Missional Living in a Complex World
Editor's Note: This is a repost of an article that originally appeared in J.D.'s blog: Missional Living in a Complex World. It appears here with the writer's permission. ---
Missional living is not rocket science. When we look at the great number of discussions and writings about “missional,” it is easy to assume that the matter is difficult to understand – and close to impossible to live out in our world today. This is certainly not the case. Now, while I’m all for such discussions and publications (and have contributed to the conversation), the reality is that missional living is nothing new for the church.
Missional Living Occurs When ...
Missional living occurs when Kingdom Citizens live according to the Kingdom Ethic. People enter the Kingdom of God through the confession that Jesus is Messiah (Matt 16:13-19), and begin to live according to the standard of the King. His ethic transcends the ethics of the kingdoms of this world. Take a look at the Kingdom Ethic Jesus taught:
- “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt 5:27-28)
- “You have heard it said ... ‘You shall not murder,’ ... but I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” (Matt 5:21-22)
- "The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. Not so with you. ... The first must be a slave …” (Matt 20:25-27)
- "Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matt 18:4)
The Kingdom Ethic is the standard by which Kingdom Citizens are to live in relation to God (Matt 22:37-40), other Kingdom Citizens (Matt 18:15-20), and those who are outside of the Kingdom (Matt 28:18-20). Packed into this divine rule is what we find throughout the Scriptures. As a Kingdom Citizen, we do not have the option to relate to God on our terms or desires. There are appropriate guidelines by which we engage with other brothers and sisters. This rule instructs us on how to interact with those who have never confessed Christ as Lord.
And while this ethic is to be lived out in covenant with other Kingdom Citizens in what is understood to be Kingdom Communities (i.e., local churches), missional living is specifically directed toward the relationships with those outside of the Kingdom.
(A note: While space will not permit me to address the comprehensive nature of the other two relationships related to Kingdom living, it is important to understand that a breakdown in fellowship in these other two areas hinders missional living. When Kingdom Citizens walk out of fellowship with God and other brothers and sisters, global disciple-making is hindered. When the Spirit of God is grieved, Kingdom expansion is affected.)
Missional Living Requires …
Both actions and words are requirements for missional living. Kingdom Citizens are to “let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matt 5:16) But Kingdom Citizens must also preach the gospel in season and out of season (Tim 4:2). We cannot do one without the other. While some situations will require that we spend most of the time living out the Kingdom Ethic before unbelievers (1 Peter 3:1-2), we must proclaim the gospel. Without the sharing of repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus (Acts 20:21), no one will be saved. Other situations will require more time spent on our words. Peter’s encounter with Cornelius is an example of this matter. And while Peter spent most of his time preaching, his loving actions as a Jewish man being willing to enter into the home of a Gentile communicated the nature of the Kingdom Ethic (Acts 10).
The following diagram, developed by my friend and colleague, Tim Beougher, reveals the range Kingdom Citizens often find themselves in as they journey through life encountering those outside of the Kingdom. Sometimes we’re closer to the right, other times we are near the left. Many times we find ourselves somewhere between the two poles.
Study this passage, and feel free to use my outline when teaching others.
Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
—Colossians 4:2-6.
Let's consider six principles for missional living from this passage.
1. Missional Living Must be Done Prayerfully
We need to pray for opportunities to connect with people and share the gospel with them. Paul desired prayer for such opportunities. We must also trust in God to open such doors for the message. We need to pray for opportunities, words to speak, and for open hearts to the good news.
2. Missional Living Must be Done with Gospel Clarity
The mystery of the gospel has been revealed; now we must clearly communicate the truth to others. Our language (and actions) must be understood. We are to watch our language and constantly be asking, “How are they ‘hearing’ what I am communicating by my words and deeds?”
3. Missional Living Must be Done Wisely
Literally, we are “in wisdom, to be walking.” This walk is our lifestyle. Do we live wisely in relation to those outside the Kingdom? Unfortunately, many people today are not interested in Jesus because they know some of his followers. Are our lives reflecting the Kingdom Ethic, or do we manifest the ethics of another kingdom?
4. Missional Living Must be Done Intentionally
We must go throughout our day with “Great Commission Eyes.” A wise evangelist of yesteryear once stated, “When I meet new people, I always see an ‘L’ or an ‘S’ on their foreheads. The 'L' stands for ‘lost’ and the 'S' stands for ‘saved’. I assume that everyone has an ‘L’ until I know for certain that they are followers of Jesus.” This is a good practice for us to follow. Missional living does not just happen. We must be intentional about it. We must be intentional about gospel engagement.
5. Missional Living Must be Done Graciously
Paul notes that our speech should always be gracious and seasoned with salt. Whenever people encounter us, do they see grace or a grouch? Humility or a hypocrite? Joy or a jerk? Love or a liar? 1 Peter 3:15-16 is a great verse to memorize:
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.
6. Missional Living Must be Done Flexibly
The never-changing gospel must be communicated in ever-changing situations. Paul writes that we should know how to answer each person. This means that a customized approach is necessary when it comes to sharing the gospel. We must be students of God’s Word and ready to respond appropriately to others.
Obedience is not a complicated matter. As I said before, missional living is not rocket science. So, let’s take off our white lab coats, put away our scientific calculators, stop analyzing and debating the trajectories as to who gets to go to the moon, and start living out of the calling we have received.
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J. D. Payne serves as the pastor for church multiplication with The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. He is married to Sarah who is a physician in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, working part-time at a clinic for uninsured populations in Birmingham, Alabama. They have three young children Hannah, Rachel, and Joel.
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To read more about missional living, check out Tony Merida’s Proclaiming Jesus.
For more free articles on this topic, see Living the Mission, by Winfield Bevins, and Transformative Grace, by Jason Seville.
Revival: Ways and Means
Editor Note: Revival: Ways and Means originally posted at Redeemer City to City. It appears here with Tim Keller's permission. ---
How do seasons of revival come? One set of answers comes from Charles Finney, who turned revivals into a "science." Finney insisted that any group could have a revival any time or place, as long as they applied the right methods in the right way. Finney's distortions, I think, led to much of the weakness in modern evangelicalism today, as has been well argued by Michael Horton over the years. Especially under Finney's influence, revivalism undermined the more traditional way of doing Christian formation. That traditional way of Christian growth was gradual – whole family catechetical instruction – and church-centric. Revivalism under Finney, however, shifted the emphasis to seasons of crisis. Preaching became less oriented to long-term teaching and more directed to stirring up the affections of the heart toward decision. Not surprisingly, these emphases demoted the importance of the church in general and of careful, sound doctrine and put all the weight on an individual's personal, subjective experience. And this is one of the reasons (though not the only reason) that we have the highly individualistic, consumerist evangelicalism of today.
There has been a withering critique of revivalism going on now for twenty years within evangelical circles. Most of it is fair, but it often goes beyond the criticism of the technique-driven revivalism of Finney to insist that even Edwards and the Puritans were badly mistaken about how people should embrace and grow in Christ. In this limited space I can't respond to that here other than to say I think that goes way too far. However, this critique trend explains why there is so much less enthusiasm for revival than when I was a young minister. It also explains why someone like D.M. Lloyd-Jones was so loathe to say that there was anything that we can do to bring about revivals (other than pray.) He knew that Finney-esque revivalism led to many spiritual pathologies.
Nevertheless, I think we can carefully talk about some factors that, when present, often become associated with revival by God's blessing. My favorite book on this (highly recommended by Lloyd-Jones) is William B. Sprague's Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1832). Sprague studied under both Timothy Dwight, Edwards' grandson, at Yale and also Archibald Alexander at Princeton. The Princetonians – the Alexanders, Samuel Miller, and Charles Hodge – did a good job of combining the basics of revivalism with a healthy emphasis on doctrine and the importance of the church. Sprague's lectures include a chapter on "General Means" for promoting revivals, and his chapters on counseling seekers and new converts are particularly helpful.
Means of Revival
The primary means-of-revival that everyone agrees upon is extraordinary prayer. That's the clearest of all and so I won't spend time on it. The second means is a recovery of the grace-gospel. One of the main vehicles sparking the first awakening in Northampton, Massachusetts was Edwards' two sermons on Romans 4:5, "Justification by Faith Alone," in November, 1734. For both John Wesley and George Whitefield, the main leaders of the British Great Awakening, it was an understanding of salvation by grace rather than moral effort that touched off personal renewal and made them agents of revival. Lloyd-Jones taught that the gospel of justification could be lost at two levels. A church might simply become heterodox and lose the very belief in justification by faith alone. But just as deadly, it might keep the doctrine "on the shelf" as it were and not preach it publicly in such a way that connects to people's hearts and lives.
The third factor I would mention is renewed individuals. Sprague points out how certain church leaders can be characterized by the infectious marks of spiritual revival – a joyful, affectionate seriousness, and "unction" – a sense of God's presence. In addition, often several visible, dramatic life-turnarounds ("surprising conversions") may cause others to do deep self-examination and create a sense of spiritual longing and expectation in the community. The personal revivals going on in these individuals spread informally to others through conversation and relationship. More and more people begin to look at themselves and seek God.
A fourth factor I will call the use of the gospel on the heart in counseling. Sprague and John Newton in his letters do a good job of showing how the gospel must be used on both seekers, new believers, and non-growing Christians. The gospel must cut away both the moralism and the licentiousness that destroys real spiritual life and power. There must be venues and meetings and settings in which this is done, both one-on-one and in groups. See William Williams, The Experience Meeting, a leaders' manual for revival-promoting small group meetings in Wales during the first great awakening.
Creativity & Revival
Finally, Sprague rightly points out that revivals occur mainly through the ordinary, "instituted means of grace" – preaching, pastoring, worship, prayer. It is a mistake to identify some specific programmatic method (e.g. Billy Graham-like mass evangelism) too closely with revivals. Lloyd-Jones points to some sad cases where people who came through the Welsh revival of 1904-05 became wedded to particular ways of holding meetings and hymn-singing as the way God brings revival. Nevertheless, Sprague grants that sometimes God will temporarily use some new method to propagate the gospel and spark revival. For example, under Wesley and Whitefield, outdoor preaching was a new, galvanizing method. Mid-day public prayer meetings were important to the Fulton Street revival in downtown NYC in 1857-58. I'm ready to say that creativity might be one of the marks of revival, because so often some new way of communicating the gospel has been part of the mix that God used to bring a mighty revival.
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Timothy Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he started in 1989 with his wife, Kathy, and three young sons. For over twenty years he has led a diverse congregation of young professionals that has grown to a weekly attendance of over 5,000. Dr. Keller’s books, including the New York Times bestselling The Reason for God and The Prodigal God, have sold over 1 million copies and been translated into 15 languages.
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For more ideas on inspiring revival, check out Tony Merida's Proclaiming Jesus.
For more free articles on evangelism & revival, read: For the City-Excerpt by Matt Carter & Darrin Patrick, Taking the Long View by Bill Streger, & What Does Revival Look Like? by Winfield Bevins.
