Evangelism

One of the books I read in preparation for a CLM class I am leading was Faith Sharing by Eddie Fox and George Morris.  I thought their explanation of what evangelism is was particularly good.  “The primary word for evangelism in the NT is the Greek noun euangelion.  It is the compound of two words meaning ‘good message’  We have shortened that to ‘good news’ or ‘gospel.’  The Greek verb euangelizomai means ‘bringing, spreading, or announcing the euangeloin, the good news or gospel’ So evangelizing describes the spreading of the good news of the gospel.” 

Evangelism does not mean to make converts of people.  It is to spread the good news of the gospel, regardless of the result.  John Scott says, “Evangelizing is neither to convert people, nor to win them, nor to bring them to Christ, though this is indeed the first goal of evangelizing.”

 

Fox and Morris define evangelism as “the faithful presentation of the gospel of the kingdom by word, deed, and sign.”  They go on to say, “We do not evangelize people or nations or even structures.  We evangelize the gospel.  Evangelizing is not something we do to people but something we do with the gospel.”  And we do that by what we say, what we do, and by pointing to Christ (a sign – making Christ significant).

 

For me, this definition and explanation solidifies the idea that we tell of the light of Christ – we spread the good news, and God takes care of the transformation part of the equation.  Conversion is the work of God.  Spreading the good news is our work. 

How does it change our approach to evangelism if we see it as spreading the good news of Christ and not changing or converting people?  I think it sounds much less manipulative - and much more like sharing the love of God.  That might be why I liked this definition a lot.

Book Reviews: Faith Sharing and Faith Sharing Congregations

 I've been off the blog for a few weeks.  August was a little "crowded" with commitments, so I let this one go for a bit.  I hope to be back for a while.  

As you may have gathered from the blog, I'm teaching a CLM course, and reading many books becasuse of it.  I'm trying to write reviews of the books I read, but I behind, both with writing them and posting them. I try not to overwhelm the blog with Book Reviews - my goal being not to post one more often that once every other week.  But for today, I have two. They are both short, and both about the same subject.

Review #1:

Information about the book

H. Eddie Fox and George E. Morris.  Faith Sharing: Dynamic Christian Witnessing by Invitation.  Discipleship Resources, Nashville, TN, 1996.  (Cokesbury / Amazon)

Summary

The purpose of the book is to explain the why, what, who, and how of sharing the good news of Christ.  It is designed to help persons be competent and confident in witnessing. (from Amazon)

Impressions

I liked the book.  An ah-ha moment for me was the explanation of their definition of evangelism - sharing the gospel.  We don't evangelize people; we evangelize the gospel, by word, deed, and sign.  I used the book as a resource to teach the CLM class I am leading. It's focus on the individual's role in evangelism fits well with the book the class was assigned to read: Faith-Sharing Congregation.  A good pair.

The book is written in memory of Harry Denman.  The stories the authors share about Denman are great role models of how to share your faith in relationship with others. 

Posts about book

FoxMorrisSharing

Review #2

Information about the book

Roger K. Swanson and Shirley F. Clement.  Faith Sharing Congregation: Developing a Strategy for the Congregation as Evangelist. Discipleship Resources, Nashville, 2008 (Cokesbury / Amazon)

Summary

The book outlines an evangelism strategy based... on the quality of congregational life.  The resource hammers home the truth that the evangelistic task is the responsibility of the entire congregation - clergy and laity together.  The authors pay particular attention to ministries of hospitality, personal relationships, storytelling, and the domestic church of the family.... (Cokesbury)

Impressions

This was a book assigned to the CLM class to expand on the ideas of Faith Sharing in the general curriculum.  It is specifically about how congregations should be in the ministry of faith sharing and evangelism.  I especially liked its tie to the idea of the Primary task of the church - how faith sharing / evangelism is not a program of the church but is the purpose of the church.

This book works well in conjunction with Faith Sharing by Fox and Morris.  That book is more focused on helping individuals while this one is a guide for congregations.

Posts about book

SwansonFaithSharing

Note: the word under posts about the book is a tag I use to attach any post I write that references the book.  If you are interested, you can click that tag at the bottom of the post to go to more (if there are any).

Existing for Someone Else

Our CLM Class is reading Faith Sharing Congregations by  Roger K. Swanson and Shirley F. Clement.  Have you ever thought of the unchurched as homeless? 

