Category Archives: Evangelism

No Place for Timid Hearts

As I read Radical and think of missionary heroes, there is a stirring in my heart about THIS being the time to step out in faith. We can’t wait for others. We need to hear the voice of the Spirit.
Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

Again in the Apocrypha, the CEB translated a verse in Sirach 2:13 that challenges me:

13 How terrible it will be for the timid heart.
Because it doesn’t trust,
therefore it won’t be protected.

The NRSV:

Woe to the fainthearted who have no trust!

Therefore they will have no shelter.

The CEB helps me with a bit more clarity. Following God is not for the faint of heart. It is not for the timid. It is the call to be all in.

The World Doesn’t Deserve Them

Our staff is finishing up the book Radical by David Platt. He ends the book with my favorite thing: missionary stories. Radical missionary stories. I fed on these stories when I was in high school and college.

Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream
C.T. Studd was a missionary who didn’t believe in retirement. Instead of hanging it up at the age of 50 he headed for the Sudan. He gave his life for the gospel in the Sudan.

He wrote this:

Too long have we been waiting for one another to begin! The time for waiting is past! … Should such men as we fear? Before the whole world, aye, before the sleepy lukewarm, faithless, namby-pamby Christian world we will dare to trust our God, … and we will do it with His joy unspeakable singing aloud in our hearts.

The writer of Hebrews says this:

“The world didn’t deserve them.” (Heb. 11:38, CEB)

Will we DARE to trust our God? Our action is not future. It is now.

Clean and Unclean

15 The voice spoke a second time, “Never consider unclean what God has made pure.” (Acts 10:15, CEB)

One of the greatest challenges for the American Church in our day is to rise above the political rhetoric, quit drawing political lines in the sand, and hear the voice of God in our midst once again.

It’s not a matter of Democrat or Republican. It’s not a matter of ESV, NIV, CEB, gender inclusive, gender exclusive, etc.

It’s not a matter of Calivinist or Arminian. (Now I’ve gone from preachin’ to meddlin’.)

It is a matter of segments of our society that we’ve treated as “unclean” and there are Cornelius’s in those segments crying out for the living God. Will we be the “Peters” of our generation to finally reach out and touch parts of our world we have foolishly declared “unclean”?

For Lent, give up the religiosity of what we’ve declared “unclean.” Instead, put on the power of the Spirit and see what might happen.

It won’t be comfortable. It won’t be pretty at first. It will drive you nuts. But just see what the Spirit may do.

Two Possible Responses to Jesus

In Mark 6 there are a couple of responses to Jesus.

In vv. 1-6 the people familiar with Jesus didn’t think much of who he had become. They launched into stories of “I remember little Jesus when he was following his daddy around with a hammer…”

In vv. 7-12 there is a different response.

7 He called for the Twelve and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority over unclean spirits. 8 He instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a walking stick—no bread, no bags, and no money in their belts. 9 He told them to wear sandals but not to put on two shirts. 10 He said, “Whatever house you enter, remain there until you leave that place. 11 If a place doesn’t welcome you or listen to you, as you leave, shake the dust off your feet as a witness against them.” 12 So they went out and proclaimed that people should change their hearts and lives. 13 They cast out many demons, and they anointed many sick people with olive oil and healed them. (Mark 6:7-13, CEB)

We could actually go out and do what Jesus did.

He is our Savior. How will we respond?

The Beautiful Obligation

16 If I preach the gospel, I have no reason to brag, since I’m obligated to do it. I’m in trouble if I don’t preach the gospel.(1 Cor. 9:16, CEB)

16 For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! (1 Cor. 9:16, NIV)

16 For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! (1 Cor. 9:16, ESV)

The supposed freedom we may think we have in the gospel is indeed freedom, but it is a freedom binding us to a new “obligation.” The gospel of Jesus Christ turns all our definitions upside down.

Any sense of “obligation” we have in our lives today we tend to run from like it was the plague.

Any sense of “freedom” we think we may have, we sometimes viciously fight for that sense of “freedom,” only to find it has a steep price after all.

But in the Kingdom, the freedom of Christ has a sense of duty. It is a sense of call. It is the duty of proclamation. And it is not just proclamation in some way that WE feel “comfortable” with. It is the proclamation of the gospel in such a way that we work hard to make sure the gospel is communicated clearly to our audience.

For Paul, it meant that even with tremendous “freedoms” he felt no qualms about being “all things to all people so as to win some.” He wanted Jews to understand without too many barriers. He wanted Gentiles to understand without too many barriers.

That’s just hard work. Why? He was compelled. He had an obligation. Yet, it was a beautiful obligation. It was a longing for all to understand the freedom he found in Christ.

