Archive for the ‘culture’ Category
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In the course of my consulting and speaking at evangelism training workshops, I’ve encountered many churches that have very active outreach and community service programs:
- After school tutoring
- Shut in or Prisoner Visitation
- Habitat for Humanity work projects
- Medical outreaches for the community
- Participating in Crop Walks for Hunger Relief
- Food pantries, clinics, shelters for the homeless
These are just examples, and I am sure you can add hundreds more from your local community.
The questions I ask and we kick around in friendly discussion:
- Is that outreach?
- Is that evangelism?
- Is that home missions?
- Is that simply good deeds?
- Is that missional outreach?
- Is that marketing in disguise?
- Is that a demonstration of God’s love?
A cup of cold water
What is clear is that we have blurred the line between evangelism and outreach. Discussions I’ve had bounce all over the map.
In some corners of the church, this is evangelism because it demonstrates the gospel. No explanation needed.
Other corners argue this not evangelism because the gospel is not verbally shared. It’s simply social action.
Depends on how you define your terms.
Acts of Christian service and charity, social outreach to your community are good and noble efforts. Many are propelled theologically by the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46), giving a cup of cold water to the least of these.
Yet what is it that separates your Christian service from that of the local Rotary club?
What makes your acts of compassion different from my atheist friend who does community service through the Peace Corps?
How does the recipient know the difference?
How do the recipients of your outreach interpret or give meaning to your outreach?
Meaning is not always clear
My friends in Panama tell me this story.
Panama Olympian Irving Saladino won the first ever gold medal for this country during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Bejing.
The last medal won was 60 years ago and it was bronze. Irving Saladino won the gold in the Long Jump competition.
During his jumps, nationally televised in Panama around 6.30 am, the nation was at a virtual standstill. People were watching it in groups at friend’s houses. Taxi drivers had pulled over to side of the road to listen to the radio. Everyone it seemed, went to work late.
On his two or three jumps, he wore one red shoe and one blue shoe, reflecting the national team colors. However, on his next to last jump, he changed his shoes to a gold color.
The commentators and “man on the street” interviews all got excited:
- “He’s going for the gold”
- “He’s put on his lucky shoes”
- “He’s telling us this will be the gold medal jump.”
They were applying meaning to the color change of shoes.
That jump turned out to be the gold medal winning jump.
The country erupted in celebration. Facebook photos from my friends show lots of celebrations, cheering, and national happiness. People on the street celebrated by blowing their car horns in celebration. Crowds formed spontaneously on the street. National productivity of the workforce shut down for the day as Panama won its first ever gold medal.
The meaning of the shoes?
When asked by a reporter about what he was trying to communicate with his shoes, Saladino mentioned
that the laces in his red and blue pair got tangled up and he didn’t have the time to fix it.
He put on his gold colored backup shoes so he wouldn’t be disqualified for being late to the starting line.
Very different meaning than what the nation watching on live television thought.
People gave it meaning based on their hopes, dreams, and worldview.
Meaning is given if not provided
Bring that back to your church’s outreach.
What might your recipients think about your outreach?
How can they tell that it is a “Cup of Cold Water given in My Name?”
In a post Wrestling with the Definition of Evangelism I mention:
Just this week, the dental assistant told me that it feels good to help people.
I asked her “Why?” No immediate answer, but enough to have her reflect.
She’s unchurched. She didn’t know why people had black spots on their heads last Wednesday [for Ash Wednesday].
She could serve the poor, work for the Peace Corp, or any of the national volunteer mobilization organizations. She simply feels good. that altruistic motive propels many people.
But to the recipient, what separates her good service from that of the church? How does the recipient know it is “In My Name?”
In my experience, meaning is naturally given if not supplied by the giver.
Outreach in partnership with Evangelism
John Stott asks the question in Christian Mission in the Modern World.
Is social action (thanks to Timmy Brister for summary)
- A Means to evangelism
- A Manifestation of evangelism
- A Partner of Evangelism
Mark Dever has an interesting piece in Christianity Today, also points out what “What Evangelism Isn’t.” (adapted from his book The Gospel and Personal Evangelism). Evangelism is not social action or public involvement (”They commend the gospel, but they share it with no one.”)
In What is Evangelism? – Part 3, which focuses on the “sharing” part of our Evangelism Definition, I mention:
During a health outreach our church did for its neighborhood, one unchurched person commented, “I don’t like to listen to sermons, today I saw one.”