What does it mean to have a home.  Home is where you belong.  Home is where you are safe.  Home is, hopefully, where there are people who care for you.  "Everybody wants to go where someone knows your name."  This quote from Swanson and Clement's book started me thinking about hospitality in a different way.  A few thoughts:

1. What about those who have been joining us online.  Do they feel like they have found a home?  How do we make it home for them?  How do we connect? How do we offer hospitality?  How do we involve them in ministry?
2. What about those who we say we are trying to reach?  What are we doing to reach them?  Would our plans and actions change if we thought of them as "Homeless."  Would ilt add to our urgency?
3. What about those who join us in the church building?  How do we welcome the stranger - the stranger who is homeless?

Someone asked the other day if those who are joining a particular church online are contributing to the church financially.  The answer was no.  Does that change how we offer a home to the homeless?

If we are unique as an organization - in that we exist not for ourselves but instead for those who are not part of us, then how does that change or enhance our answers to these questions?  How do we live into the idea that we exist to serve others? Would that change the question about financial support? Would it change the priority of our ministries?  

Lots of questions.

The Volume of our Actions

I'm reading a book by Henri Nouwen called The Return of the Prodigal Son. I just started it yesterday, so I'm still in the Introduction.

Nouwen spent a year trying to discern if he should leave the work he was doing with university students, and move to a community called L'Arche: a place that "offers a home to people with mental handicaps." His discernment told him that, yes, this is what God was calling him to do. Even so, as he made the move, he faced it with trepidation.  He wrote, "I knew even less about announcing the Gospel of Jesus to people who listened more with their hearts than with their minds, and who were far more sensitive to what I lived that to what I said."

As I read that and stopped, struck by the words. I see what he's saying, but I think it is more widely applicable that L'Arche.  

We may think we listen with our minds, but don't you think we listen with our hearts? Even when we don't admit it? Aren't we all more sensitive to how others live than we are to what they say?

And, as a corollary, as we work to reach people with the light of Christ, don't we need to remember that what we say, while it can be important, isn't all that people hear? They hear (as they watch us) what we do. They "hear" how we treat other people - even as we say we love them.

Hypocrisy negates our words of faith because it speaks so loudly. 

Witness to the Unbelievable

This morning I read two passages of scripture:  Mark 9:2-9 and 2 Peter 1:16-19.  The first is the story of the transfiguration; the second is Peter's eye witness account of the transfiguration.

I've never read them back to back like that before, and their pairing was interesting to me. 

The first - the story of the transfiguration - seems so extraordinary that you wonder if its believable. I believe it because its in the Gospel, but it's an unbelieveable story. 

But the second - Peter (or the person who wrote in Peter's name) recounting the experience in his letter? It reinforces the first. The first is extraordinary, but the second strengthens the witness of the first.

I wonder if that is one of the purposes of our witness to the world.  People may hear of something extraordinary - there is a God, and God loves you and me and that person. It's unbelievable. But when we assume the role of witness, stating how we've seen the presence of God, and how God has changed our lives, we make the extraordinary real.  Believable. 

Telling the Story

Hi, all:
I intentionally took a break at Christms. I didn't intend for it to last this long - and there are a variety of uninteresting reasons I took a longer break, but I'm back.

_________________________

I was reading this morning in Generosity Rising by Scott McKenszie.  This sentence, from a millenial in an open letter explaining why he does not give to the church, struck me:  "Are you [the church] building the kingdom? Or are you building your kingdom?"

McKensie's premise is that the church IS building the kingdom, but it is not telling the story of HOW.

As the communication coordinator for my church, this started me thinking. How do we tell the story? I know, from the work I do, that the STORY is what convinces people to give. Do we tell the story?

Do we, as a church, tell the story of how the church is changing the world? Do we tell the story, as individuals, of how God is changing our lives?

Terry said on Sunday - we are the only evidence that some people will ever see that God exists.  Are we convincing?

Anything to Declare?

I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever;

with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.

I declare that your steadfast love is established forever;

your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.  (Psalm 89:1-2)

Earlier this week, in a meeting I attended, the chairperson of the committee shared a devotional. He read a scripture passage (I don't think it was the Psalm above, but it was one about declaring the works of God, so this one works, too), and then he said, "Do you have anything to declare?" 

Later that day, in an office conversation, we were talking about the worship practice of witnessing - a member of the congregation will stand and will tell the story of how God has been at work in his or her life that week.  In the church I attend, no one ever does this; no one is invited to do this. I'm not complaining, or saying one way is better than another, but the juxtaposition of the two experiences brought to mind the following question for me:

Do we have anything to declare? Does the fact that in my church we never declare the personal work of God in our lives mean that we forget how to do it? And does that make us uncomfortable when we are encountered with an opportunity to do so? Does God ever create that opportunity for us? If not, is it because we aren't prepared for it? What can we, who don't often witness in worship, do to better prepare ourselves to make a declaration of the work of God?

