Contextualize the Message, Part 3

At this point in the conversation, perhaps you are expecting me to give you a rundown on the best way to present the Gospel to the next generation in a manner in which they will understand. Isn’t that where we’re going with this? If you are anything like me, you would really like some specific words or a particular program like the Roman Road or the Four Spiritual Laws that you could use. Well, good luck with that.

See, here’s the deal. That is the problem. The problem is that we want a recipe or a 5 step formula for winning the postmodern soul. We want a script. It’s no wonder that the young think we’re like bad used car salesmen or irritating telemarketers who interrupt their lives with something they don’t want to hear about. And, as Neil Postman once wrote, they have built in “crap detectors.” So you can’t just blow smoke. They can spot insincerity a mile away.

“One size fits all” evangelism models make our victims feel like marks in a con game. Why can’t we learn to be ourselves? Jim Henderson, in his book Evangelism without Additives, talks about being real and simply “nudging people closer to Jesus” by asking good questions and then paying attention to their answers. He calls them “attention giveaways.” What a profound idea!

If there is a “secret” or a methodology, it is this: make a friend—a sincere one. Not a hey-I’ll-be-your-friend-so-I-can-win-you-to-Jesus kind of friend. I’m talking about developing a love relationship with someone that is unconditional. My problem used to be that I didn’t even know anyone who didn’t know Jesus.

Frankly, I used to spend 7 days a week in church and never got the opportunity to meet someone who wasn’t already like me. So we had to construct programs and events designed to pull people inside if we were to even have a chance with them. But if we had been truly trying to reach non-believers, that would make about as much sense as inviting a bank robber to come into the police station.

Today’s “church growth strategies” are really designed at reaching a “better class of sinner.” In truth, they are not aimed at “sinners” at all. Instead the targets are other church’s “sheep” or the grownups who have stopped going to church for one reason or another. So in reality, the Church (big “C”) is not growing at all.

We have to come to grips with the fact that we live in a pagan country where the basics of scripture and the Gospel are no longer common knowledge. It’s a new day. The old days of throw-enough-mud-on-the-wall-and-some-of-it-will-stick evangelism are over.

Todd Hunter, former director of Alpha USA, says, “It used to be that people primarily listened their way into Christian faith. That made the Christian role talking: defending the faith, explaining the faith, doing apologetics, preaching, writing tracts, etc. While that reality is not entirely gone, these days outsiders are increasingly talking and observing their way into faith. They need to tell their story and see if Christianity is real. This major shift is difficult, because right when seekers are looking instead of listening, the church is at a high mark of un-Christian living. Transformation into Christlikeness has always been the goal of Christianity. Now it is utterly strategic—the future of the faith in the USA, humanly speaking, depends upon it.”

Did you notice? Outsiders today are “talking and observing their way into faith.” This makes our job listening and living it—two things we don’t do very well. In fact, one outsider is quoted in the book UnChristian as saying, “It seems like Christians are more concerned with being right than being loving.” However, that has to change. If we are ever going to reach the next step in our mission, we have got to learn to love, listen, and live like Christ. Then we can count on the Holy Spirit to handle the next step.