Consulting, Coaching & Chatter

Today I’ve spent all day … well, from 10:30 AM until 4:20 … training fifty-two participants the first half of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Evangelism seminar. I’m exhausted (that’s a lot of time up in front doing a lot of the talking) and yet I’m too wound up to sleep. There’s something about watching folks “get it” when it comes to good-newsing the world. What’s most gratifying, is the number of the under-thirties who shared how much they got out of it and that what they heard are tips and tools that they realize will work in their contexts.

One of the hot topics of conversation at this event has been the discussion of the “church’s” role in evangelism. When I use the word “church” here, I’m meaning the cultural understanding of the church as a local expression, that is, a typical North American congregation that meets in some sort of dedicated building. What happens, several were asking, when we share our faith stories and invite our friends to come with us to church and when they get there the welcome and the love and the acceptance just isn’t there. In other words, is our evangelism efforts for naught if all we have to invite them to is church-as-usual?

That’s the rub, isn’t it? I’ve been on staff at churches in the past wheren I was hesitant to invite the unchurched and the irrelgious to visit. I figure that I get ONE chance with someone who’s authentically seeking and if I, or the church, blows it, the seeker may never give the church another chance. Rather than risking the loss to the kingdom, I’d invite them to other churches in the area where I knew they had a pretty good chance to meet Jesus rather than to a church where I knew they had a better chance of meeting ho-hum church-as-usual. I’m afraid there are some things that I’m just not willing to risk.

Which is a real dilemma for some in this evangelism seminar. Just what DO you do when the church you attend is “stuck” or in the midst of its own transformation? How can we prepare the serious seeker for their encounter with “the church” when it’s more of an insider’s club than a well-functioning rescue station? When is taking the risk the “right” thing to do?

It’s a dilemma and I’d be interested to hear your answers. My response is, instead of inviting a serious seeker to the “church” (i.e., the Sunday worship service in The Building), I invite them to an effective small group that I’m a part of. Hopefully that small group would be attached to the “church,” but I’m less concerned about that than I am in creating an incubator for love, warmth, hospitality, and discipleship.

What do you do when your friend, relative, associate, neighbor, or co-worker is seriously seeking spiritual answers? We live in a time where the economic crisis may be helping people get “ripe” for asking those questions. When they do, will you “risk” taking them to church? If not, what will you do?

It’s a rainy and stormy Saturday morning here in Columbia, Missouri. It’s Hurricane Ike weekend, so I have nothing to complain about. I’m relatively cool (though humidity sux), I have power, and my home is dry. As I write this, it’s too early to gauge the devastation of Galveston and Houston, but it isn’t going to be pretty.

As I watch the winds whip through the trees and the birds and squirrels hanging on to the feeders (or hiding inside a feeder, as this squirrel did), I pondered and prayed “What’s worth saying in these days?” What’s worth reading? What’s worth writing?

That’s a question I have to help churches and church leaders deal with all the time. I’ve been invited into many conversations and heard a lot of monologues (sometimes called sermons) that communicated little and prompted me to ponder why I’d invested any of the limited time I have for such palaver. Just what is worth saying?

There’s a huge difference between what people “want” to hear and what they “need” to hear. However, that difference is ameliorated by the ability of one to communicate to another. In other words, if I try to tell someone what they desperately “need” to hear, but they’re not at a place where they can hear me, I’m wasting my breath and their time … and I might even be creating impermeable walls that thwart future conversations. If I’m going to have a meaningful conversation with someone, I’d better be cognizant of our relationship level and the “right” that I have, or have not, developed that might enable me to speak truth into their life.