Do you have anything to declare? Are you prepared to do so?

Perspectives: Who answers the invitation?

Earlier this year, Steve and I revitalized our bird feeders. They hang right outside our kitchen window, and we had a wonderful time watching all of the birds in the area come by and eat. Then we noticed that overnight, entire bird feeders would be emptied. The birds here are hungry, but not that big. 

Either we had a bigger animal eating our seed or Big Bird lived in the neighborhood.

One evening we caught the suspect, red nosed. Deer. This was not the creatures we had invited to dinner, and yet it is who showed up.

Are we willing in church to issue an invitation and to then offer radical hospitality to whoever says yes, and knocks on the door. Do we have Open Doors to everyone?

Acts 8: Faith Story

One more post about the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch...

As Mike taught this lesson in Sunday school, he asked, "Do you wonder what Philip said to the Ethiopian that convinced him, right that moment, to be baptized?"

What was the faith story that Philip told? Do you have a faith story? Do you know what it is? Will you share it?

What would you say to someone who asked, "Why should I go to church? Why do you go to Church?"

We need to know our answer. In order to convince someone, the answer can't be that you see your friends at church. It can't be that there are donuts there every Sunday. If going to church and going to a meeting of my sorority offer me the same thing, then why would I go to Church?

Why do you believe in God? What difference does it make in your life? What difference does God make in your life? 

Maybe we need to tell people that when we serve others through the Church, we find grace and fulfillment. Maybe we need to tell people that at Church, we are able to connect with other Christians in a way that helps us to see God better. If those statements aren't true, maybe we need to invite God to make them true in our lives.

What is your faith story? What would you tell the Ethiopian that would convince him to offer his life to God?

And, as a sidenote, how was the Ethiopian reading Isaiah, anyway? He didn't have a Bible (or a kindle). Imagine reading from scrolls in a chariot.

Just Do It

Why don't we speak to others about what God has done for us? It's hard, isn't it? We don't want to be rejected, we don't want to be thought of as "weird." We don't want to be pushy. We don't want to be disliked. We think we don't have the gifts for it, the calling for it, the skills for it. We would rather not do it. We just don't want to.

Regarding Paul, Frederick Buechner says, "As his own letters indicate, his contemporaries accused him of being insincere, crooked, yellow physically repulsive, unclean, bumbling and off his rocker." 

Paul wrote, "Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I have been beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked. A night and a day I have been adrift at sea. (from 2 Corinthians 11).

As Nike says, I should just do it. I have a story to tell, and so do you.

Logos: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.  (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

This is Paul, speaking to the church at Corinth. The words remind me of a story told my our preacher today during worship. He told us about E. Stanley Jones, a man who would become a missionary and who change the face of evangelism in our Church. Jones had been a lawyer, and was called to become ordained. He went to seminary, and while he was a student, his pastor invited him to preach at his home church. He was determined to do a good job, and to be God's lawyer, arguing God's case with deeply theological and well constructed sermons. 

As he preached this sermon that he had so thoroughly prepared, he stumbled over a word, saw a college-aged girl laughing, got lost in his notes, and then quite. Gave up. Left the pulpit. As he did, he heard a voice say, "Stanley, have I ever done anything for you?" \

"Yes, God, everything."

"Tell them that."

I think Paul is saying much the same thing. Paul is saying that he comes with words to demonstrate a witness to what God - the spirit - has done and is doing. He is proclaiming the power of God, so that others might see it.

What has gone done for you? Anything? Tell that to others so that they may come to know Jesus better through you. They are waiting. They are hungry for the word of God, and you have the story to share. 

Talk about God?

To continue yesterday's quote from Wesley's sermon, Scriptural Christianity:

Can you bear, unless now and then in a church, any talk of the Holy Ghost? Would you not take it for granted if one began such a conversation that it was either "hypocrisy" or "enthusiasm"? In the name of the Lord God Almighty I ask, What religion are you of? Even the talk of Christianity ye cannot, will not, bear.  O my brethren! what a Christian city is this? "It is tie for thee, Lord, to lay to thine hand!"

Do you talk about God?  Do you talk about God outside of church? Do you witness to your faith? Do I?

I think many of us (including me) would answer no, or not often, to this question. The teacher of a preaching class I attended asked us to consider the question: What did life used to be like? What happened to change it? What is it like now?  He said if you could answer those three questions about your faith journey, telling others the change God has made in your life, then you would find it easy to prepare an authentic sermon for when you were called on a Saturday night to preach on Sunday morning.