Our service to the community was interpreted as we wanted – a tangible demonstration of the love of Christ that we have for our neighborhood.
It’s a witness to the world thru actions.
Yet that interpretation came about because we gathered all the volunteers at the beginning and I explained to them why we as a church are doing this outreach.
We are serving because God first loved us and we want to demonstrate that to the community.
Good works demonstrate our faith.
Yet without any overt or clear explanation that our actions are propelled by God’s grace, what makes our good deed any different than what the local Lions club does or what good corporate citizens provide through their charitable foundations?
It’s not an either/or proposition for me. Both social action and explanation via words are necessary forms of sharing.
Deeds are love demonstrated, but a further explanation of the gospel is necessary to give meaning to our actions. Otherwise, our actions are ripe for misinterpretation.
Practically what does this mean?
Many churches are actively engaged in good works in their community.
Yet can their members explain their personal faith along the way?
Can churches train their members to grow comfortable talking about their faith with the people they are serving?
What if, as part of the planning for outreach events, the church provided a training opportunity about talking about your faith?
What if, as part of praying for the outreaches, the church also prayed that conversations about Jesus would happen?
What if, as part of serving the community, the people were able to provide meaning of their service by talking about their personal relationship with Christ?
These questions are on my mind as I prepare for the upcoming Transformation Pastor’s Conference.
I will be presenting on what does Evangelism look like in a church that is undergoing revitalization or redevelopment. One of my co presenters will be speaking of the missional direction of the church and the need for evangelism.
Let me ask you this?
Think about your church’s outreach.
In what ways can your church provide meaning to the recipients through the verbal sharing of your faith?
I invite your comments and reflections below.
Comments (0) Posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008
I remember a model of evangelism that felt like a sales pitch.
I would attend a seminar and learn the newest script for evangelism. The idea is that I would learn a series of conversational steps that would help people
- See their need for Jesus
- Make a decision to follow Christ
- Repeat a prayer after me.
- Sign here for follow up.
- All in less than 30 minutes.
The script was “the powerful new tool,” and it was meant to help you “share your faith” and confidently prepare you to “lead people to Christ.”
If we were truly honest with ourselves, in the practice of your life did it ever work?
Not in my life.
I never really latched onto that sales pitch. Most of the readers of this blog never latched on to that model as it felt forced, maybe dishonest and turned Jesus in a product marketing.
Life doesn’t fit the script.
In the last few days I’ve had to deal with customer service people in various businesses.
In each case, my need was not “in their script.”
- Company A sent me to at least 4 departments today on the telephone, because no one could answer my question. That was after going to 3 different departments yesterday. I wasn’t permitted to speak to a supervisor because they didn’t have the power to get out of their script.
- Company B simply said “I don’t cover that situation — you can’t be our customer anymore.” I’ve been their customer for 11 years and now they don’t want me anymore.
I did not fit their script. They didn’t have an answer for my questions. They didn’t have a solution for my need. Their scripts didn’t have a place for me.
This is the problem with scripts when they are positioned as the “one true way” of doing evangelism.
Human beings and life conversations can’t all fit into a one size fits all scripted evangelism presentation. Humans have so many different needs, so many different starting points, so many different questions.
I don’t teach complicated scripts in any of my evangelism seminars.
Rather, I help people learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit for the right place, right time, right words. I don’t have a script I follow because each person and each conversation is unique.
I’ve written on gospel scripts before and will do so in the future (grab my feed to get these future posts). They are handy little tools and I’m not throwing them out.
The gospel scripts that I like are all simple presentations of the gospel that are useful at an appropriate point in a relationship. They address different needs but ultimately get at the Need to Follow Jesus.
In my life, I haven’t found that any of my conversation partners are at the same starting point the gospel script is at.
The scripts assume
- that a person recognizes the consequences of sin.
- that the person is ready to deal with a spiritual need.
- that a person is seeking for a relationship with God.
Phillip and the Eunuch
Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch had a ‘chance’ conversational encounter. Yet in that encounter, the text says that
“Beginning from that point [where the Eunuch was reading], Phillip went on to explain the good news about Jesus.”
Notice that Phillip began where the eunuch was.
The eunuch was dealing with grammar issues with pronouns, frustrations with reading a foreign language, and perhaps his own disappointment in not finding what he was searching for in Jerusalem.