Evangelical Realism
Colorado wildfires consumed inhabited acreage like the ground was covered with lighter fluid earlier this summer, and a then guy opened fire in a full suburban Denver movie theater. Tragedies are to be expected in a world east of Eden. Saying so is not calloused. It is realism—biblical realism. And yet realism is a thing that must be handled with care when reality is particularly harsh. This is not a scientifically verified opinion, but I gather from making my way in the world with others that most people don’t “do” the harsher realities of life well, for many reasons. That the default mode of many in the Aurora movie theater was to assume at first the shooter was some kind of actor is only a small proof of the overall percentage. The shooting, even as it really happened, seemed surreal. What does this say? It says most of us are in but not of reality.
Frankly, this aggravates most thinking Christians, similar to how the general population’s preference for portliness aggravates the disciplined nutritionist. But if the nutritionist chooses to denounce American eating habits amid the Tuesday evening crowd at Golden Corral, taking her stand for dietary righteousness between diners’ second visits to the chocolate waterfall and cotton candy machines, she’s seen to be spoiling the pig-out. Likewise, if the Christian’s response to a nationally attuned tragedy is to scold the American public for their blinkeredness regarding fallenness—You’re shocked this happens? This is the stuff of a world in rebellion against God, people!—we’re seen to be discourteous, insensitive, and harsh, leveraging the nation’s grief in order to make an ontological point.
Everyday Evil
Yes, this stuff does happen in a world in rebellion against God. Just so. The marvel, really, is that it doesn’t happen more regularly. I think of John Piper’s NPR interview some years ago after a tsunami devastated parts of South Asia. He handled that harsh reality with great care. After establishing a perimeter of gospel theodicy for why the world is subject to various travails and hemorrhage, and that God subjected Himself to it personally in the sufferings of Jesus, Piper said (with Luke 13 in mind) that every such occurrence of tragedy in the world is a call to repentance, a repentance he practiced too. The comfort is found in the call. God gives grace to the humble.
Other Christian leaders have spoken to Aurora kinds of reality with similar incisiveness. That will continue. It’s needed every time we stare at carnage on TV screens with mouths agape. A less than considerate realism seizes the moment to say, So you want God to stop that evil, but not your own little, everyday evil?
That’s true, of course, and a powerful apologetic. It has a place in discussion. It gets people inside their assumptions, something Jesus mastered. People do indeed assume themselves to be kinder and more merciful than God.
Evangelical Timing
But there is a pace and timing to theodicy. In our what’s-your-reaction-to-this society, too many rush in too quickly to say too much. The best thing Job’s friends did was “sat on the ground with him seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great” (Job 2:13). Then when they spoke…see Job 42:7-8.
The best thing we have to say anytime to anyone is the gospel. It speaks to suffering both self-induced and inflicted, shouts victory over every sin and pain and death. Christians need to hear the gospel over and over again because we never quite fully believe we’re that loved and graced by God, so we fall back into gospels of sin management and behavior modification. Likewise, everyone needs to hear over and over again why we need the gospel because we (the world) never quite fully believe we are that bad or bad off before God, so we fall back into idealisms about human nature and our overall security. As Meister Eckhart put it, “God is at home. We are in the far country.”
Whatever festering ideas motivated the theater shooter—perhaps Satan himself took over James Holmes’ psyche—regardless, James Holmes has personally participated in the Edenic rebellion of old just as Cole Huffman has. James has done so only more spectacularly and nihilistically than Cole. The scope of his damage in the world is greater than mine, not the fact of being damaging.
The gospel thereby doesn’t leverage realism but level it. It gives me empathy and compassion for victims, for that really could be me too. It gives me patience with questioners, even scorners, for I too once was really blind but now I see. It gives me a renewed revulsion of my own sin when I’m repulsed by another’s, for I too have really hurt and damaged others—and could do a lot more damage still but for God’s grace to me and rule over me.
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Cole Huffman has lived in Memphis with his family since 2003. They are known around town as the "Huffman Party of 7 1/2": wife Lynn, sons Caleb and Colson, and daughters Helen, Holly, and Caley Kate. (The "1/2" is the family dog, Cal.) Cole serves as Senior Pastor of First Evangelical Church and blogs at www.colehuffman.com.
Paul's Email to Ephesus
Paul was in prison in Rome when he wrote to the church at Ephesus:
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. - Ephesians 2:13
I am in my home office in Austin as I write this. If these words reach you online, it will only be through a separation of space, time, culture—maybe even language. I feel compelled to ask what do what do Paul's letters have to do with our emails? How does our understanding of these epistles impact the way we email, tweet, and correspond online?
One parallel is the technological context. Rome had built roads and a hospitality culture—new traditions and rules protecting travellers. Without these new technologies and protocols, Paul couldn’t have reached Ephesus as a church planter. He couldn’t have even written a letter to the church at Ephesus.
The same is true of the Internet. It has opened up communication possibilities that are absolutely revolutionary. At this point, to say that the potential for the spread of the gospel online is unprecedented sounds simply cliché. No brainer. In a matter of months after the launch of GCD, we were reaching people in the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Uganda, Nigeria, and Australia.
In fact, you are no doubt far, far away from me as you read this—on the opposite side of the globe. When you walk out to your day what could possibly tie us together? Paul was in prison—on the opposite side of the Roman Empire. What nearness could he know of a community in Ephesus? And if there is such a potential for the spread of the gospel online, why isn’t it sparking revival?
The answers lie in our various degrees of separation. More than the physical distance, our spiritual brokenness crackles beneath the surface of every human relationship, scrambling signals and preventing clear communication with both my neighbor next-door and my Facebook friends thousands of miles away. If these separations exist in any human relationship, what spiritual obstacles stymie the full communication of the gospel online? What sins creep into our email and status updates? How does the gospel change the way we use the Internet?
iSin
According to iCrazy, a recent Newsweek cover story by Tony Dokoupil the average teen processes 3,700 texts a month. 80% of us bring our laptops on vacation so we can work. (Yes, I’m a statistic, too.)
Technology has crept unquestioned into our homes. After interviewing more than 450 people, MIT psychologist and author, Sherry Turkle reported to the American Psychological Association, “A mother made tense by text messages is going to be experienced as tense by the child. And that child is vulnerable to interpreting that tension as coming from within the relationship with the mother.” Honestly, this breaks my heart because I too am guilty of passing on my online anxiety to my son.
Elias Aboujaoude, a psychiatrist at Stanford University School of Medicine says, “I’ve seen plenty of patients who have no history of addictive behavior—or substance abuse of any kind—become addicted via the Internet and these other technologies.”
In fact when the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is released next year, “Internet Addiction Disorder” will be included in the appendix for further study.
I’m something of a psychology agnostic. I’m suspicious of any science that has historically electrocuted the mentally ill for treatment. I prefer phenomenology. Consciousness is a phenomenon much like gravity or the photoelectric effect—irreducible in the face of scientific method. Understand, I’m not denying that humans have an emotional “inner life.” I’m denying our emotional/psychological singularity. Being created in God’s image means we are made for, by, and in community, but these connections are severed and distorted by the Fall.
By extension, when it comes to questions of our iSanity, I’d say the problem is a sin problem. It isn’t a broken relationship with our individual “psyche.” It’s a breakdown between us and God.
Crazy Busy
Author and cartoonist, Tim Kreider, recently posted about the Busy Trap for the New York Times blog, writing: “If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are… Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”
Underneath this business—and this is something I am incredibly guilty of—is the sin of pride and self-importance. Who needs God when they’ve got 900,000 Twitter followers? Look at my inbox. I’m corresponding with the big players. So how can I possibly schedule time for prayer? Better put it in the day planner or its forgotten. Same with my family and friends.
<ERROR: Identity Switch>
A few weeks ago my laptop froze while I was switching between my personal Facebook page and the GCD page. The limbo address read: Identity Switch. Heaven forbid a hiccup in the barrier between my two universes: Ben Roberts Austin hipster and Ben Roberts weird Christian website editor.
The problem with all our virtual identities is the risk of buying the lie of the virtual self and in turn perpetuating the falsehood. I am none of my online identities. There is a foundational fiction that underscores any interaction online, but we are becoming increasingly adept at suspending our disbelief of this falsehood.
The risk of allowing any virtual identity to override our true identity in Christ is enormous. Especially when most Americans spend at least eight hours a day staring at a screen—more time than we spend on any other activity including sleeping.
Ease of Access
Sometimes as I struggle to interact authentically online, the questions just won’t stop coming: How do we keep status updates, emails, and social networks from eroding our real identity? Is it reasonable to ask that we maintain a sense of our true self in an artificial information-based environment? How does this effect the way we interact with each other as believers in spiritual community? Ack! When, the questions become to much, I just have to thank the Lord for the internet’s free and easy selection of far out 1960’s Jesus music.
But I’m learning we need to question everything if only for the inconvenience of it! The problem is convenience quickly becomes a virtue online. How easy is it for me to reply to this email? Does it need a star? How many starred emails can sit in my inbox needing attention before I lose my head? More importantly is pinkjam12@jamchronicle.com a human being worthy of my respect?
I suspect part of the appeal of our online friendships is the ease with which we can write someone off. Unfriend. Unfollow. No problem. Forget loving-kindness. Forget patience. That simply doesn’t increase my Twitter following.
Kill Shot
I could go on and on, listing the increased ease of sin that attends on our increased ease of information exchange, but it all trends toward one terrible abyss. Last month one of my coworkers made the news. His daughter had an argument with her friend online. The differences flared-up and quickly spiraled out of control. So his daughter’s former friend submitted a plea to have his daughter killed in exchange for elicit photos. She posted their address and phone number and personal info on a blog, and within minutes they were receiving threatening phone calls from other states. The police were called in to investigate, and now the girl faces up to thirty years in prison for numerous criminal charges.
When we are too busy to care, when our identities and the identities of others are founded on virtuality not reality, when it's easy to mute any sense of mutual respect, then anger tears loose of its cage, and suddenly we’re on an online rampage, deathmatch-style. The consequences can be devastating to our lives and souls, but according to Christ's teaching, there's no difference in God's eyes between this criminal behavior and writing an angry email.
eVangelism
How can we hope to rebalance this slippery slope of online existence? What truth or righteousness can be found in an environment constructed from deceit and brokenness?
It ain’t too pretty a picture. If we try to rectify these fractures ourselves, we will fail. If we look for honesty and moral guidance from a machine, we move deeper into the web of delusion, depression, and outrage. For all it’s false hope of “global village,” the Internet is just as fallen and messed-up as anything else in this world. Perhaps, even more so because all our awesome devices and apps make the only solution appear primitive and unimaginably hairball. I’m talking about the blood of Christ.
It is only by the blood of Christ that those who are far off can become near and immediate to us. It is only by a loving Son of the Living God killed for our sins that we can seek to renew our online relationships. There’s nothing cool, convenient, or slick about it. For this reason, I take Sundays offline. I need a day to rest in what God is doing in folks' lives through GCD. I keep a journal and write thank you notes. I spend time with my family and spiritual community. Time offline reorients us toward what's ultimate and reunites us with real fellowship.
I’m learning to pray over every email I write. I’m learning to let Christ pound my heart back into shape to find the real person on the other end of the information vortex. They’re there, and they need to know Christ just as badly I as do.
I urge followers of Christ to re-evaluate the way they email and tweet. Paul took great pains to pursue Christ in every letter he wrote. He wrestled with sin in his correspondence. In his letters, we find deep mysteries, powerful admonitions, and graceful words of healing to scattered people, people broken and badly in need of real community—in need of Christ.