I think it might also be one of the keys to speaking about God to other people. Do we know our faith story? Can we tell it? Do we know the difference God has made in our lives? Why is being part of a church important to us? Don't put off answering the questions for yourself so that when you are asked you have no answer. If you are prepared, I think God will lead you to opportunities to tell the story.

The Basis of Assertiveness

If you have a chance, read this article from the Church Leadership Newsletter.  Here is a quote:

Notice the wording when the apostle Paul reminds us of the primacy of Christ and the cross. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (I Cor. 1:18, italics added). If there is a need for a greater assertiveness about the gospel message, there is also a need for a greater humility that comes from knowing we are all being saved.

How do leaders practice greater assertiveness and at the same time greater humility? Do those see to you to be opposites?

Look closely at the scripture.  "...but to us who are being saved."  Being saved.  Not perfect.  Not complete.  Not always right, even when we think our opinions and judgments are biblically based. Our assertiveness regarding this gospel shouldn't be grounded in a belief in the rightness of our opinions.

Instead, our assertiveness should come from the the very knowledge that God is saving us.  God is changing us. God is at work in our lives, and we know the difference that can make.  From the humility of that knowledge, we can offer Christ, with the assertive knowledge of God's presence and love for all of us.

That's grace, and it's what we are called to offer to others.

Changing the Story

While the church is committed to changing the world, let me suggest that we need to start by changing our story. A future with hope is one we can build together intentionally, while the future of fear is one from which we can only run haphazardly. The difference is the story we decide to tell.

So you want those millennials to start attending your church? Great! A funeral in progress may not be the strongest story we can tell. So let’s stop telling the tale about the death of the church and start writing the story about the future of the church. Our rewrite cannot ignore current realities, but it must refuse to be limited by them.

This quote is from an article on ChurchLeadership.com written by Patrick Scriven.  It's a good article - take a gander when you have a moment.

What story are we telling those we hope to win for Christ?  Are we saying, "Come to this church; we are dying and need more members?"  Or are we telling them, "Christ has made a difference in my life, and in the lives of the people in this community.  Come and join us."?

I know I keep harping on the same question, but I hear the two messages all the time.  Which one are we called to tell?  What should be our story?

Philip

Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ Nathaniel said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’  (John 1:45-46)

Read the first chapter of John again, especially if you haven't read it in a while.  I love love love the poetry of the writing at the very beginning.  And then, as you get to the end of the chapter, there are two call stories.  What's great about them - or what I am seeing today - is that Andrew brings Simon to Jesus and Philip brings Nathaniel.

I was in a meeting yesterday, and the devotional was centered around the Philip and Nathaniel story. The speaker asked, "Who has been Philip to you?"

Who has brought you to Christ?  Who has been Philip to you?

Who have you been Philip for, bring another person to Christ?

Belief

Giving away 6 $100 bills -sermon title - why are we surprised when people believe what we say?  Do we expect them to?

The office where I work is located in a church building.  Last week, the sermon title at this church was "Giving away six $100 bills."  Each week, the sermon title is posted on a board outside the church.  On Thursday evening, while the organist was practicing in the Sanctuary, a man walked in off the street.  "Is the sign true?  Are you giving away $100 bills?"

What would happen if the people around us believed that what we are saying is true?  What if someone walked in and said, "Is it true?  God loves me and you love me?  I am saved?  I am gifted?  I am called to minister to those around me?  Is it true that I am welcome here?  Is it true that I am a part of the church?"

Do we believe it?  Do we expect other people to believe it?  Don't we believe that what God offers is more valuable that $100 bills?  Can we be as convincing as a sign on the street?

Know, Share, Retire - Part 6

Aldersgate UMC 

Aldersgate United Methodist Church is just down the road in Sissonville.  Like many churches, they have a food pantry and clothing closet for their community.  Brad Bennett, one of the pastors there, told me that they serve around 80 families a month through this ministry - and he considers this part of their evangelism ministry.  Of those families who are served, about two families a year come into worship, and everyone celebrates that.  Too often, I think, churches believe that evangelism is a membership campaign.  How many people can we reach so that they will become members of our church?  If that were the definition of evangelism, then Aldersgate's ministry would be a failure - 2 out of 80?  That's a terrible return for a membership campaign.  But that's not what evangelism is.  Evangelism is reaching people with the Good News of Christ, and I imagine that all 80 families, every month, have a better idea of the love of God through the Body of Christ that is assembled at Aldersgate.