So, what’s worth saying? If you’re a faithful disciples of Jesus, then you have a story to tell. You may be surprised to hear this, though. It’s not the historical story of Jesus your friends or your congregants are most interested in hearing. As important as that is - and it is important - that’s not what most people want or need to hear. The story you have to share is a much more personal and intimate one. What people want to hear about your faith, more than anything else, is how this Jesus guy turned your life upside down. They want to know that he’s for real in your life and that he’s made a real difference. They want to know there’s authentic hope in this God - not because some ancient book says there is (there are LOTS of sacred books that claim their god is powerful and great), but because you have the goods on this particular god. You know him personally and this God is awesome enough that it’s worth getting up in the morning and facing whatever storms that life tosses at you.

It comes down to what I call the ultimate question: “What is it about your relationship with Jesus that your neighbor can’t live without?” If you have the answer to that, you have something worth saying. If not … well, there’s always the weather, sports scores, and recent sitcom plots to fill in the time.

In December, my new book on Evangelism will be released by Chalice Press. Hitchhiker’s Guide to Evangelism takes a peek at the “new” evangelism needed for reaching today’s world. Let’s face it, if the ways we do evangelism were really working, our churches would be filling up. But that’s clearly not the case. Indeed, in North America we’re not just losing the battle of the church, we’re losing the war. Less than 15% of North Americans will find their way to a church this weekend … and the numbers are dropping sharply.

What’s not working is trying to cajole our church members into doing evangelism like it was done “back then.” Back then you could knock at a door, do a quasi-real survey about checking the religion practices of the neighborhood, and then dropping “the” question towards the end: “If you died tonight, do you know for sure you’d go to heaven?”

It’s not that this method never works anymore. It still does in some communities and with some people. The question to ask is this: Is it worth alienating 98 people, people who will have had their worst fears about the church realized when you show up at their door, in order to share the Gospel effectively with 2 people?

The main problem with this kind of evangelism is that in some circles, this is the only “method” of conversion. I call this the Paul method … conversion happens at a specific moment in time. Paul’s version of conversion has become the model, and yet it is the most invasive, most intrusive, and most aggressive of almost all other evangelism models. And, I’d add, that if Jesus was the one who’s knocking you off your horse, that’s one thing … but I’m not Jesus - and neither are the many “evangelists” who press for a conversion “experience.”

The second problem with this kind of evangelism is that it bolsters the notion that being a Christian is mostly a matter about what you believe. The problem with “believing” Christianity is that this is what’s gotten us into this black hole. Seventy-eight percent of USAmericans “claim” to be Christian. And by the definition that a Christian is someone who believes in Jesus, they are Christians. So praying the “sinner’s prayer,” walking an aisle, or even being baptized doesn’t necessarily mean much. I won’t argue about the salvific value of these actions … I’ll even surmise that they may be all that is “necessary” (but I’m not the one doing the judging - see Matthew 25). However, the “conversion” model of evangelism puts so much emphasis on the act of conversion that too often living a Christian life becomes of secondary importance and emphasis.

Now, I’m not advocating that we stop … there are times and places for conversion invitations (see Glenn Kelley’s recent blog entry on Youth Evangelism). But I am suggesting that there’s a better way for the rest of us.

The “New” evangelism is really a very old evangelism. Instead of it being about conversion, it’s about having spiritual conversations. It’s about first being a part of something, such as a friendship, a small group, a work group, a service group, a cause, etc. It’s about exploring the faith by watching it modeled, by associating with it, by practicing it before deciding it’s about believing and accepting and converting. This “new” evangelism is what the twelve apostles experienced. There is no discernable moment when Peter or Andrew of John or James or Matthew or Thadeus or any of the others “became” a Christian. Was it when they left their professions? When they made the great confession? When they walked on water (or not)? When they denied or fled at Jesus’ arrest? When they ate breakfast after the resurrection? When they were on the road and Jesus ascended, even though some doubted? After Pentecost? The fact is, we don’t know. We can guess. We can speculate. But we simply cannot be sure.

Conversations. Modeling. Living such a radically different life that someone actually does ask us about the reason for our hope … people are asking you, aren’t they? Living in community. All this is part of the “new” evangelism.