Can you imagine the healing that could spread through the Internet if we purposed to pursue Christ more intentionally in our social media contacts and emails? I’ll be the first to admit it was initially so weird, but the leaders of GCD are learning to pray with each other on Google Hangout. Yes, there are barriers, but the Holy Spirit can overcome them.
Paul had these same spiritual divisions in mind when he continued his letter to Ephesus:
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility... - Ephesians 2:14
I don’t always get my online correspondence right (just the other day, I got into a hurry and called Seth McBee “Josh” in an email for some stupid reason), but with Christ I have been given a powerful connection to believers everywhere—a connection that brings those people once far off right into my living room. It’s not the Internet. It’s the forgiveness and unbreakable bonds of spiritual adoption found only in Christ. In Christ, we’re not just friends, we’re one.
Ben Roberts is the Managing Editor of Gospel Centered Discipleship, a member of Austin City Life, and a follower of Christ. He lives in an amazingly ugly house with his wife (Jessica), son (Solomon), dog (Charles Bronson II), and two very angry chickens. A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers, he is currently working on a novel. Twitter @GCDiscipleship
For more on sharing the gospel authentically, check out Jonathan Dodson's Unbelievable Gospel.
Redeeming Fantasy Football
This next season it is estimated that some 30-45 million Americans will participate in a fantasy football league of some sort or another. Leagues are formed all over the country through work places, neighborhoods, and family gatherings to give sporting fans a competitive means to be involved in the sport itself. To the world, fantasy football has become a billion dollar idol in which many find identity, purpose, and mission. While some Christians may ignore this opportunity for community or reject fantasy sports altogether, fantasy football should not be dismissed as a pointless activity. With a mind and heart for the gospel, we can use the tool of fantasy sports as a missional activity for the sake of sharing the gospel with unbelievers. Here are a few ways we might go about that:
1. Participate in a league with unbelievers.
Often our tendency in thinking about activities such as fantasy sports is to compartmentalize who we participate with. How many churches have formed their own softball leagues (or play in church softball leagues) when the cities they inhabit already have leagues? Instead of being missionaries into those leagues, we build a Christianized version of the same thing and insulate ourselves from the lives of unbelievers.
Fantasy football is another opportunity for us to think about gospel-intentionality. Form up a league at your office or workplace where you can spend time with your coworkers (off the clock of course) building relationships and developing a deeper understanding of their lives.
2. Be present at the draft and other activities that involve your league.
Don’t be the guy who allows the computer to draft the team. Show up at the draft party and spend time beyond picking a team to really get to know the members of your league. If you are new to these people find out a little bit more about them such as their vocation, family status, where they live, and other important relational information. Do everything you can to be friendly and interested in their lives. Show up early for the party and stay late.
One of the ways that Christians demonstrate the goodness of the gospel is by being present in the lives of unbelievers. We show them the God who “dwells with us” (John 1:14) by being with them in the ordinary activities of their lives. Offer to meet with the other league members on Sunday afternoons or for Monday Night Football to watch the game and share life with the other members of your league. Find ways to get to know them better so you can naturally share the gospel with them.
3. Host the draft party or game party yourself.
One of the clear marks of the gospel’s impact in the life of a believer is the demonstration of hospitality (Hebrews 13:2). Instead of having the draft at a local restaurant or sports bar, invite the members of your league over and throw the party at your home. Provide plenty of food, drinks, and comfortable places for the members of your league to enjoy one another and the process of drafting a team.
As a way of showing the gospel, don’t go cheap on the food and drinks, either. Provide the best. Invite your community group to throw an amazing draft party for the members of your league, and involve your Christian community with the overall activity of the league itself. These acts of kindness will only further adorn the gospel of grace (2 Peter 2:12). Additionally, invite members of the league over to your home to watch the games and participate in the weekly rhythms of the football season.
The more hospitality and generosity we show toward unbelievers the more we receive opportunities to share the hope that we have in Jesus. As you establish these rhythms and patterns, invite league participants into your regular community group to see Christian community lived out.
4. Don’t cheat or be dishonest with league members.
Nothing hinders the display of the gospel more than someone who isn’t trustworthy and honest. Proverbs 12:26 tells us that “one who is righteous is a guide to his neighbor but the way of the wicked leads them astray.” Jesus himself is “full of grace and truth.”
One of the temptations in fantasy sports is to manipulate and/or cheat fellow owners through transactions and trade offers that are one-sided and sneaky. Like anything remotely competitive, the desire to win is a strong impulse, but this impulse does not give us permission to be dishonest or underhanded with fellow league members.
Make trades that are fair to both sides. Don’t withhold information (such as player injuries) that would get you ahead in a trade or transaction but would leave your fellow league members in worse shape. Use every opportunity to be honest, fair and respectable towards the members of your league. This includes being an active participant the entire season, even if you haven’t won a game and have no hope of making the playoffs. An active, honest, fair, competitive league member will be one that gains respect among the league and opens doors for the gospel to be shared (Titus 2:10).
5. Pray for the members of your league.
While fantasy football in and of itself is enjoyable, it is not an ultimate thing. Winning the league championship or making a deep run in the playoffs certainly makes it more fun, but our goal isn’t to ultimately be kings of the fantasy sports world. Our goal is to build relationships in which we can live with gospel-intentionality.
Furthermore, the reception and transformation that the gospel brings is something we cannot do through physical means. Gospel transformed lives are the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in an individual’s life. To this end, we should pray for the unbelievers we are in relationship with. Paul urged Timothy to pray for people so that the gospel would advance (2 Timothy 2:1-3).
I know it is not the most natural thing in the world to pray for our opponents in fantasy sports, but if we look at fantasy football as the entry point in which we gain access to the lives of unbelievers for the sake of the gospel, we can see that it would be foolish not to pray for them.
6. Clearly, boldly talk about the gospel with the members of your league.
I’m not talking about some sort of cheesy or unnatural talk that sounds like, “My QB scored a touchdown and saved my season, but he’s nothing compared to Jesus who died and saved my life.” I’m talking about moving beyond the sport and talking with your league members about what really matters.
Take a member out to lunch or invite them over to dinner. Spend some serious time with them and lay out your life before them. Let them know that you gather with others on Sunday mornings to worship Jesus and then hang out with friends (like them) to share life and the gospel of Jesus. Invest in their lives beyond fantasy sports and look for ways to meet needs, share life, and live the gospel before them as well as clearly speaking the gospel to them.
If we focus on being intentional with the gospel, we can use leisurely and fun things like fantasy football - which the world idolizes - to be missional tools for us in building relationships for advancing the gospel. My hope is this season that fantasy football won’t be a consuming time idol of sports but a means by which Jesus is introduced into the lives of many who don’t know him.
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Jeremy Writebol is a Christian who has played fantasy football for almost 20 years. He is the husband of Stephanie, daddy of Allison and Ethan, and lives and works in Wichita, KS as the Community Pastor at Journey the Way. He is the director of Porterbrook Kansas and writes at jwritebol.net.
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For more resources on how to share the gospel authentically, check out Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan Dodson.
For more free articles on making the gospel part of your everyday life, read: The Neighborhood Missions Startup by Seth McBee, Messy Discipleship by Jake Chambers, and Plant the Gospel, Plant Churches by Tony Merida.
When is the Gospel Not Good News?
Sometimes when we share our faith, we can sense the message is not getting through. We can feel that the good news we have about God’s love for the people of the world - highlighted and evidenced through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection - just doesn’t resonate as good news with the hearers of the message. How should we respond when the gospel is not “Good News”? If you are anything like me, you'll heartily agree that the message of the cross is in fact “Good News.” The gospel has the ability to inwardly transform a person so that the change in their heart spills out into the visible world of the gospel recipient. We believe that the gospel has the power to transform a person from the inside out and that this transformation is indeed good news to those who would receive it by simple faith.
So why do people reject the amazing truth that the gospel is good news? Here are three simple reasons. They are not exhaustive, and I am sure you can think of many more to add to the list:
When They are Not Ready to Receive the Good News
A wheel chair is an amazing invention! It provides a person the means to move from one place to another often with a good amount of independence. It can enhance the life of a person who has lost the use of their legs. It may raise that person’s self esteem if previously they have felt home-bound or isolated. It can enable them to participate in community or sporting events.
I imagine most of us able bodied people have not thought about this before. A wheelchair is good news to someone who has lost use of their legs – but to an able bodied person it is more than likely just ‘interesting’ news. The difference is found in the need for the wheelchair. Most of us do not need a wheelchair. Therefore we would be unlikely to value information about them.
The gospel is like this: many people do not receive the gospel simply because they do not yet perceive their need for it. This is why it is essential that we continue to preach the whole gospel that without God we are lost. Without Jesus, we are separated from God’s love and from God himself. Without the cross, there is no way back to the Father. Many people simply do not see their need for God. He is outside their need list. As preachers and missionaries we must communicate the gospel at a person’s point of need. This requires us to get to know people relationally and personally. This takes time as we will need to observe and listen to those we are sharing the gospel with.
When Their Hearts are Hard to the Good News
It is not unusual to come across someone who has hardened themselves to the good news that God loves them. Many people have hardened their hearts to Jesus. This is to be expected in a fallen and broken world. It is well known that when people are hurting they often put up defenses against being hurt again. These walls surround the heart and are often set up not just against human hurts but also against God who is perceived to be to blame.
The gospel shows us that God reaches out in love, and love is exactly what hurting people need. Think back over your life. When you were hurt by others how did you respond? I know that even with God on my side I have often taken offence and built mental barriers between myself and others (God included!) in order to ‘protect’ myself. Your friends and family are human like you. They will need the gospel to be incarnated in your lifestyle, actions, and compassion. Not only in your words. A simple response of active love is the first step to softening a persons’ heart toward you and the loving God we serve. Small steps and words of love are God’s good news to those who are hurting.
When They Don’t See Enough Evidence of the Good News
“But I have shown them so many passages of the Bible that prove who Jesus is and what he has done..." Have you ever felt this way? We might be moved to despair or frustration when our loved ones are not coming to Jesus.
Sharing scriptural support for belief in the gospel is good, but the gospel is not about revealing scripture to people. It is about revealing Jesus to people. We need to back up the verbal gospel message with lives that reflect the truth of the gospel. Our lives need to be bearing the fruit of the gospel that transforms us from the inside out. People need to see the fruit of the Holy Spirit evidenced in the day to day things we do. It’s not going to church that will convince a person that the gospel works (although it might!). It’s not just reading your Bible or praying that a person needs to see (although they might!).
They need to see how you handle conflict in Godly ways. How you treat your spouse. How you show hospitality unconditionally. How you make yourself available when needs arise. How you speak. How you act. Everything. It is sad but true that often the worst ‘advertisement’ for the gospel is the carrier of the gospel – me and you. I pray that this would not be the reason our friends, families, neighbors, work colleagues, and enemies reject the gospel. When people don't see the evidence, we need to return to God to soften our hearts to Him as we surrender our lives afresh to Him.
As we share the gospel, we need to really discern where the hearer is at in life and faith:
Are they oblivious to their need? Help them to see their need. Listen like Jesus
Are they hurting? Let the gospel be given in love in order to bring healing. Love like Jesus.
Do they lack true evidence that the Gospel transforms? Make sure your life matches up to gospel values. Live like Jesus.