Phillip spent time talking with the eunuch at that point. A point unique to the eunuch’s spiritual journey.
So many scripts want to “begin from their own point.”
Yet not every conversation is at that starting point.
- It often takes a series of conversations to get there.
- It takes listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit
- It takes good questions that open new conversational lines.
- It takes some skill in noticing life themes and linking them to spiritual needs.
Evangelism Scripts such as the Four Spiritual Laws, Bridge, or others are handy once a person has gotten to the starting point of the scripts.
Being familiar with an evangelism script can help you comfortably explain the gospel when the moment presents itself in a natural manner.
Getting to that point? There is no script for that.
From Golf to God
This week, I was listening to Michael Spencer’s Coffee Cup Apologetics at Podcast 46. In these 15 minutes (listen on line at Podcast 46) Spencer discusses issues with scripted evangelism.
He refers to a great article called Gospel Connections in Suburbia.
It deals with how to bridge a conversation from the subject at hand to the subject of the gospel.
Can you go from golf to God?
There is a list of 8 topics that are great conversational topics and an example of a conversational bridge is given for each (I encourage you to read the whole entry).
1. Corruption, evil and sin.
2. Community.
3. Politics.
4. Environment.
5. War.
6. Family.
7. Church.
8. Art/pop-culture
Spencer’s podcast picks this up and points out that to make such transitions, one requires three skills
- Relational Conversations — Casual life conversations with friends
- Ability to see connections between the mundane and the spiritual
- Make the transition from the mundane to spiritual in a natural way.
Part of doing this is developing the skills of
- Making use of good questions
- Making use of good observations.
Start to Notice
In your own conversations, start to ponder how the mundane can be bridged towards the spiritual. I’m not talking about ketchup on fries representing the blood of Jesus. Rather, listen to the heart cry in the culture.
- What is being looked for?
- Why are people passionate about politics and what does that say about order in the world?
- Why are people willing to sacrifice their marriage for a moment of personal pleasure?
- Can you hear the spiritual need behind the conversation?
- What is the question behind the question?
Let me ask you this?
Taking a cue from the original blog post: Do you have some useful conversational bridges? I invite you to elaborate in the comments.
Comments (3) Posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
I’ve been reading Walking with the Poor, by Bryant L. Myers. The book looks at principles and practices of transformational development.
The book explores poverty, causes of poverty, and calls the church to action in engaging broken systems that cause poverty. He lays forth a strong case that poverty is a “deficit, entanglement, lack of access to social power, powerlessness, and the lack of freedom to grow” (Myers 81).
Poverty is a complicated issue that involves all areas of life — physical, personal, social, cultural, and spiritual.
I live and work in a country where poverty is more visible than the suburban America where I lived before.
- I walk home from church and a single mother with children are asking me for money or food.
- I walk to church, I see a unkempt homeless man with a distorted and twisted foot sleeping on cardboard next to the barbershop.
- Walking home from class, I see people picking through the trash to recycle what can be salvaged.
- The building maintenance man lives on an annual salary of $6K a year, working 48 hours a week.
The gospel is relevant to people such as these. But what difference does evangelism make in their life? Can it lift them out of their poverty?
This is the question that Myers seeks to get at in this book.
For example, he presents a simple chart about solutions to the cause of poverty (p.81).
| View of Cause |
Proposed response |
| Poor are sinners |
Evangelism |
| Poor are sinned against |
Social Action, justice |
| Poor lack knowledge |
Education |
| Poor lack things |
Relief / social welfare |
| Culture of the poor is flawed |
Become like us / ours is better |
| Social system makes them poor |
Change the system |
Certainly poverty has many causes and many possible cures.
I’m simply wondering about the role of evangelism in transforming a culture, transforming a system. Certainly the gospel can transform an individual, but can that transformation seek to change the systems of poverty?
Order your copy of Walking with the Poor, by Bryant L. Myers.
Other books we are currently reading:
Let me ask you this?
What role can evangelism play in reducing poverty? That’s a big question, but perhaps one we can discuss here.
Comments (7) Posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
Today I read a post at 9 Marks about the corporate role of the church and its support of personal evangelism.
The writer asks: “What is the role of the local church (i.e., corporate witness) in our personal evangelism (i.e., individual, personal witness)?”
Consider the ethos of your church. Are you proud to invite a non-christian to attend one of your services? Do you love your local church?
