Re-thinking Evangelism (and lots of other stuff)

I’m looking at the top of the page, and I notice that “re-thinking church” is in my blog title. But the truth is…I’m in a season right now where I’m re-thinking everything. Doctrines, beliefs, and practices I’ve taken for granted for most of my churchy life are getting taken off the shelf, dusted off, and looked at to make sure this is really how Jesus wants it, or really what He meant when He said _________ (fill in the blank). Some stuff is getting reaffirmed, and some stuff is getting reworked. It actually feels very healthy.

My new blogging friend Steve first got me re-thinking evangelism a few days ago with this entry, because he said some things I’ve felt for most of my Christian life but wasn’t able to verbalize. Since I’m still sort of chewing on it, I figured I’d put some thoughts down here so you can chew on it with me, if you like. (That sounds kind of gross actually–like we’re a bunch of cows sharing cud. But you know what I mean.)

So okay, I’ve read the Great Commission and I know we Jesus-followers need to share our faith with others. I get that. But that doesn’t mean that the way we share our faith is always supposed to be this formulaic “step 1, step 2” thing. I’ve always been kind of afraid to say this, but I have never been very comfortable with the evangelism methods I’ve been taught from childhood–nor have I appreciated the guilt I felt from zealous street-preacher types when I didn’t want to do it that way. Most of what I was taught of how to witness seemed more like door-to-door sales or multi-level marketing–like we were supposed to sell Jesus to the public. For something this real and this special, that never seemed right to me. And there was this undercurrent of desperation associated with it, like hell might open up and swallow any of the people around me at any moment, unless I convinced them to swallow the “Jesus pill” to give them immunity from it–force-feeding it to them, if necessary. And if I didn’t cry crocodile tears whenever I thought of those poor lost people on their way to hell, and if that didn’t motivate me to put everything on hold to run out into the streets to try and rescue them–I felt like an absolute failure as a Christian. Not only did I not love people enough to try and save them, but I didn’t love Jesus enough to obey His Great Commission. What a fake I must be.

Of course, since I didn’t know any better, I spent most of my life believing that this sort of thing was what evangelism was all about. I never was comfortable with it, but I assumed it was because of my own fears of rejection, and God would just have to deal with me and heal me of my fears. But I’ve been….re-thinking…this….

Consider the following with me:

1. Jesus didn’t tell us to go and win converts. He told us to make disciples. “Making disciples” is more about reproducing the walk of faith in others than it is about getting someone to pray “the sinner’s prayer” with you–which might or might NOT be a true expression from the heart.
2. Jesus is the Savior of the world. We are not. That means that Jesus was working in that unbelieving person’s life before we met him/her, and will continue to work in him/her after we part ways. The best we can hope for is to participate in the plan God has already launched to try to reconcile that life to Himself.
3. There is no record in Scripture of Jesus ever giving an “altar call”. He “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil” (Acts 10), and He preached the gospel of the kingdom, but He showed God’s love to people unconditionally, whether they received Him or not. When people were ready to respond, they came to Him.

My point is not that altar calls are bad, but that maybe like so many other things, we’ve missed the point. I don’t think Jesus intended us to turn the Great Commission into a marketing scheme. I think what Jesus wants is for us to walk as He walked, showing His love to others in a way that the heart of evangelism is interwoven into the fabric of our life. I think it’s supposed to be a lot more natural and holistic than what we’ve made it.

Yes, I believe there is a hell, and that people will go there. Yes, because I love Jesus, I love people, and I don’t want anyone to go to hell. But if I see past the pressure and the methods of convincing…I picture myself as the unsaved person for a moment. How would I respond if someone I didn’t even know–or maybe a coworker–tried to power-convert me by an aggressive, confrontational presentation of the gospel? If it were me, I’d run the other way. And that’s precisely why I don’t like these evangelism methods: I cannot relate to them at all. Anytime I’ve tried to do it that way, it comes off as fake and phony, because in my heart I don’t really believe it’s right to market this, or to frighten people to get them to come to the cross of Christ.

I didn’t come to believe in Jesus because some well-meaning Bible-thumper scared the hell out of me. I came to believe in Jesus because I saw the change that was taking place in the lives of people around me who believed in Him, and my heart responded to that. And that’s how I want my evangelism to look like. I want it to look like Jesus walking the earth again, and doing good.

Most people in our culture today aren’t all that interested in intangible concepts and doctrines and belief systems. They want to see something fleshed out, lived out, in front of them. More and more, I don’t think we’re going to convince people that Jesus is the Way by just telling them the Four Spiritual Laws. I think we’re going to convince them by living the truth of Christ’s love in front of them, and extending an open invitation to join us in that journey. And, I think, when someone responds to Christ in that way, they are much more likely to remain a disicple once they make that choice–because they will own the decision to follow.

“Preach the gospel always, and when necessary, use words.” -St. Somebody-or-Other