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Stuart McCormack has worked as a shelf stacker, bingo caller, archivist, Youth Minister and is currently living out his calling to missional living in the secular workspace as a Targeted Youth Support Worker/mentor. He co-leads “Vintage,” a missional community which is part of Kairos Network Church based in Harrogate North Yorkshire. He is husband to Jenna and father to Noah, Bella and Sophia. In his spare time he tweets @missionalrev and blogs at www.missionalrev.wordpress.com
The Neighborhood Mission Start Up
People in our age often want to be told what to do so they can follow the directions. The dangerous thing is that if we just tell people what to do, then we not only become their functional savior for mission, we also avoid training them as leaders. This enables followers to stay followers and keeps leaders as their idols. We become the Holy Spirit for them, and when something in their life isn’t working, they don’t go the King. They come to another finite servant for direction. They become our disciple, not a disciple of Jesus. I’ll actually be speaking more on this understanding of leadership development at the GCM National Conference in September. So, what do I tell these people that inquire about how to live Christ's mission in their neighborhood (without making them feel stupid for asking a question that was prodded by the Spirit)?
Jesus tells us to love your neighbor as you love yourself.
He also tells us in Acts 1:8 that he’ll send us power by way of the Spirit to empower us for mission… to be his witnesses. (Notice witness is a noun, not a verb. You are the witness. It’s not something you do, but someone you are by His power.)
If we take these two principles to the neighborhood, what might that look like?
What would you attend if you were invited by a neighbor?
This seems very simple, but most don’t do this easy task. There is a great list given over at Verge by Josh Reeves - good dude by the way - called 25 Simple Ways to Missional to Your Neighborhood. Over at the GCM Collective there is a great document by Jeff Vanderstelt called Contextualization Assessment Starter. These are two great tools to start your mind thinking, but I have a very simple way to start. Simply ask yourself and your family, what would you attend if a neighbor invited you?
Would you attend a church service?
Would you attend a picket line?
Would you attend a “school” during the summer at another place in the city?
Some event where someone is trying to sell you trinkets?
Maybe some of you are thinking…"Yes I would!"
If so, try it out. See if it works. If not, think through other things that you might attend.
A front yard BBQ? A Saturday morning breakfast? An ice cream party? A UFC fight party?
What you will find through this process is the demographics of your neighborhood. When I started, one of the things I tried was inviting over people for a UFC fight. Literally no one showed up. Most of the folks I talked to afterwards said that they just weren’t interested in the UFC. That was the pits for me, because I dig me some ultimate fighting, but that gave me a better understanding of the neighborhood. Also, I got a chance to ask the next question to my neighbor:
What do you enjoy doing?
Now I get ideas, plus some ways to engage my neighbor for their story.
Neighbor: I really enjoy things I can do with my whole family.
Me: Oh, you have kids? How old are they? What are their names, etc.? What do you guys enjoy as a family?
Just with that small question, you're already beginning your contextualized understanding of your neighborhood.
You’ll also notice you'll start to engage your neighbors, whether they are in your “demographic” or not. This doesn’t simply “work” if you are in a neighborhood surrounded by people like you. It will also work in those neighborhoods where you are not like your neighbors. You can try some things you like. They might fail. But that just gives you a chance to engage neighbors to see what they enjoy and what would draw them out to engage the community as a whole.
How would you like to be invited to engage community?
The next question people ask me is this:
I have an idea to engage neighbors. How should I invite them?
I just turn the question back on them:
How would you like to be invited to something from someone you don’t know? What kind of invitation would you ignore? What kind of invitation would cause you to engage?
I don’t know about you, but I would ignore most things sent to me in the mail or something just left on my doorstep. For me, I would respond positively from a face-to-face interaction, with something left behind with the information.
This is exactly what I decided to do three years ago in our neighborhood. I took flyers around to our neighbors, knocked on their doors and introduced myself to them and invited them to our 4th of July party. This created many opportunities for conversation and many have come to our community events because of a simple introduction.
For others, email might work, Facebook (I have a community Facebook group now that we’ve built relationships), evite, etc. Think through different ways to communicate to people, to engage them in the ways that your neighborhood is comfortable with.
Sent by His Power
This is the greatest part. You have the power of the eternal God, the embodiment of wisdom, inside you for his glory.
After thinking through the first two questions of how we can love our neighbors like we love ourselves, we must not forget the first part. The commandment to love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
We need to go to our God to simply ask him what he’d like us to do next with his power. When we go through what things we are going to do to engage our neighbors, or any other group, we must first ask our Dad. "Dad, what’s next with this neighborhood to show off your glory?"
Then listen…
Then do what he tells you.
It might be huge, or it might be small. The important thing is to be obedient to him after he tells you what he desires. This doesn’t mean it will “work” in your eyes (such as the UFC thing above), but it means you're allowing your eternal Dad to determine what you NEED to do to make you more like Jesus and for others around you to see his glory and fame.
I fully believe if we think through these three easy steps, we’ll engage our neighborhoods and other groups around us much more often with more power and positive response from those around us.
Yes, you’ll end up sacrificing your time, your money and your possessions, but in the end isn’t this what we are called to do as followers of Jesus?
Love others as you love yourself by the power of the Spirit, and watch the work God will do.
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Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade Seth is an Investment Portfolio Manager, serving as president of McBee Advisors, Inc as well as a missional community leader, preaching elder with Soma Communities in Renton, Washington, and executive team member of the GCM Collective. In his down time, he likes to do CrossFit, cook BBQ, and host pancake ebelskiver breakfasts at his home. Twitter @sdmcbee
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For more information on taking the gospel to the streets, check out Jonathan Dodson's Unbelievable Gospel.
For more free articles on missional living read: Invite & Invest to Make Disciples by Greg Gibson, Theology is for Everyone by David Fairchild, and The Gospel & Our Neighbors by Alvin Reid.
Living The Mission
The church is rooted in the concept of the Missio Dei, which recognizes that there is one mission, and it is God’s mission. The Missio Dei is a Latin theological term that can be translated as "Mission of God." The word missio literally means sent. The church is not an end in itself; the church is sent into the world to fulfill the mission of God.
God is a Missionary
Understanding what it means to be a part of the mission of God begins with understanding that God is a missionary God. The very being of God is the basis for the missionary enterprise. God is a sending God, with a desire to see humankind and creation reconciled, redeemed, and healed. God’s mission can be seen throughout the pages of the Bible and history. Nowhere is the mission of God better understood than in the person and work of Jesus Christ. John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Many Christians and churches teach and preach that missions are something we support or do, such as sending or supporting missionaries in other countries. This was the case 20 to 30 years ago. However, in the 21st century the mission field has come to us.
We live in a post-Christian world where people simply don’t know the gospel anymore. Therefore we are all called to be missional disciples and share in the mission of God. Ed Stetzer says, “Being Missional means actually doing mission right where you are. Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining biblically sound.”
Jesus: The First Missionary
Being a missional disciple is simply following the way of Jesus. Jesus Christ was the first and greatest missionary. The Bible tells us that He came from heaven to earth to die for a lost and dying world. The following scriptures reveal how the mission of God was fulfilled through Jesus Christ and how we are called to continue and complete the Missio Dei in our culture.
- Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work." - John 4:34
- "I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." - John 5:30
- "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." - John 6:38
- "I know Him; because I am from Him, and He sent Me." - John 7:29
- "And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do thethings that are pleasing to Him." - John 8:29
- "We must work the works of Him who sent Me, as long as it is day; night is coming, when no man can work." - John 9:4
- And Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in Me does not believe in Me, but in Him who sent Me. And he who beholds Me beholds the One who sent Me." - John 12:44-45
- "For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me commandment, what to say, and what to speak." - John 12:49
- "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me." John 13:20
- "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." - John 17:3
- "For the words which Thou gave Me I have given to them; and they received them, and truly understood that I came forth from Thee, and they believed that Thou didst send Me." - John 17:8
- "As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world." John 17:18
- Jesus therefore said to them again, "Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you." - John 20:21
Sent on a Mission
As the church we are called to care for a lost and dying world that is in desperate need of a savior. Too many times we compartmentalize the different ministries of the church. We have viewed social ministry as something we do on one hand and evangelism on the other. God is calling the church to rediscover the biblical model of holistic ministry.
Jesus met both the physical and spiritual needs of the people He ministered to. As the Body of Christ on earth, we are His representatives to a lost world. Therefore what we do and say are of eternal importance. Being missional disciples is not an either or situation. It means that we care about people’s souls and their bodies. It means that because we care about the gospel we should care about social and environmental issues. Being missional disciples brings all of life together under the banner of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Dr. Winfield Bevins serves as lead pastor of Church of the Outer Banks, which he founded in 2005. His life’s passion in ministry is discipleship and helping start new churches. He lives in the beautiful beach community of the Outer Banks with his wife Kay and two daughters where he loves to surf and spend time at the beach with his family and friends. Twitter: @winfieldbevins
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For more on living the mission of Christ, check-out Winfield's book Grow: Reproducing Through Organic Discipleship.
For more free mission resources, see: Relationships First: Reasons it's Difficult to Share Our Faith by Jonathan Dodson and Messy Discipleship Jake Chambers.
A Gospel for the Muslim
We desperately need a “gospel for the Muslim.” Now, to be clear, to say that we seek a “gospel for the Muslim” does not mean that there are a variety of gospels. But just as Paul talked about Peter’s commission of the “gospel for the Jew” and his own commission of the “gospel for the Gentile” (Gal 2:7), so also do we need a gospel presentation that is tailored to the questions Muslims are asking. There is one gospel by which both Muslim and non-Muslim must be saved, but it must at times be expressed differently so that each can more readily grasp it. Three words describe the current Western approach to the gospel: formula, forgiveness, and death. We present the gospel as a formula, a series of propositions about God, which addresses our need for forgiveness from guilt, and which summarizes the means of attaining that forgiveness, the death of Jesus.
While such a presentation accurately reflects aspects of the gospel, a more effective strategy among Muslims might focus on three “new words:” story, cleansing, and victory.
Instead of presenting the truth of the gospel propositionally as a formula, we ought simply to let the story of Scripture unfold. Muslims rarely come to faith in Christ through apologetic arguments and dogmatic proof-texting, but they often come to faith in Christ by studying the major stories of the Bible and encountering the gospel there.
Instead of presenting the work of Christ in terms of forgiveness, we can emphasize the cleansing power of the gospel. Muslims understand the need for purification; they undergo a process of ritual cleansing, called wudu, every time they pray. Such a cleansing is only external, but Christ offers wudu for the soul.
Instead of presenting the death of Christ merely as a point of weakness, we should point to the victory inherent in Christ’s work on the cross. Every time Muslims pray, they say that God is the “most powerful” and the “most merciful.” Is not the cross the greatest demonstration of those two attributes? What greater demonstration of power is there than a God who overcame sin and death? God’s greatness is actually shown in His humility. As Gregory of Nazianzus said, “The strength of a flame is shown by its ability to burn downward.” And what greater demonstration of mercy is there than in Christ’s death and resurrection? The God of the universe conquered sin and death in order to redeem us for Himself, through no merit of our own.
The Bible, from cover to cover, is the story of a victorious God who cleanses us so that we might live with Him.