Let me give you two examples, one good, another one not so good.
The good:
We attended a little Spanish language church for the last 8 months that welcomed us with open arms. We were adopted quickly by that church family and it was hard to leave when we moved. During my 8 months there, I was always telling people about my church. Christians, non-christians, didn’t matter.
Everybody knew where we were going to Church.
I had these little invitation cards written in Spanish that I could give to people. I knew that my church often explains the gospel as part of every service. I would give away 10 or so a week to people that I met on the street.
The church provided the cards, showed us how to use them, and we used them. The church has grown with people finding faith and joining.
The church supported our personal witness and we were proud to invite people to our church.
The Not So Good
I was embarrased to invite my unchurched friends to a church I loved and served. It was very inward focused and did its own good in its own way, but it was clearly geared towards mature Christians.
We were having a larger number of unchurched people attend our evening service. I was preaching simple biblical messages, and we were providing space for people to explore their faith. People were beginning to belong and build relationships. It was our church’s attempt at getting out of their navel-gazing.
Then they attended a morning service with the “normal” church. Every time, the sermons were inapprorpiate for people seeking faith. I can’t go into the details, but it killed every relationship that had been forming. Every seeker who went to the morning service never returned to our church.
I never invited my friends to retreats, because the topics were for mature Christians. I never invited my friends to the morning service because I was never sure what Pastor would ruminate on.
This church didn’t have an ethos that supported my work of personal evangelism.
Let me ask you this?
Are you proud of your church?
Can you think of someone you could invite to your church this weekend?
Comments (1) Posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007
Sin must exist for grace to mean something. Eli Dorman at Invite One raises a question about sin and grace in our cultural context.
One atheist encourages Christians to listen at the eBay Atheist.
Preachers Magazine gives a sermon about Peter and Cornelius, looking at all the conversion that occurs.
Glenn Hager has a good discussion happening about the church, doing vs. being. In fact, he’s written a series of articles called “Be the church.” Follow the related posts links.
Otto Ekk, in his first post on his new blog raises a question about the transforming work of the gospel. It’s just the beginning of a conversation, but he raises some good questions nonetheless.
Over at The Word on the Streets, the author is writing a series about Sin, God’s Love and the Gospel. Check out this entry on God’s love.
Have a great weekend!
Comments (0) Posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007
A few years ago, we had the privelege of backpacking in Peru, on the Inca Trail, to the old city of Machu Picchu. Along the way, we got to learn alot about the Inca culture that built the city, and some of its beautiful architecture, likely from the 15th century AD (1450s or so).
Like the apostle Paul in Athens, we got to spend the day wandering around the remains of the city.
We learned about their spirituality as we wondered among their temple ruins. History books and archelogists fill in the story that these stones tell. We were filled with awe at how their stones were laid together without mortar, and with gaps so small that a sliver of paper wouldn’t slide between. We awed over how these buildings had withstood earthquakes because of the way they were engineered together. We were amazed at how their spirituality and architecture intertwined with building placement and design.
Among the ruins, one paricular stone caught my eye. It has been named the Southern Cross stone. It is a stone (pictured here) in the shape of the constellation in the southern hemisphere called the Southern Cross. Etched into this stone is the cross itself (not visibile in the picture).
The slope of the stone, and the direction of its apex points right to the red giant star that is in the Constellation.
Here in an ancient culture, a hundred years before the Spaniards came, is a foreshawdowing of God’s witness in the cross. Make of this what you will. To me, it reflects some spiritual thirst they may have had and felt drawn to the cross. Maybe they didn’t know what it meant, but it was a part of their spirituality. This stone sits near one corner of the principal temple at the site of Machu Picchu.
When Paul saw an “Altar to an Unknown God” in Athens, he used it as a bridge to explain the gospel. He knew they were spiritualy thirsty and weren’t quite satisfied. Perhaps these Incas were not quite satisfied with their spirituality either and wondered what the cross might have meant. It’s something already in the culture that we could use to help explain the gospel of God’s grace.
In our evangelism, we can use bridges to the culture that are already there. There is a sense of spiritual thirst that every person has, but some realize it more than others. Our culture bears some witness to this thirst and to where satisfaction can be found.
Let me ask you this?
What kinds of spiritual thirst have you seen or heard in people?
So what?
Next time you are in a conversation, listen for a spiritual thirst.
Comments (0) Posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007
