new ‘evangelistic technique’, rather it is born out of a good theological understanding of God’s intentions - it goes beyond individuals to a community - the forming of the people of God. It also takes seriously a changed world that forms belief, not through rationalistic proofs alone, but also through experience that something produces what it says it does, and that adds meaning to life. It deals seriously with people who do not respond well to ‘being told’ something, but are used to forming ideas through many different relationships and media. It also takes seriously Jesus’ example in the Gospels, where he is constantly found eating, sharing with, talking to, being blessed by, healing all kinds of different people, many of whom the religious leaders would not have even considered worthy of their time.

Go and read it again, he says it far better than me!! Where and who are the people who belong to our community but who are still on a journey to faith?

Reinventing Evangelism, part 8

8. We must invite people to become involved in a community of believers as the first step to believing.
Among people who are hungry for authentic relationships and who are resistant to advertising claims, the gospel has to be lived out in order to raise interest levels and raise questions. The sequence for many people coming to faith today is, first, they belong to a faith community that welcomes them and treats them as one of their own, then they come to believe. Perhaps this is what the Church fathers were emphasizing in their insistence that outside the Church there is no salvation (ad extra ecclesiam nulla salus) because participation in the life-giving and salvation-conveying Spirit of God could not be understood apart from direct participation in the life of the believing community. Being in Christ entails being in the body of Christ. This is a vital theological truth to grasp in our hyper-individualistic society, in which so many Church members have, at best, a contractual relationship with the Church, rather than seeing it as a covenant relationship. Many Christians in the Emerging Church movement understand the Church to be a way of life, seven days a week, and not a 90-minute gathering once a week. For them you don’t go to church, you are the Church. Put simply, “the gospel will be perceived as a feasible alternative when those who do not know God have some positive experiences with people who do know God.”

If there is any one of these that I would put as a number 1, then it would be this one. I have often been fascinated with the “saved and added” theory based on Acts 2 - and often have heard people say about doing the saved bit but not the added bit. I think this is barking up the wrong tree. Gordon Fee asks whether fromt he bibles point of view, you can know you are ’saved’ if you are not part of a community of believers. But this goes further, and this is why it is important. This is not a new ‘evangelistic technique’, rather it is born out of a good theological understanding of God’s intentions - it goes beyond individuals to a community - the forming of the people of God. It also takes seriously a changed world that forms belief, not through rationalistic proofs alone, but also through experience that something produces what it says it does, and that adds meaning to life. It deals seriously with people who do not respond well to ‘being told’ something, but are used to forming ideas through many different relationships and media. It also takes seriously Jesus’ example in the Gospels, where he is constantly found eating, sharing with, talking to, being blessed by, healing all kinds of different people, many of whom the religious leaders would not have even considered worthy of their time.

Go and read it again, he says it far better than me!! Where and who are the people who belong to our community but who are still on a journey to faith?

Reinventing Evangelism, part 8

8. We must invite people to become involved in a community of believers as the first step to believing.
Among people who are hungry for authentic relationships and who are resistant to advertising claims, the gospel has to be lived out in order to raise interest levels and raise questions. The sequence for many people coming to faith today is, first, they belong to a faith community that welcomes them and treats them as one of their own, then they come to believe. Perhaps this is what the Church fathers were emphasizing in their insistence that outside the Church there is no salvation (ad extra ecclesiam nulla salus) because participation in the life-giving and salvation-conveying Spirit of God could not be understood apart from direct participation in the life of the believing community. Being in Christ entails being in the body of Christ. This is a vital theological truth to grasp in our hyper-individualistic society, in which so many Church members have, at best, a contractual relationship with the Church, rather than seeing it as a covenant relationship. Many Christians in the Emerging Church movement understand the Church to be a way of life, seven days a week, and not a 90-minute gathering once a week. For them you don’t go to church, you are the Church. Put simply, “the gospel will be perceived as a feasible alternative when those who do not know God have some positive experiences with people who do know God.”

If there is any one of these that I would put as a number 1, then it would be this one. I have often been fascinated with the “saved and added” theory based on Acts 2 - and often have heard people say about doing the saved bit but not the added bit. I think this is barking up the wrong tree. Gordon Fee asks whether fromt he bibles point of view, you can know you are ’saved’ if you are not part of a community of believers. But this goes further, and this is why it is important. This is not a new ‘evangelistic technique’, rather it is born out of a good theological understanding of God’s intentions - it goes beyond individuals to a community - the forming of the people of God. It also takes seriously a changed world that forms belief, not through rationalistic proofs alone, but also through experience that something produces what it says it does, and that adds meaning to life. It deals seriously with people who do not respond well to ‘being told’ something, but are used to forming ideas through many different relationships and media. It also takes seriously Jesus’ example in the Gospels, where he is constantly found eating, sharing with, talking to, being blessed by, healing all kinds of different people, many of whom the religious leaders would not have even considered worthy of their time.