Muslims Misconceptions about Christians:
Many obstacles stand in the way of Muslims coming to faith in Jesus—theological differences, the danger of conversion, and the sheer fact that most Muslims have simply never heard the gospel. Some of the more surprising obstacles, however, arise in the misconceptions that Muslims have about Christians. During the two years I spent serving in a conservative Muslim country, I repeatedly encountered variations of two common misconceptions: 1. Christianity is morally corrupt. 2. “The West” and “The Church” are synonymous. Being familiar with these two misconceptions can help as we engage Muslims for the gospel.
1. Christianity is morally corrupt.
MTV was huge in the part of the world I lived. Western music videos frequently featured rap stars or scantily clad women wearing crosses. My Muslim friends assumed, naturally enough, that these were Christians and that their behavior was typical of Christians. Upon telling people I was a Christian, I often received the response, “Oh, you are a Christian—like Bill Clinton!” This was during the peak of Clinton’s impeachment, so the comparison was meant to conjure up images of either adultery or perjury . . . or both. Not a savory comparison.
I was once even asked by one of my friends, a Muslim college student, if I would throw her a “Christian” birthday party. When I asked what she meant, she replied that she wanted a party with a lot of booze and racy dancing, just like she had seen on television. Misunderstandings like hers, sadly, are the norm and not the exception.
While this misconception continues to irk me, I find it helpful to know that it exists. Most Muslims assume that Christians are unabashedly immoral. Of course, we can—and should—respond to this misconception by allowing our lives to refute it, by showing that Christians do not encourage flagrant debauchery. In the end, though, it is beneficial simply to keep this misconception in mind as we minister among Muslims.
2. “The West” and “The Church” are synonymous.
Most Westerners have grown up with a notion of the “separation of church and state,” and it is jarring for us to learn that Muslims rarely make such a distinction. Islam is, in its very nature, a political entity as well as a religious one, complete with its own social law codes. There is no parallel Muslim concept of the “separation of mosque and state.” So when Muslims look at Western nations like the USA, Germany, France, or the UK, they see “Christian countries.” Our presidents are assumed to be Christian leaders, and our political policies are assumed to be reflective of church policy. What the US does, the Church does. I was once asked, for instance, why “the Church” bombed Iraq.
This may be difficult for many of us, but we need to learn to put our patriotism aside. We only have enough bandwidth to represent a certain number of issues, and it is simply not worth it to sacrifice a gospel platform for the sake of defending American political decisions. I was recently told by a Turkish Muslim that “all of the problems in the world are caused by America.” Do I agree with him? No. But is this where I want to stand my ground? No. For the sake of the gospel, our patriotism must die when we serve in Muslim countries.
How Muslims Come to Faith in Christ
Muslims worldwide who come to faith in Christ consistently identify one of three factors leading to their conversion (or a combination of these three).
1. A copy of the Bible is placed in their hands.
When I first arrived in Southeast Asia, a “win” for me was a Muslim converting to Christianity. This got to be a little disheartening after a while, and wasn’t providing me with as many “W”s as I would have liked. So I down-graded, and sharing the Four Spiritual Laws became my new “W.” Defining things this way helped me feel more successful, but it did not lead to greater fruitfulness.
Rather than defining your “W” as conversion or sharing the message, make your “W” getting Muslims to study the Bible with you.
A friend of mine, “Danny,” found this out after spending nearly two years debating with a Muslim friend, “Solomon.” Through the course of their friendship, Solomon told Danny that his arguments had not convinced him to be a Christian, but to be a better Muslim! Exasperated, Danny asked Solomon to read through the book of John, and Solomon obliged.
As Solomon read through the gospel, the words pierced his heart in a way that none of Danny’s arguments had. He read and re-read the Gospel of John, and soon came to faith in Jesus. What inspired this change was his exposure to the Word of God.
The Word of God is powerful. Let the Holy Spirit use the Bible to do the work of winning hearts to Christ. As Charles Spurgeon said, the Bible is like a caged lion. We do not need to defend it; we simply need to let its power loose.
2. They see the love in a Christian community.
The Muslim community, or ummah, is close-knit, but it is built on shame and reciprocity. Those who leave the ummah face ostracism, persecution, or even death. Christians can offer an alternative community, one founded on grace, acceptance, and forgiveness. Most Muslims have never seen this, even in their own families.
It saddens me to think of the thousands of Muslims who come to the United States for university education. Most of these Muslim students will never step foot in an American home. They would go if invited, but few ever receive an invitation. This is a tragedy.
I recently had a debate with a Muslim scholar, and afterwards he was telling me about another debate he had recently with a religion professor from Duke. “I do not like the guy from Duke,” he said. When I asked why, he answered:
“I am more of a ‘Christian’ than he is. I believe more of the Bible than he does. Every time something was brought up from the Bible, he would apologetically explain it away. Your Christian world has two choices: the Duke professor, who doesn’t believe but is charitable, or the angry, hateful conservative. Many Christians won’t go toward liberalism, so they feel they have no choice but hatefulness. What they need is you. You believe every word of the Bible, but you have a generous spirit toward Muslims.”
3. They are visited with a supernatural dream or vision.
I am naturally skeptical of supernatural dreams and visions. But I have seen too many Muslims come to faith as a result of dreams and visions to deny that it is a work of God. For whatever reason, God often uses supernatural dreams to push Muslims to investigate Jesus, to find a Christian, or to read the Bible.
This should humble us and remind us that the power for salvation comes from God alone. When we do not know what else to do, we ought to pray. Pray for your Muslim friends. Pray with them as well. Then stand back and give God a chance to work.
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J.D. Greear and his beautiful wife Veronica live in Raleigh and are raising four ridiculously cute kids: Kharis, Alethia, Ryah and Adon. He is the lead pastor of the Summit Church and author of Breaking the Islam Code and Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary. Twitter: @jdgreear
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For more resources on teaching and preaching the gospel, check-out Tony Merida's new book Proclaiming Jesus.
Plant the Gospel, Plant Churches
As I write this article, the core team for our new church has been gathering for a grand total of three weeks. We currently have about twenty people on the team and several children. We are filled with excitement, joy, anticipation, and nervousness. I have served as an itinerant evangelist, a camp pastor, a succession pastor, and (still am) a seminary professor. But I have never planted a church. Where should I begin? The answer is, of course, the Bible. But does the Bible actually say anything about church planting? I often hear people, even my friends, say things like, “Church planting is not in the Bible” or, “Jesus never told us to plant churches.” To which I say, “Are you sure about that?”
Standing on the shoulders of wise missiologists, let me point out two New Testament convictions and one New Testament example that provide a basic biblical understanding of church planting. The biblical foundations for church planting are not limited to these, but these three particular items are essential and memorable.
Two New Testament Convictions
First, the Great Commission points to church planting. This doesn’t mean that Jesus gave us a command to “plant churches” explicitly. Admittedly, you will look in vain to find such a command. However, Jesus told us to “make disciples of all nations” by “baptizing them” and “teaching them.” What do you call making of disciples by baptizing and teaching them? I call this incorporating them into the life of a church.
In my view, baptism is an ordinance of the church, which serves as a public profession of faith for believers. It identifies them with the body of Christ. Therefore, Christ’s orders in the Great Commission seem to have the church in view.
After Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost, about 3,000 were converted, and then baptized. Immediately following this, we read about these believers gathering in Acts 2:42-47 for worship in this new church. These baptized believers gathered for worship and to, among other things, teach all that Jesus commanded. I would argue, then, that the Great Commission points to the idea of church planting – not church planting with a building, a budget, and a website – but church planting in terms of identifying new believers in baptism and equipping new believers through sound teaching.
Another way to say this is that we are called to “plant the Gospel” and then see that healthy churches are developed. This is our goal at Imago Dei Church. We want to plant the Gospel in Raleigh. Even though Raleigh is in the South, it is, at best, 16% evangelical, and is currently one of the fastest growing metro areas in the nation. There are people studying in RDU from all over the world, in an area that boasts more "Ph.D.’s per capita" than anywhere in the nation. We want to plant the Gospel in this influential city, and then make disciples through the local church.
Second, Paul’s basic ministry methodology was urban church planting. Again, the goal was “plant the Gospel first, then help the church get established,” but nevertheless, it was a church planting movement. In Acts, we find Paul preaching the Gospel in major cities, then establishing the church in which elders were appointed for the purpose of spiritual growth and health. Many of these new congregations are described for us in the New Testament letters. In fact, the New Testament is basically a collection of new church plants.
Certainly, there are practical reasons to plant churches today. Around the world, more people are moving to urban centers, filled with throngs of people and few churches. The ethnic diversity of America is growing, also, which calls for new churches. In some unreached places, various people groups have little or no biblical church. These are all important notes to consider, which add weight to these two New Testament principles. Not only do we have biblical reasons for planting new congregations, but we also have a context in which we need to apply them urgently. People need the gospel and a church in which to belong.
A New Testament Example: The Church in Philippi
Consider the church in Philippi (Acts 16:6-40). Paul, in response to the Spirit’s call, plants the first church on European soil! How did it happen? Again, the same pattern: plant the Gospel; plant the church. In joyful sacrifice, Paul reaches three different types of people.
He first goes to a place of prayer where a lady named Lydia is converted and baptized. She then invites Paul and the missionaries to her home. Later, she apparently allowed her home to become the gathering place (new church) for the entire group of believers in Philippi (v. 40). Next, Paul encounters a fortune telling slave girl who is delivered from an evil spirit. Finally, there is a jailer who is present when Paul and Silas are put into prison. Here we have three different classes of people: Lydia (wealthy), the slave girl (poor), and a jailer (middle class?). We have three different avenues for reaching them: Lydia (with teaching at a religious gathering), Slave Girl (through deeds of mercy), and a Jailor (through example). They also represent three different nationalities: Lydia (Asian); Slave-Girl (Native Greek); Jailer (Roman). Moreover, each had different spiritual backgrounds: Lydia (Religious); Slave-Girl (spiritual turmoil), and a Jailer (indifferent?). Paul faithfully ministers the good news in the city to various types of people, and as a result, the first church in Europe - probably meeting in Lydia’s house - is formed (v. 40).
About ten years later, Paul writes to the Philippian church from a Roman prison. His epistle to the Philippians radiates with joy. They were his partners, his brothers and sisters. The apostle continued to labor for “their progress and joy in the faith” (Phil. 1:25).
In response to the Great Commission, and in light of the missionary methods of Paul, let’s plant the gospel all over the world; and let's plant healthy churches for the glory of Christ and the progress and joy of all peoples.
I’m indebted to Tim Keller’s Church Planter Manual for the outline of this article. Other helpful resources include Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches.
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Tony Merida serves as the Lead Pastor of Imago Dei Church, Raleigh, NC and as the Associate Professor of Preaching at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is married to Kimberly, with whom he has five children. Tony is the co-author of Orphanology and author of Faithful Preaching. He travels and speaks all over the world at various events, especially pastor’s conferences, orphan care events, and youth/college conferences. Twitter @tonymerida
Taking the Long View
A few years ago I read A Narrative of Suprising Conversions by Jonathan Edwards, and there is one particular paragraph that God used to shape and change my heart. Edwards is talking about his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, who preceded Edwards as pastor of his church. Listen to how Edwards describes him: “He was eminent and renowned for his gifts and grace; so he was blessed, from the beginning, with extraordinary success in his ministry, in the conversion of many souls.” Edwards explains that this happened in five seasons or “harvests" spread over Stoddard's 60 years in ministry. Edwards tells us exactly when they happened:
Harvest one erupts, and many are saved… Four years pass… Harvest two comes, and a great number of people are converted… Thirteen years pass… Harvest three happens, many come to know Christ… Sixteen years pass… Harvest four comes about, people flock to faith in Jesus… Six years pass… Harvest five errupts, and many are saved.