As Christians we give up “freedoms” and “privileges” at times because we want to be able to communicate as clearly as possible the beautiful message of freedom in Christ. It is not “losing” in the Kingdom. It may seem like “losing” to everyone around us, but it is not losing at all. When other find freedom in Christ, gain happens. We all win.

Passing Along Passion

This article on missions is challenging.

Am I sharing God’s passion for the lost? As we have wrapped up our missions emphasis this year at church I have been blessed by seeing the passion for missions raised in our Faith Promise giving for next year. It looks like another increase! I am so deeply grateful.

But there is something more stirring in me. I am seeking out what the Spirit is truly trying to say to me. The longing in my heart that has been there for years is that one day I can have the opportunity to teach pastors overseas in some way on a regular basis. I want to equip leaders in new areas of church planting where they don’t get the advantage of a Bible school. I want to help. Maybe that stirring from the Spirit now is something to do with that.

What I do know is that I cannot be satisfied with writing a check. I must keep stretching myself in passion for the Kingdom. To know him, and to make him known.

The King Jesus Gospel — Messing Up the Message

I am beginning to work my way through The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight. My church staff will be making our way through it the next several weeks as well.

The diagnosis of the “evangelical problem” resonates with me. The struggle over “decisions” and “disciples” has been something I’ve felt for all my years in ministry. McKnight lays out his take on why this isn’t working.

As evangelicals, we come up with ways to explain “the plan of salvation” to people. We want to lead them to a decision. The problem is that it doesn’t capture the gospel.

The Plan of Salvation, to put it crudely, isn’t discipleship or justice or obedience. The Plan of Salvation leads to one thing and to one thing only: salvation. Justification leads to a declaration by God that we are in the right, that we are the people of God; it doesn’t lead inexorably to a life of justice or goodness or lovingkindess. If it did, all Christians would be more just and more filled with goodnes and drenched in love.

The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited

Evangelism — Orthodox and “Evangelical”

I have not been a fan of using church services alone to “evangelize.” A worship service is for…well… worship. It’s FOR Christ. Not us. But that’s just me. Obviously. ;)

This interview with Bishop Kallistos Ware (bishop of the Orthodox Church in England) is a good read. I like this exchange on “evangelism”:

To draw in the unchurched, evangelical churches often strip away things that might be mysterious or strange. But when you invite someone into an Orthodox liturgy, you hit them full-on with strange symbolism and unfamiliar words.

Yes, and let them understand what God gives them to understand. Throw them in at the deep end of the swimming pool and see what happens. That is very much our Orthodox approach. I would not want to offer a watered-down version of Orthodoxy.

The basic rules of Christianity, our relation to Christ, are very simple. Because they are simple they are also often difficult to understand.

On the other hand, we should not be content with a bare minimum. We should offer people the fullness of the faith in all its diversity and depth. I would wish people, when they come to the Orthodox liturgy, not to think that they understand everything the first time. I hope, rather, that they have an experience of mystery, a sense of awe and wonder. If we lose that from our worship, we have lost something very precious.

 

Super Sunday

Evangelism paradigms shift from time to time. I admit I am far more relational in my approach to evangelism than event driven. In my circles, it’s almost crazy. We’re so driven by numbers and “big days.”

This article by Mark Galli is refreshing to me. Aggravating to others, I’m sure, but refreshing to me.

This quote is powerful:

Second, we can do what Jesus told us to do. He did not tell us to market our neighbors, but to love them. That means refusing to treat them as potential customers or clients who need to be talked into something. What made us think non-Christians would enjoy that type of relationship with us in the first place? Instead, we are called to love, to take the initiative to get to know others, to not hold their sins against them, to be generous with our time and goods, to be faithful and kind, and so forth.

So, here is to a SUPER SUNDAY… and a great Monday… and a significant Tuesday where we can interact with people all around us and see what the Spirit may just do through an “ordinary” conversation.

Marketing and the Church

I get into debates with myself over what is “marketing” for the church. What “counts” vs. what “doesn’t count,” etc.

But then I read articles like this one and just get sick. The article begins like this:

In the back room of a theater on Beale Street, John Renken, 42, a pastor, recently led a group of young men in prayer.

“Father, we thank you for tonight,” he said. “We pray that we will be a representation of you.”

An hour later, a member of his flock who had bowed his head was now unleashing a torrent of blows on an opponent, and Mr. Renken was offering guidance that was not exactly prayerful.

“Hard punches!” he shouted from the sidelines of a martial arts event called Cage Assault. “Finish the fight! To the head! To the head!”

The author of the article calls it right a few paragraphs later when he says these are “recruitment efforts.”

When we are reduced to using terms (and gladly using them, I might add) like “recruitment,” I am deeply saddened. Especially in a venue like this. Since we do not know our history very well, it may do me no good to say something silly like, “Sounds like Rome and the gladiators to me.”

Something just seems terribly wrong in the American church, and I don’t think it’s me just being old and crotchety.