Contextualize the Message, Part 1

There is a 100 year old story (legend) told by the great Indian follower of Jesus Sadhu Sundar Singh. (A Sadhu is a Hindu ascetic.) The story is about a Brahman man—a high-caste Hindu—in India who fainted from the summer heat while sitting on a train at a railway station. Someone ran to the faucet, filled a cup with water, and brought it to the man in an attempt to revive him. But in spite of his condition, the passenger would not accept the water because it was offered to him in the cup of a man belonging to another caste. Then someone noticed that the high-caste man had a cup on the seat beside him; so he grabbed it, went out and filled it with water, returned, and offered it to the man, who now readily accepted the water with gratitude.

At this point, Sundar Singh would tell his audience that missionaries from the West had been offering the “water of life” to the people of India in a foreign cup. Therefore, they were reluctant to receive it. However, Sundar Singh was offering it in their own cup, so that they were much more likely to accept it. In other words, as an indigenous member of the Indian culture, Sundar Singh was able to offer up the Gospel in an indigenous form. Now they could understand the message within the context of their lives.

Unfortunately, the American church has mistakenly supposed that she has been communicating the Gospel in the language and the context of the culture. Perhaps, the message and methods of the early twentieth century worked back then, but for the last 50 years the strident call has been falling on increasingly deaf ears. We have not been offering the water of life in their cup. We’ve been offering it up in ours—a cup forged in modernity and revivalism, with words and idioms of a bygone era. I call it a King James message to a Stephen King world.

Meanwhile, the culture has left us in the dust, while we have become more and more culturally incestual. Some who would criticize the Amish practices of isolationist customs and behaviors are just as separatist in their traditions and programs.

The Campus Crusade tract The Four Spiritual Laws depicts a familiar picture to most Christians of an uncrossable canyon between man and God which must be bridged by the cross of Jesus. Unfortunately, before that message will be heard, there is an equally uncrossable and ever-widening gap fixed between church culture and popular culture. And it is a crevasse that must be bridged by the church.

In places and circumstances where people have been less receptive to the message of the Gospel, several scholars have tried to understand and plot the journey to faith. James Engel in his 1975 book What’s Gone Wrong with the Harvest? shares what has become known as the Engel Scale. Expanding on Engel’s work, Paul and Sue Hazelden began working on a modified Engel Scale in 2000 which is a bit more broad. It includes people who have no “God concept” at all. And, finally Frank Gray of the Far East Broadcasting Company developed the Gray Matrix that expands their work. His matrix includes not only the cognitive elements of the Engel Scale but also attitudinal aspects—a person’s receptivity to the message—on a two-dimensional model with vertical and horizontal axes.

These will not be explained here, but they can be studied separately by accessing the links provided. Believe me, they are an invaluable resource for anyone who is trying to understand the progression toward faith and how important life context is in that process. It is also a valuable tool for the church to recognize that most of its efforts will not reach to people any further away than about a negative four on the Engel Scale. And most church programs are designed for people in the “C” quadrant (higher knowledge and receptivity) of the Gray Matrix.

In part two we will include what it might look like to offer the water of life in their cup.

Not Your Grandpa’s Church

Start a church? Really? Had I ever thought about it? Well, not out loud, but certainly I had dreamed. Maybe a better word is fantasized. However, over the years I had developed quite a stack of concerns about the modern church. Those concerns were magnified in the years I spent teaching ministerial candidates in the study center sponsored by the church. Then layer on top of that all the questions spawned by the tornado and then the subversive stuff Earl had given to me to read.
I knew one thing for sure: Tulsa didn’t need another church. There’s already one on almost every street corner, and another one pops up about every other week or so. They are as numerous and prolific as roaches.
That, despite the fact that the church in Oklahoma and across America hasn’t been growing for dozens of years. We’ve just been passing around the same people among us. Why would I want to build a church out of somebody else’s rejects? People who are disgruntled in one place will still be disgruntled when they show up at your place.
While we’re talking about shuffling people, Tulsa is the biggest of culprits. One preacher has a new revelation and builds up a big following. But then he can’t keep it in his pants, so another “man of the hour” comes along until he gets a wandering eye or an old skeleton knocks on his office door.
And church in Tulsa is big business—big names, big buildings, and big money. The smorgasbord of programs, groups, and activities makes the local churches without a doubt the largest providers of consumer services in the state. Church has become a pay-as-you-go, consumer-driven enterprise where money changes hands in exchange for “services rendered.” And those consumers (called members) have expectations.
And those expectations begin with: church is supposed to be the place where the God-stuff gets done. Where our children and youth are supposed to get discipled so we, their parents, don’t have to do it. Us too, for that matter. Disciple me so I don’t have to do that myself either.
Oh and, we need a place to discover and exercise our “gifts.” Especially the ones that the “world” can’t seem to appreciate. We need a place where we can be suckled and be healed and find meaning and purpose. And if we don’t feel we’re getting our money’s worth, we can move on claiming we weren’t being fed.
After I pondered all of this—all things I had experienced or witnessed—I concluded that if I was nuts enough to go through with it, there would have to be a major paradigm shift. Not just in the thinking but in our whole approach to “doing church.” If we decided to do it, it would not be; it could not be my grandpa’s church.

“What Do I Do Now?”

“May I speak with Earl Creps, please?”
“Yes, may I tell him who is calling?”
“Yes, Jeff Taylor.”
“Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Will you hold please?”
“Surely.” (I know. Weird, but that’s what I always say.)
(Pause.)
“This is Earl.”
“Earl, my name is Jeff Taylor. You don’t know me from Adam, but I heard you speak a while back in Branson at the Oklahoma Minister’s Retreat.”
“Yes, Jeff.”
“Earl, I want you to know that I’m totally screwed up now, and I want to know what I’m supposed to do about it.” (Long, silent pause.) Once I realized that he probably thought I was a crank, I hastily added, “And, hey! I mean that in the best possible way. I just need to know what I ought to read or what you would recommend that I do now.”
I could swear that I heard him lightly exhale.
Obviously relieved, he said, “Well I can recommend to you several books and a couple of websites that you might check out…”
We chatted some more. I don’t remember the rest of the conversation. But I do remember the books he recommended, some names he gave me, and at least one of the websites. Since I was new to almost all of this, he led me to resources I could put my hands on that would help explain some of those words and phrases he used in his teaching: Postmodern, post-Christian, emerging church, and others.
From the beginning, I was like a thirsty man desperate for a drink. I couldn’t get enough.
Some who are following the story have asked about the response of others that day. Looking back, I am still astonished by the lack of response to Earl’s message. It was obvious that everyone there realized the truth in what he was saying. However, I was a ticking time bomb, and Earl lit my fuse. No doubt I was waiting for something that would explain the restlessness in my heart since the tornado. So, without realizing it, I was prepared like no one else in the room that day for what he shared.
The staff I was working with at the time was also affected by it. We talked at length. We even read some of the books and talked about how we might integrate the information into our church. I’ll let you in on the progression of that conversation a little bit further on.
I wish I could tell you that the tectonic plates shifted and we immediately made plans to put this new information to work for us and for Tulsa. But we were too steeped in our Modern model, and there were more events to come, some good, some really bad, before a new model would emerge.