Years passed - sometimes more than a decade - between the times in which this church saw God bless them with great seasons of numerical growth by conversion. This great man of God pastored in the same place for nearly 60 years, pouring his life out for the sake of Jesus, working hard to make disciples, and was blessed to see amazing things.
We like to talk about those periods when growth is happening. It’s exciting. It’s energizing. We love to tell stories of churches that are seeing many people coming to faith. New services are started. Locations are multiplied. Baptisms are happening. But my question is: what about the seasons in between? What was happening in Stoddard's congregation then?
For every harvest there must be a sowing. When you add up the numbers, for 39 of his 60 years in ministry Solomon Stoddard didn’t see extraordinary growth. To be sure, people came to faith. Undoubtedly, the Spirit of God was at work. But, by most standards today (at least those we use in the American Church), Solomon Stoddard wasn’t much of a success.
At the heart of his ministry is a quality that is unfortunately all but forgotten by many: faithfulness. If Stoddard had been evaluated today, he might have been told to give up. To reevaluate his call. To change things up, try something new, adopt another strategy. Why? Because we are so tempted to trade the call to faithfulness for the allure of success. It is not sexy or glamorous to spend decades faithfully preaching the Word of God, investing your life in the people God has entrusted to you while seeing very little visible fruit.
But for a true harvest to come, there must be seed sown. Cared for. Watered. Tended to. Protected. Nourished. It is only after this hard work of faithful care has been done that a lasting harvest can come.
My prayer today is that God would give us the long view of ministry, and that our desire would be to give our lives in faithful service – trusting God to bring a tremendous harvest!
Bill Streger serves as the Lead Pastor of Kaleo Church, an Acts 29 Network church in Houston, TX. Born and raised in Houston, he attended Houston Baptist University and is currently pursuing his M.Div. from Reformed Baptist Seminary. Bill is a husband to Shannon, daddy to Mirabelle and Levi, and a life-long Houston Rockets fan. Twitter @billstreger
All The Right Answers: Reasons It's Difficult to Share Our Faith
This is part four of the series The Difficulty of Sharing Our Faith. I’ve often heard people say the reason they find it difficult to share their faith is because they don’t have all the right answers. “What if someone suggests all paths lead to the same God, making Jesus irrelevant?” they say. Or “What if a co-worker claims she could never be a Christian because the Bible has too many errors?” These are serious questions that deserve thoughtful responses. As Christians, we should have reasons for our hope. However, I wonder if we often put our hope in having right answers instead of hoping in the reason for our faith? Let’s consider the role of “right answers” in the difficulty of sharing our faith.
Reasons for Hope
While some consider Christianity to be an unthinking faith, the Bible underscores the importance of reason. Peter, a disciple not known for being good with words, wrote this: “Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” (1 Pet 3:14-15).
We are to offer “reasons” for our hope, to always be prepared. Prepared to do what? “Make a defense” is a translation of the word from which we get apologetic. An apologetic isn’t an “I’m sorry” attitude. Nor is it a defensive, antagonistic stance against culture. It is a reasoned statement of belief. To make an apologetic, then, is not to argue out of defensive insecurity, but to offer a reasonable explanation from our security. What kind of security frees us to offer reasonable explanations for our faith?
Two kinds of security free us to engage in apologetics. The first is intellectual security. The Christian faith has a long tradition of apologists who have faithfully defended the faith century after century, answering some of the most difficult questions. The earliest apologists include: Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Tatian, and Clement of Alexandria (view their texts here). Their apologetic answers have been handed down from generation to generation. New apologists, such as Ravi Zacharias, William Lane Craig, Tim Keller, John Frame, and Alvin Plantinga, also address new questions. We do well to read them.
It is important to note that the gospel alone acts as a grand apologetic, addressing the deepest of life’s questions including: the problem of evil and suffering, the existence of God, the hope of salvation, the nature of God and man, and the role of faith. Through apologetics the gospel has proven intellectually credible and existentially satisfying for many people across many cultures. The gospel provides a coherent, rational view on the world that is intellectually secure. It makes sense of a world where things are not as they are supposed to be. But there is another security that frees us to offer reasonable explanations for Christian faith.
Deep Security
Many of us won’t make time to read the old and new apologists. And perhaps we don’t have to. Is it possible that Peter had in mind an apologetic that included, not just reasons, but faith? Peter was writing to people who feared persecution for their faith. When we struggle to share our faith, do we not face persecution? We are attacked by thoughts that undermine our confidence, diminish our trust in Christ, and redirect us away from speaking about Jesus. Surely, this is a spiritual persecution. Cultural apologist Ken Myers has said:
“the challenge of living with popular culture may well be as serious for modern Christians as persecution and plagues were for the saints of earlier centuries.”[1]
While we may not face the gallows or plagues, we do face something more subtle--the invisible power of pop culture that undermines truth, dismisses character, and radically orients us toward comfort. The good news is that we have the same ability as those early saints to be secure and strong in our faith. When doubts surface and silent accusations fly on the cusp of mentioning the gospel, we need a security stronger than our persecution.
Before instructing the early Christians to always have an apologetic, Peter prefaces his statement with this: “Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy…” (1 Pet. 3:14). He reassures them, in the face of mockery, to sink their security deep into their hearts not heads. He reminds them that they have nothing to fear because they have Christ who offers perfect peace. He makes apologetics about Christ not right answers, a matter of both the head and the heart.
So, when we face that moment of temptation to shy away from identifying with Jesus, it is our identity in Jesus that we need most. We need not fear men because we can rest in Christ. People may reject us, but our forever acceptance in Christ gives us every reason to speak of Him, of His grace, mercy, kindness, love, and triumph over sin, death, and evil. O for stronger men and women who sink their identity deeply into what Jesus says about us more than what peers and co-workers (might) say about us! Our silence will convince no one of our rich, rewarding faith in Jesus. Fear over co-worker frowns will not inspire a smiling faith.
Authentic Apologetics
Our moment of opportunity is less about converting others and more about staying true to ourselves. Will we speak of our unique community in the church, the God-intoxicating gathering on Sunday, the stirring time of meditation on Wednesday morning, and the quiet, soul stirrings of communion with God? Will we speak authentically about what matters most to us and of the meaningful events in our lives or will we prove inauthentic, dismissing these things from conversation, and along with them, dismissing our true selves? Will we refrain from honoring the Lord Christ as holy in our hearts because we hold in honor the passing frowns of men in our heads? Surely the gospel offers a deeper security than the approval of passing men and women? Does not Christ’s love run deeper, His acceptance purer, and His approval longer than the love, acceptance, and approval that any person could ever give? If so, apologetics is meant to spring from a deep security in the heart, our unshakable union with Christ—fully loved, fully accepted. Apologetics is a matter of the heart as well as the head.
Defending the faith, then, is as much about defending Christ as our Lord in our hearts as it is explaining the reasonableness of our faith. The goal of apologetics should never be to convert others (that is the Spirit’s job), but it is to honor Christ as Lord in our hearts. This happens, very often, with our mouths. And in the end, for everyone the bottom-line issue isn’t an intellectual objection but hope objection. We refuse to remove our hope from one thing and transfer it to the ultimate thing, the person of Jesus. A witness of our authentic hope in Christ will be more compelling than any intellectual argument we could ever articulate. People need to see our hope burn in our bones. They need to sense the Lord Christ set apart in our hearts. They need to see that the gospel not only makes sense but that it also works. Christian faith is intellectually satisfying and existentially rich. So let’s not put our hope in having right answers but have answers that reflect our hope.
[1] Ken Myers, All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1989), v.
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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and has written articles in numerous blogs and journals such as The Resurgence, The Journal of Biblical Counseling, and Boundless. He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson
Intolerance: Reasons It's Difficult to Share Faith
It can be difficult to share our faith. Sometimes when opportunities arise to share our faith, we shrink back because we don't want to be intolerant. We don't want to come across as demeaning of other's beliefs or exclusivist in our own beliefs. This can be very positive concern, though it has some shortcomings too.
Tolerance as Christian Love
Tolerance can be either an expression of Christian love or intellectual and relational carelessness. How do you know if your tolerance is loving or careless? It depends on what we mean by tolerance. In The Intolerance of Tolerance, D. A. Carson helpfully clarifies the meaning of tolerance. He points out that there are two types of tolerance: old and new. The old tolerance is the belief that other opinions have a right to exist. This is a very Christian notion. Jesus taught us to love our neighbor, and even our enemy. The Christian ethic of love should compel disciples to tolerate other beliefs and religions. We ought to grant others the right to believe whatever they desire to believe. After all, what people believe is a deeply personal and profound matter. It isn't like picking out a ripe banana at the supermarket. Our beliefs require much more thought and investment. Love values people and respects the things they hold dear. Since Christians are to love God, neighbor and even enemy, tolerance (believing that people have the right to hold different opinions) can be very loving and respectful. Christianity shouldn't be coercive or proselytizing; it should be loving and tolerant.
The Carelessness of Tolerance
The new tolerance, however, is defined as the belief that all opinions are equally valid or true. This is quite a leap from the old tolerance. It is one thing to say something has the right to exist; it is quite another to say that two beliefs are equally valid. If we followed the logic of the new tolerance, it would be possible to affirm the following two statements:
- We should grant others the dignity to believe whatever they want to believe.
- We should force others to believe whatever we believe to be true.
The Relational Impact of Our Confusion
The carelessness of the new tolerance impacts relationships. Have you ever been on the precipice of a spiritual conversation with someone of a different faith, but backed off because you thought to yourself: "I don't want them to think I'm intolerant or judgmental of what they believe?" If so, you did this out of a confusion over what tolerance truly is. Your behavior was affected by your (wrong) belief that tolerance means validating all other faiths as equally true. When we affirm two contradictory statements, it creates a cognitive (and spiritual) dissonance that affects our behavior in social settings. We become paralyzed, unable to discuss some of life's most meaningful questions with others because, on the one hand, we tolerate differences (classic tolerance) and on the new hand, we dismiss differences (since they are equally valid). The unfortunate result is that relationships often remain skin-deep. We don't get down into the weighty matters of faith, ethics, truth, and beauty.
Relationships First: Reasons It's Difficult to Share Our Faith
This is part two of the series The Difficulty of Sharing Our Faith. We often find it difficult to share our faith because we want to first form relationships with people. Avoiding preachy self-righteousness, we try to get to know others before talking about Jesus. We prefer to talk about work, culture, and ordinary stuff first. This springs from a proper concern to not come off as stiff evangelists but as real, caring people.