Go and read it again, he says it far better than me!! Where and who are the people who belong to our community but who are still on a journey to faith?

Reinventing Evangelism, part 7

7. We must communicate in a clear, caring, compelling, and compassionate manner.
An effective evangelist must have a commitment to intercession and waiting upon God. The exercise of these spiritual disciplines will attune our spirits to the initiatives of God and enable us to communicate with relevance and compassion. One practical approach is to regularly pray the Lord’s Prayer with our neighbors, family, and friends in mind. Prayer is part of our being partners with God in the whole process of making him known. We demonstrate our sensitivity by random acts of kindness and by showing a genuine interest in the concerns, hopes, and questions of others. Jesus repeatedly used the circumstances of his current situation to convey what he wanted to communicate.
The evangelist shares the message with sensitivity and patience, yet with a sense of urgency that conveys the importance of the message. Such urgency implies a countercultural stance, for the prevailing attitude is that spirituality is a private and peripheral matter. For the Christian, however, “What do you think of Christ?” is a question with life-transforming implications and eternal consequences. Religion without conviction is shallow and worldly. Religion without compassion is rigid and inhumane. Conviction without compassion is harsh. Compassion without conviction is spineless.

There is a lot here that draws together thought from previous entries. I think there are two things i will highlight. Firstly, it is clear here that the evangelist encounter people where they are at. In order to do that he/she starts as a listener. It is a missed opportunity to assume where the gospel engages with this person - it will engage, if in fact it is “good news”, but we must listen to fully realise where and how. Secondly, the message of good news is not jsut a ‘message’ a sequence of words, it is a live giving, life changing, life renewing message of transformation that also includes actions, thoughts and prayers, in addition to the normal conversation skills of listening, questioning and talking. Secondly, this section made me challenged me on this aspect of urgency. I guess i feel urgency has been an excuse for quick-fix evangelism, simplistic one-size fits all responses to people that deals purely with “their soul” and doesn’t embrace people as “wholes”. Urgency then cannot mean “not thought out” or “not holistic” or “cheap and easy”, maybe more it means “intentional”. This is not an easy-come easy-go lifestyle, it is a 24hour day reorientation around Christ, that pulls us constantly out of our selfish, individualistic lives, and points us unrelentingly to God and our neighbour. This intentionality is not a pulling up by the bootstraps, but not being scared of working really hard for the sake of others as we allow the energy of the Spirit to have its full way within our hearts - we are impelled and sustained by the Spirit of Jesus to live for the benefit of others.

Reinventing Evangelism, part 7

7. We must communicate in a clear, caring, compelling, and compassionate manner.
An effective evangelist must have a commitment to intercession and waiting upon God. The exercise of these spiritual disciplines will attune our spirits to the initiatives of God and enable us to communicate with relevance and compassion. One practical approach is to regularly pray the Lord’s Prayer with our neighbors, family, and friends in mind. Prayer is part of our being partners with God in the whole process of making him known. We demonstrate our sensitivity by random acts of kindness and by showing a genuine interest in the concerns, hopes, and questions of others. Jesus repeatedly used the circumstances of his current situation to convey what he wanted to communicate.
The evangelist shares the message with sensitivity and patience, yet with a sense of urgency that conveys the importance of the message. Such urgency implies a countercultural stance, for the prevailing attitude is that spirituality is a private and peripheral matter. For the Christian, however, “What do you think of Christ?” is a question with life-transforming implications and eternal consequences. Religion without conviction is shallow and worldly. Religion without compassion is rigid and inhumane. Conviction without compassion is harsh. Compassion without conviction is spineless.

There is a lot here that draws together thought from previous entries. I think there are two things i will highlight. Firstly, it is clear here that the evangelist encounter people where they are at. In order to do that he/she starts as a listener. It is a missed opportunity to assume where the gospel engages with this person - it will engage, if in fact it is “good news”, but we must listen to fully realise where and how. Secondly, the message of good news is not jsut a ‘message’ a sequence of words, it is a live giving, life changing, life renewing message of transformation that also includes actions, thoughts and prayers, in addition to the normal conversation skills of listening, questioning and talking. Secondly, this section made me challenged me on this aspect of urgency. I guess i feel urgency has been an excuse for quick-fix evangelism, simplistic one-size fits all responses to people that deals purely with “their soul” and doesn’t embrace people as “wholes”. Urgency then cannot mean “not thought out” or “not holistic” or “cheap and easy”, maybe more it means “intentional”. This is not an easy-come easy-go lifestyle, it is a 24hour day reorientation around Christ, that pulls us constantly out of our selfish, individualistic lives, and points us unrelentingly to God and our neighbour. This intentionality is not a pulling up by the bootstraps, but not being scared of working really hard for the sake of others as we allow the energy of the Spirit to have its full way within our hearts - we are impelled and sustained by the Spirit of Jesus to live for the benefit of others.