May 8, 2009
Forget Everything You Know About Evangelism… Part Two on Sharing the Gospel
I have constructed a premise that the Gospel is good news we proclaim , demonstrate, and describe (through stories that is), rather than a call for proselytizing rife with pressure and warnings about sin, judgment, and hell.
There are subtle differences between the approach to evangelism that I was taught—and now reject—and my current approach. To help us on our way, I’d like you to forget for a moment everything you know about evangelism.
Let’s imagine for a moment that you have a friend who practices Islam.
Scenario A: Your friend tells you that Allah loves him and that Allah in fact loves you as well. The only thing separating you from Allah is your own choice to go your own way. However, if you repent and follow Allah, you will be able to enjoy the love of Allah both now and for all eternity rather than risk separation from Allah.
Let’s adopt a slightly different approach now…
Scenario B: Your friend tells you that Allah has marked you as an infidel who is an outcast from his true people. In fact, you have made Allah very angry with your sin and could be cast into hell for all eternity if you don’t believe in Allah. However, if you do believe in Allah, you will enjoy the love of Allah.
Which message would you be more likely to respond to?
Which message sounds like good news?
Let there be no mistake here: everything hinges on getting this right. This is the single most important thing for Christians, and to be perfectly frank, sometimes we’re severely distorting the Gospel. We have the message out of order, we place the emphasis in the wrong places, and we have inadvertently turned the good news primarily into bad news about an angry deity who wants to send people to hell.
On the contrary, God desires that all people be saved, even if we have all sinned and turned from God, following our own way. God wants this to happen so badly that he has come to earth and set up shop: the Kingdom of God is here. God is coming to live with his creation, and if we want to have a part in that, we need to turn from our sins and follow Jesus. Jesus has created the path to God through his life, death, and resurrection, while the Holy Spirit enables us to enjoy the new life God gives.
Are there consequences for not believing in this message? Of course there are. We don’t know exactly what that will look like for all eternity, but the warnings are there in scripture. However, the point of the Good News is that while we still have light, while it is still the day of salvation, we have a wonderful message to proclaim, demonstrate, and describe.
Ed,
Nicely said. This is critical but a difficult hump for people to get over. In evangelical churches the good news has been given as bad news for so long that to the evangelical ear it sounds like good news. I had a two hour meeting a couple of months ago defending myself against charges that I was truncating the gospel by not preaching enough about hell and too much about the love of God for all of humanity.
I think the story we should be telling is something in between. The rebellion and disobedience of humanity is great, nasty, and deserving of punishment–especially in comparison to the perfection and love of the creator God.
What’s wrong with Jesus’ and John the baptist message: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near.”?
I don’t think we should neither hide God’s anger nor his love, heaven nor hell, when we tell the story. We should also be careful to be frank about the cost of following Jesus, because it is at times more than we even think we have.
I agree with you–we often don’t focus enough on God’s overwhelming, life-giving love in favor of the hell-fire and damnation.
On the other hand (perhaps in reaction to the hell-fire and damnation), I think we too often try to make the gospel marketable, and that also has consequences (namely, consumer Christianity and a failure of Christians to commit to the tedious, hard, and often painful work of following Christ). Jesus said to count the costs. While I think we need to allow Christ’s joy and love to shine through, I’m not sure that our fault any longer is too much hell-fire. I’m not arguing we should bring the hell-fire back (that results in the same problem: Christians lightly entering into the faith to avoid something), but I think we’re missing something.
In some ways, I think we need to make sure we’re presenting a holistic picture (this will be the most joyful and life-giving thing you will ever do, but it also means giving up your autonomy and your very life to follow Christ), but I don’t want to do away with those chance moments of airplane discussions because we want to make sure we get it all and get it perfectly. Does that make sense?
Thanks everyone for your comments.
Tim, sorry to hear about that. Way to keep it real!
Heather, I think you’re hitting on the complexities we face with this issue. Thanks for taking the time to write them out.
Chris, I think the key here is that Jesus offers the solution first and then calls us to repent. In other words, the Kingdom of God has come, and so our response to God’s coming Kingdom should be repentance. There’s nothing there per se about our sin, though it is strongly implied and follows up for sure.
Jesus leads with the Good News of the Kingdom, but if we want the Kingdom, we need to leave sin behind. Our problem has been leading with sin and damnation, things that Jesus didn’t lead with, though they are certainly important in the grand scheme. It’s a matter of order and emphasis, not so much removing elements from the message.
Clear as mud?
This is a nice series Ed, and thanks for putting it down.
Many approach “witnessing” as debate, and/or a goal-oriented task…the goal is convert…The guilt runs high too. The stakes are SO HIGH. The eternal soul! But, God is awfully big and powerful, and the Holy Spirit is at work, so being like Jesus is our best bet. I feel really comfortable with God’s capabilities.
While it’s true that Jesus told some to “go and sin no more,” he must have done it gently with sincere love, because sinners loved to be with him, and their lives were transformed. Jesus’ harshest words were very fiery, but they were expressly for the religious establishment–a wake up call. It gives one pause. Maybe righteous types just don’t “get it”? The story of redemption has far less to do with anger, in fact, it has almost nothing to do with it, unless you split up the Trinity into three gods. A Holy God needs recompense for sin before reconciliation, yes. But God provided a way to himself. This is a message of hope, love, and grace. To give a message that will sink into the heart of people, we have to remember we are saved to something, not from something. (Even now, without God, unbelieving sinners are caught in the “hell of self”.) It’s time to just invite them home.
Preach it Lisa!
i really liked this article. i too am in a place where i think tradition evangelical approaches to evangelism are dying away. or they need to. in fact, there is some scholarly debate over whether christ even said what we know as the great commission. and there is a lot of connection to the abrahamic call to being a father of great nations. i just think most churches adopt a consumeris view and think it is all about getting numbers in and people to warm their pews. i think if jeus said this, it was more about hyper-influence and less about numerical approaches to relationship building…thanks for writing, maybe we can do a back and forth blog interview on this??