Love Not Proselytize Your Neighbor
This concern to have a relationship before sharing the gospel has some biblical warrant. Jesus said: “Love your neighbor,” not proselytize your neighbor. To proselytize is to coerce or induce people to believe what you believe. The person who proselytizes coerces by forcefully defending and advancing their beliefs. Remember the film The Big Kahuna? Grabbing evidence and opportunities, Christians back their co-workers into a theological corner, expecting them to throw up their hands and say, “I believe!” Other times, proselytizing takes the form of recruitment. We might try to convince people to join our moral or political agenda, as if Jesus wants to add to his numbers to strengthen a political constituency.
When we proselytize people, we reduce discipleship to an intellectual enterprise. In effect, we replace the gospel with doctrinal agreement (or just being right). When we focus on recruitment, we make Christianity about power or morality. This replaces the gospel with religion or rightwing politics. But Paul shared a gospel that was all about Jesus, preaching Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:1). He resolved to preach Christ not politics. Similarly, when sharing our faith, we need to make Jesus the stumbling block not morality or politics. When we put doctrinal, moral, and political blocks in front of the gospel, we proselytize instead of love. Proselytizing requires the mind and the will, but love requires heart, mind, and will.
"When sharing our faith, we need to make Jesus the stumbling block not morality or politics."
I’ve had countless conversations with non-Christians in which I’ve had to remove these stumbling blocks in order to get to the heart with the wonderful news of the gospel. Getting to the heart takes time. We need what Michael Frost calls “Slow Evangelism.” We need faith in God and love for people that slows us down to listen to others well, so that we can learn how to make the good news good to their bad news. For many, hearing that Jesus died on the cross for them is entirely irrelevant; we have to show the relevance of Jesus to their real need. Relationships are essential to discerning and meeting real needs. It was Francis Schaeffer who said: “Give me an hour with a non-Christian and I’ll listen for forty-five minutes. Only then, in the last fifteen minutes, will I have something to say.” We often hesitate to share our faith because we want people to know that we value them, regardless of their response. But if we truly value them, we wont simply “wait” to share the gospel; we will embody it by listening well.
Wonderful Doesn’t Wait
Have you ever noticed when you encounter something truly wonderful, you don’t always wait for a relationship to tell someone? There are things that are so urgent, so weighty, so wonderful that we burst out to talk about them whether we have a relationship or not! When our sports team scores to win the game, we don’t look around the stadium and think: “I can't tell people how happy I am about this win. I don’t even know them!” No, we don’t wait to express our joy; we burst out when our team wins. We celebrate with strangers and go nuts on social media. When we’re at a concert and our favorite song is played, and the band is really rocking, we don’t wait to sing along or comment. We sing and chat it up with strangers. After reading a book or seeing a great movie, perhaps the Hunger Games, we strike up conversation with people at work about how great the movie was.
When something is truly wonderful, we often don’t wait to talk about it. Is the news about Jesus so urgent, weighty, and wonderful that we can’t help but share it? It is, but often it's not as fresh as the game, concert, or movie. Why? Very often this is because we aren't immersed in the goodness of the gospel. It is old, memorized, fading news because we haven’t had a fresh encounter with Christ in weeks! The wonder is lost because we haven’t plunged ourselves into Christ-centered worship, prayer, or Bible meditation. We are most likely to talk about the gospel when the good news is good news to us.
"We are most likely to talk about the gospel when the good news is good news to us."
Have you ever considered what would have happened if Jesus had waited until he had a relationship with the thief on the cross to offer him eternal life? What if authors, pastors, and preachers waited to tell you the good news until they had a relationship with you? Sometimes there are things that are so wonderful, they don’t deserve a wait!
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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and has written articles in numerous blogs and journals such as The Resurgence, The Journal of Biblical Counseling, and Boundless. Dodson has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others.
Preachy Christians: Reasons It's Difficult to Share our Faith
This is the first in the series The Difficulty of Sharing our Faith. Very often we find it difficult to share our faith. Whether we’re in the workplace, neighborhood, or a social setting, talking about the person and work of Jesus doesn’t come naturally. There are some good reasons for this.
After spending almost fifteen years in creative class cities, where Christianity is typically marginalized and misunderstood, I’ve noticed that each city possesses its own unique challenges to communicating the gospel. Some of these challenges have led Christians to quiet down and let their actions do the preaching. Yet, there remains an intellectual and spiritual responsibility to communicate what we believe to those who would hear us. Whether it's cold, diverse Minneapolis, intellectually charged Boston, or creatively weird Austin, I’ve noticed that some reasons for not sharing my faith have travelled with me from city to city. In brief, I’d like to describe five reasons why I think we find it difficult to share the faith. Each reason will reflect a constructive concern and a critical response.
What if I’m Viewed as Preachy?
One of the reasons Christians find it difficult to share their faith is because we’re rightly concerned about being perceived as preachy. Preachy Christians often turn people off not onto faith in Christ. Think of Angela from The Office, the street preacher, or maybe the free speech fundamentalist yellers on campus in college. I remember watching them. They stood on a box to yell. Leading out with hell, fire, and damnation not grace, forgiveness, and salvation.
These Christians all share something in common—self-righteousness. If we’re honest, we all have a bit of this in us, but with these figures it’s amplified. We hesitate to talk about Jesus because we don’t want to be associated with them. We’re concerned it would turn others off. But preachy self-righteousness isn’t just a turn off; it’s the opposite of the gospel. This brings into focus our first, principal concern:
We should avoid preachy self-righteousness because it communicates something opposite to the gospel.
Preachy self-righteousness says: “If you perform well (morally or spiritually), God will accept you.” But the gospel says, “God already accepts you because Jesus performed perfectly on your behalf.” There’s a hell of difference between the two. The gospel sets us free from performance and releases us into the arms of grace. Self-wrought performance is a death sentence, but the obedience of Christ on our behalf is eternal life. What people need to hear is grace, audacious, seems-too-good-to-be-true but so-true-its-good, grace. Grace is God working his way down to us, so that we don’t have to work our way up to him. He comes down to us in Jesus. We need to make Jesus the stumbling block, not preachy self-righteousness or spiritual performance.
How Do We Change the "Preachy" Perception?
Now, there’s also a critical response to this concern. While it’s true that we should oppose preachy self-righteousness (because it obscures the gospel of grace), it is also true that the gospel offends our own self-righteous sensibilities. The gospel reminds us that we don’t have what it takes before a holy God, that Christ alone has what it takes, and that he’s died and risen to give it to us.
The gospel is offensive; it lifts up a mirror and shows us who we really are, but it’s also redemptive; it lifts up Christ to show us who we can become.
In the shining light of God’s glory, our darkness becomes quickly apparent. We can feel it. Deep down, something is wrong, bent, even broken. We’re in need of repair. We spend most of our lives trying to avoid this inner sense, which distorts us even more. The gospel helps us see ourselves as we are, but offers us an entirely new image, the image of the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ. If we’ll give up on ourselves and give into Jesus, he’ll exchange our darkness for his light, our distortion for his beauty. This is news worth sharing. The problem, however, isn't just that people think “preachy self-righteousness” when they hear the word “gospel.” It’s that our concern mutes the gospel. In thoughtful concern, we quiet down to let our actions do the preaching but, in the end, people hear nothing. When Christians press mute, people are left to make up their own versions of Christianity. We think our silence will remedy the perception of self-righteousness but silence, instead of sharing, does not remedy the preachy perception.
One day I was having a congenial chat with a man in Starbucks, until he asked what I was doing. I responded, “I’m working on a sermon.” He replied by waving his hands, one across another, saying “Oh, no. I don’t want to hear the sermon.” This was followed by a nervous chuckle. A sermon isn’t meant to mound up all your woes and make you feel guilt; it is meant to relieve your woes and remove your guilt through faith in Jesus. Similarly, the gospel doesn't just show us who we really are; it shows us who we can become in Christ. Sure, it lifts up a mirror but it also lifts up Christ, lifting us up with him in hope. Our concern to avoid preachy self-righteousness is good, but we have not gone far enough to remove this religious visage.
How will this incorrect view of Christianity be corrected? Actions might remedy a perception of personal self-righteousness, but they can’t correct a religious view of the gospel. Only words can clarify the meaning of the gospel. Yet, there remain more difficulties in sharing our faith. In the next article, we will consider the concern that we first have a relationship before sharing the gospel with others.
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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and has written articles in numerous blogs and journals such as The Resurgence, The Journal of Biblical Counseling, and Boundless. Dodson has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others.
Reinterpreting the Great Commission -- Part Two
This is part 2 of the 2-part series, “Reinterpreting the Great Commission” by Jonathan Dodson Gospel of Luke: Resurrection Stories Luke's commission also emphasizes preaching the gospel: "repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things" (Luke 24:47-48). In particular, we are called to preach "repentance and forgiveness of sins." A social gospel will not suffice. Christ calls us to repent — to turn our heart allegiances away from all things other, and to receive forgiveness for betraying our Creator. But a forgiven and repentant person is not idle; they are compelled to witness — to tell the story of their transformation.
Where Matthew and Mark respectively emphasize distinctive discipleship and preaching a worldly gospel, Luke calls us to witness — to tell our distinct gospel stories. No two stories are alike, but all share the same Savior. What does it mean to be "witnesses of all these things"? Well, at the very least it means sharing Jesus' self-sacrificing offer of forgiveness, but that is just one thing. What of the other things?
We are to tell of Jesus' death, but we are also to tell of his resurrection. Consider the context of Luke's commission. The eleven disciples were discussing the reliability of Jesus sightings, when suddenly Christ appeared in the room. Thinking he was a ghost, they were filled with fright. Jesus responded: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" (24:39). To make his point, Jesus proved he had a body by eating some fish and chips. In flesh and bone, Jesus charges his follower to be witnesses of his resurrection.
The problem with many of our stories is that they contain all spirit and very little flesh. We communicate our mystical encounters with God, our mountain top experiences with Jesus, and our superhuman victories over sin. Many people see right through our spiritual stories, precisely because our witness is too good to be true. We fail to mention our bad, unless it is in the past, failing further to witness of resurrection, in the present. People want to touch redemption, which means they need to see resurrection power in our personal struggles.
Jesus' body was resurrected as an expression of God's commitment to creation (1 Cor. 15). God does not jettison the body for the soul. His gospel of redemption is for the whole world, beginning with enfleshed people. His resurrection is a bright reminder of new creation in the midst of bleak darkness, of tangible transformation in gross dilapidation. The stories we tell should boast of Jesus' death and resurrection, of his forgiveness of sin and of his restoration of sinners — reconciled families and marriages, restored and housed homeless, renewed life among AIDS orphans, and so on.
According to the Gospel of Luke, we are to be witnesses of death and resurrection, to live and recount the stories of a resurrected, fleshly Jesus who lives in the midst of broken humanity offering healing and hope.
Gospel of John: Humble and Cultural Accommodation John's commission is short and sweet: "As the Father sent me, I am also sending you" (John 20:21). Whereas the previous gospel writers emphasized Jesus' command to make distinctive disciples, preach a worldly gospel, and witness a fleshly Jesus, John stresses Jesus sending his disciples. As the text continues, Jesus makes plain that the disciples are sent as a forgiving community, offering the grace they have received from him to others.
According to John Piper, we are either goers, senders, or disobedient, but according to Jesus we are all the sent. Missionary activity is not the exclusive task of people who sell all their possessions and move overseas. All followers of Jesus are called to live as missionaries in their culture. If we are all sent into our cultures as distinctive disciples to share a worldly gospel about a fleshly Christ, how then are we to live as the sent? Jesus said, "As the Father sent me, I am also sending you." Our paradigm for living a sent life, a missionary life, is the sending of the Son by the Father.