Evangelism is not the program of the church that seeks to sustain the church's existence; it is the one of the very reasons we exist as a church at all.  Evangelism is not a task of the church that we can delegate to those who we feel are best equipped to do it, or even worse, a task that we set aside all together.  It is the mission God has given to us.  Ephesians says that we are given gifts by God "to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God."  (Eph 4:12a)

We live in a world much like the city of Athens, with idols all around us.  We live among a people who are searching for the "unknown God" to fill the spiritual emptiness that surrounds their lives.  As a gift of grace, we have come to know God and to understand the difference that God can make in our lives.   In the words of Randle Mixon:

 "What does it mean to be so fully rooted and grounded in God, so centered in our own experience of the Christian story, that we cannot keep from sharing it?  In the words of the old hymn, when we feel our faith in our very bones, "how can we keep from singing?"

Go from this place and let your words, your very life, be your song, so that everyone can come to know the Good News of Christ.

Know, Share, Retire - Part 5

And then, do the hardest part.  It's what Dr. Jones called "retire."  Back away, and let God do what God will do.  As I shared at the beginning of this sermon, my faith is a gift from God.  There were people involved in preparing me for what God would do in my life on my Walk to Emmaus, there were people who invited me to attend the Walk, and there have been those who have walked with me since that time, but none of them have gotten between what God was doing in my life and me.  They retired, and trusted God's grace.  It would have been hard for me to hear God if someone had been sitting there with me the entire time insisting on telling me how great God is!

We must allow God to do for someone else what he is still doing for us - change us, transform us, recreate us.  This is the good news - that God exists, that he loves each of us, and that he is already at work in our lives.

Know, Share, Retire - Part 4

Next, we introduce him.  We tell people about God.  Remember, as we think about this step, that telling doesn't always mean using words, but we'll get back to that.

Peter, in his epistle, gives us some guidance (1 Peter 3:15b-16a):

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.

What does Paul do first?   He walks around Athens.  He learns about the people who live there.  I imagine he talks to people.  He not only sees all of the idols to other Gods, but he reads what is inscribed on at least one of them.  "To the unknown God."  He must have seen that as a marvelous opening into the spiritual thirst of the city that was around him, and that opportunity was open to him because he opened himself up to know the people in Athens.

Think back to the story of Job.  Job has had this horrible experience, losing almost everything that was important to him, and he is sitting in an ash heap, covered with sores.  His friends come to him and they sit with him.  For seven days, they said nothing.  It was a wonderful, grace-filled act of love.  It wasn't until they started talking that everything turned south.  Listening to people is a demonstration of the love we have for our neighbors and of God's love for them, as well.

Steve and I were invited to lunch once by a gentleman and his wife.  It was a nice lunch and there was a lot of conversation, but as Steve and I were driving away, I said, "I know a whole lot about that man and his life, but I bet he doesn't know a thing about me at all, even after spending an hour and half together."   Don't let those words be spoken by people you are trying to reach with the light of Christ.  Love them enough to listen to them; to understand their life stories.

Then, share the Good News of Christ as Peter instructs - with gentleness and reverence.  Fit the story to their circumstances.  Maybe that will mean telling your Dr. Bob story - how Christ has made a difference in your life.  Maybe that means not saying anything at all, but instead telling the story with your actions.  Feed people.  Give them clothes or shelter or care.  Transport someone to a doctor's appointment or sit by their bedside as they are dying.  Be Christ for someone else, and do it all in the name of God.

Know, Share, Retire - Part 3

First, to know Christ.  It is impossible, I think, to talk about Christ - to share the love of God - unless you have a relationship with God.  Paul certainly knew Christ - he met Christ on a road to Damascas and was struck blind.  His life and mission changed forever.  Dr. Bob would be very happy with Paul's answer to the three questions!

I don't think many of us have an expectation of an encounter like Paul's.  So, if we are not going to meet him walking down the road like Paul did,  how do we come to know God?  Hear these words from John 14, verses 16-17:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

We are blessed that God doesn't leave the “Know God” step up to us alone.  God pursues us.  God reaches for us.  God, through the holy spirit, dwells within us.  We know God because God has made it possible for us to know him.  This is grace, and without it, we would be lost.

We also come to know God through the model of the life of Christ.  Through reading the gospels and discussing them with the other members of the Body of Christ, we come to see Jesus.  We learn how Christ lived, we can follow the way of the life he spoke about.  In Christ, we see the very nature of God.

And then, as if that all weren't enough, we are given the awesome privilege of being in communion with God through worship and prayer.  Have you ever thought about the idea that the very creator of the universe, the one who knit you together, invites - even expects - you to speak to him, to listen to him?

We come to know God because God has made it possible.