When the Father sent the Son, Jesus left the glory of his trinitarian abode and became a helpless infant in the care of humans he created. This required an accommodating humility. Jesus grew up and became a first century, toga-wearing, sandal-sporting, temple-frequenting Jew. He accommodated first century Jewish culture (also known as contextualization). So, within reason we should take on the trappings of our culture in order to contextually relate the gospel. This can entail wearing broken-in jeans, togas, hand-made sandals or a suit and tie.
However, our accommodation is not purely cultural; it is missional. It leads us to immerse ourselves into the humanity of our neighborhoods and cities in order relate the gospel to people and their needs. Being a local missionary requires more than relevant attire; it demands humility of heart to listen to the stories of others, to empathize with their frustration, suffering, and brokenness and to redemptively retell their stories through the gospel. To be sent by God is to follow the example of the incarnation, to redemptively engage others with a humble heart and cultural accommodation.
In John's commission, the paradigm of accommodating humility is accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not too holy for distinctive discipleship. After sending his disciples, Jesus breathed on them and they received the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). The power of missional living does not spring from cultural savvy or social sensitivity; it requires the otherworldly, utterly personal power of the Holy Spirit. Only the Spirit of God can make men new.
According to the Gospel of John, we have been sent as missionaries to humbly demonstrate and culturally accommodate the gospel of Christ through the power of the Spirit. In being sent, we do not abandon the cultural commission, but instead, unite it with our redemptive mission.
The Gospel of Genesis: Creation Mandate The "good news" of Genesis 1-2 is that God created all things to be enjoyed, managed, cultivated, and recreated by humanity. The gospel of Genesis 3 is that, though Adam rejected God, God did not reject Adam. Still possessing the creation mandate, Adam was expelled from Eden, but clothed with the hope of a new creation (Gen 3:15, 21).
The creation mandate charges us to be fruitful and multiply, to rule and subdue the earth. This fruitful multiplication continues both physically and spiritually through the reproducing ministry of missional disciples, who increase in number and good works (Acts 6:7; Col. 1:6, 10). These good works include ruling and subduing creation through the careful, creative arrangement of the elements of the earth into art, technology, infrastructure etc. for the flourishing of humanity. The basis for our cultural activity is found in Genesis.
Retaining the cultural impulse of Genesis, the Gospels call us to a missional discipleship that entails creation care, cultural engagement, social action, and gospel proclamation. Missional disciples will not content themselves by preaching a culturally irrelevant, creation indifferent, resurrection neglecting message. Instead, they redemptively engage peoples and cultures through Christ for the renewal of his creation.
By digging deeper into the great commissions, we have unearthed a wealth of cultural and theological insight. This rereading of familiar evangelistic texts has demonstrated that God in Christ has called us not to mere soul-winning, but to distinctive discipleship, to heralding a worldly gospel of a fleshly Christ who humbly accommodates human culture and understands the human condition. These commissions call us to missional discipleship — to redemptive engagement with all peoples and cultures.
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NOTES
- It is certainly possible that there are more commissions. In fact, the Abrahamic covenant in Gen 12:1-3 contains a programmatic mandate for all of Scripture: Go and God will make you a blessing to the nations, which is progressively manifested in making a new people of God, comprised of Jews and Gentiles.
- It too is variously repeated in the Old Testament, upwards of 20 times, e.g. Gen. 9:1,7; 17:2-6; 26:3; 28:3; Ex. 1:7; Ezek. 36:11; Jer. 23:3.
- Andrew Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 51. The original Greek reading of Matt. 28:18 is literally "disciple all ethne" or "make disciples all nations" and does not contain a preposition. However, the grammatical construction of the phrase leads to an "of" reading, not a "from" or "in" reading.
- It is widely recognized that this verse and the latter portion of Mark's gospel (16:9-20) is absent from many Marcan manuscripts. However, we can not be certain that the ending is missing from the original text. If it was absent, our point concerning the "worldly gospel" of Mark still stands in that Mark repeatedly depicts Jesus as the Restorer of creation: driving out demons, healing the sick, resurrecting the dead, calming the sea.
Reinterpreting the Great Commission - Part One
There's a good chance you've misinterpreted the Great Commission. Jesus' command to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:18-20) is frequently summoned to validate countless evangelism programs. Great Commission flags are planted at end of sentences and sermons in order to summit all kinds of discipleship agendas. What was the agenda of Jesus in giving these commissions to the church? What if the Great Commission means something different or deeper than we imagined? In order to mine the meaning of the Great Commission, I propose we read all five commissions together.1 The four commissions in the NT are actually variations of the same mandate (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:48-49/Acts 1:8; John 20:21), each issued by Jesus, emphasizing a slightly different aspect of what it means to be a disciple. The operative verbs in these NT commissions are: make disciples, preach, witness, and send. They are gospel mandates. The OT commission, frequently referred to as the creation or cultural mandate, was issued by God before the Fall of humanity, emphasizing creative activity with the following verbs: be fruitful, multiply, rule, and subdue (Gen 1.27-28).2 It is a creative mandate. Did the Great Commission swallow the Cultural Mandate? Are these commissions at odds?
Make Culture or Make Disciples? A surface reading of these Old and New Testament texts certainly seems to pose two different mandates: one for culture-making and the other for disciple-making. In Genesis it would seem that the purpose of humanity is to produce people and culture, whereas the Gospels appear to advocate pulling away from people and culture. As a result, many choose one reading over the other, disciple-making or culture-making, soul-winning or social action. Depending on which we choose, we may end up leaning "liberal" or "conservative". Misinterpretation over the Great Commission has lead to a great divide between Christians. The gospel actually bridges this divide. We need to allow both Genesis and the Gospels to speak into our understanding of Jesus' great commission. In fact, reading the gospel commissions in light of the cultural commission reveals a multi-layered, mandate. When read in stereo, these commissions transmit a mission much bigger than we might have imagined.
The rest of this article will move beyond poverty-ridden proof texts into the wealth of the biblical commissions. This will require confrontation with the Bible's demands to make culture and disciples, to care for creation and be agents of new creation. As a result, we will be challenged to understand and embrace discipleship as more than spiritual disciplines or evangelistic programs. We will see that Scripture calls us to missional discipleship, a following after Jesus that requires redemptive engagement not just with souls but with creation and culture.
Gospel of Matthew: Distinctive Discipleship Part of what makes the Great Commission great is its scope. When Jesus said: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" he was orienting a primarily Jewish audience to a distinctly multi-ethnic mission. Ralph Winter pointed out that this is not calling Christians to Christianize nation-states, but to evangelize particular ethnic groups. We get the word, "ethnic" from the Greek word for nations, which refers not to modern geo-political states, but instead to non-Jewish ethnic groups (aka Gentiles). In other words, Christ does not advocate Christendom, a top-down political Christianity. Instead, in affirmation of the cultural mandate, he calls his followers to transmit a bottom-up, indigenous Christianity, to all peoples in all cultures.
In light of the cultural orientation of discipleship, Andrew Walls makes an interesting observation. He points out that the command in Matthew is to make disciples of all nations not from all nations. What's the difference? If we interpret the command as "make disciples from ethnic groups", then one could easily misconstrue the commission as a command to remove disciples from their culture. However, if his command means to "make disciples of all nations", the command implies we are meant to make disciples within their culture. Is the gospel meant to rescue disciples from their cultures or from their sin? Is the Great Commission meant to quarantine Christians from the world in order to create one vast Christian subculture? Not at all. Walls comments:
Conversion to Christ does not produce a bland universal citizenship: it produces distinctive discipleship, as diverse and variegated as human life itself. Christ in redeeming humanity brings, by the process of discipleship, all the richness of humanity's infinitude of cultures and subcultures into the variegated splendor of the Full Grown Humanity to which the apostolic literature points (Eph 4.8-13).3
What we should strive for is distinctive discipleship, discipleship that uniquely expresses personal faith in each disciple's cultural context. As a result, disciples in urban Manhattan will look different than disciples in rural Maehongson. They speak different languages, worship in different buildings, eat different foods, and encounter different challenges. These differences allow for a flourishing of the gospel that contributes to the many-splendored new humanity of Christ. Matthew's commission calls us to make disciples that reveal the various beauties of Christ across cultures. Jesus' command is neither soul-centered not culture-centered but gospel-centered. When the gospel is transmitted within nations, it will produce culturally diverse, distinctive disciples.
According to the Gospel of Matthew, distinctive disciples are those who who, in following Jesus, refuse a one-sided, soul-centered gospel, and instead live out faith in context. The distinctive disciple retains the image of Adam — a culture maker — while growing in the image of Christ and becoming a disciple-maker.
Gospel of Mark: A Worldly Gospel Mark's commission reads: "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation" (Mk. 16:15).4 Where Matthew emphasizes the action of making distinctive disciples, Mark stresses the importance of preaching to all creation.
When Jesus used the word "preach" he did not mean converse. The Greek word for preach always carries a sense of urgency and gravity. What is to be proclaimed is of great importance. In Mark's case, it is the gospel that is of utmost importance. This gospel is to be proclaimed to "the whole creation." We might say it is a worldly gospel.
The Greek word for "creation" can be used both broadly and narrowly, referring to the cosmos or to people. Given Mark's context, it should be taken broadly, referring to the world, its peoples and its cultures. Preaching the gospel of Christ has cosmic implications. So it is with Paul: "this gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister" (Col. 1:23). Paul perceives himself as an announcer of a worldly, Christ-centered gospel. Jesus has reconciled all things to himself, whether on earth or in heaven (Col. 1:20). Paul preaches with Mark's great commission emphasis — preaching for the redemption of all creation.
Interestingly, while this worldly gospel saves, it also condemns. In Mark, Jesus explains that not all will believe this grand Story or receive its great Savior: "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned" (Mk. 16:16). Mark's commission reveals the divisive nature of the gospel. For some it brings life; for others it acknowledges death, but all are to be given the opportunity to be written into the story of God's redemption.
As with Matthew, the scope of God's redemptive activity is important. From the beginning, God's design for creation was for it to flourish and become inhabitable. Outside of Eden, the earth was uninhabitable. Humanity was charged with the task of caring for the earth and creating culture, making the uninhabitable habitable.
Adam failed to trust God with this task and sought to rule not only over creation, but also over God. As a result, the creation project was subjected to sin and calamity (Rom. 8:20). Israel followed in Adam's footsteps. Then came Jesus. Jesus preached a worldly gospel, a restorative message that put the creation project back on track. His glorified, resurrection body is clearly proof of the new creation to come. He redeems both physically and spiritually.
Just prior to ascending to heaven, Jesus told those who believe that they will be given power to heal the sick, restore the demon-possessed, and to speak new languages (Mk. 16:17-18). This worldly gospel is for the redemption and renewal of the earth, the body, the heart, the mind, and the cultures of the world. It is a saving message that rescues people from their unbelief, not their world, and reconciles their alienation from one another, their world, and their Creator.
According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus died to bring life to all creation, to restore the environment, renew cultures and remake peoples, spiritually and physically. We are called to preach a worldly gospel.