Go out into the world...

In a society which has been captured by a horizontal view of reality, there is a hunger for the experience of wonder and awe. When a person speaks of an experience of grace, not as a possession but in wonder and awe that it has touched them, there is a special power to their sharing.

Liz, who could not have been more than 30 years of age, stood up to speak. It was clear that she was nervous. “Tonight I can tell you that I have not had any drugs for one year.” Then, with a sense of wonder in her voice, she continued, “You know, that is the first time that I could say that in the last fifteen years.” It was not a sense of pride in her accomplishment with which Liz spoke but rather with a tinge of amazement in her voice that this gift had been given to her. We knew the grace of God in her presence.

In a society which holds a great antipathy for authoritarianism, the church needs to be sensitive to the way we proclaim the Word. The authority which is most readily received in our society is the authority of experience if it is claimed and not imposed.

If you were having problems relating to one of your teenage daughters and I told you that you should go to church and that would help heal the divide, you might well think that I did not have a clue to what was going on in your family and that my suggestion was worthless. On the other hand, if I shared with you that when I was having trouble reaching my daughter, I had the marvelous experience of being able to talk to another teenager who was part of my church and she gave me some very helpful insight, then you might see the healing possibilities of a church. “To be saved…is to enter into a new relationship with God and fellow human beings in the community of God’s people here and now.” (Christian Doctrine, revised edition, Shirley Gutherie, p 355)

Ted had been very frightened when he was told that he had cancer. While he had never tried to persuade his wife not to go to church and to please her had even occasionally accompanied her on Easter or some other special Sunday, he had never seen the church as important in his life. Yet, almost immediately upon news of his cancer, cards began to arrive in the mail from members of the church. Often, a note would be included and several times it was mentioned that they had prayed for him in church.

Finally he asked his wife about it and discovered that he was regularly named in the prayers for the sick. Since somehow he had concluded that church was more for women than men, he was surprised that some of the men of the congregation occasionally called and asked if they could visit. One of the special visits was from a business colleague of his who came and during the visit had hesitantly asked if he could have prayer with him. It dawned on Ted that the man was very uncomfortable in asking but had done it anyway and the prayer, while simple in form, had reached in and touched Ted’s very soul. It was a few days later that it suddenly dawned on Ted that from that moment on he was no longer afraid and that was the beginning of his healing.

The issue of telling others of the salvation that we have experienced being fleshed out in church life requires us to be sensitive to the context in which we speak. While we live in a highly individualistic society, there is also an extreme hunger for community. In two surveys of inactive Presbyterians when asked “If a good friend asked you to go along to church one Sunday, how likely would you be to go with your friend?” an astonishing 86% responded either “very likely” or “somewhat likely.”

Yet that same hunger for community exists in tension with a fear of close relationships. Evangelism, the effective sharing of Good News, cannot be a numbers recruitment program. It must flow out from a person who is genuinely interested in relating to the person with whom they are talking so that their fears can be calmed and their loneliness overcome.

There is a great hesitancy within our society to make commitments. Therefore the church must be patient with those who hesitantly seek to experience community within their midst. Many who risk considering the church experience carry with them deep wounds of the past. Often they are wounds inflicted upon them by past church experiences, but they may be even wounds incurred in nonchurch incidents in their past which make them wary of any community experience.

The church needs to reconsider what it means to be a member and provide a comfortable space for those who are hesitant to make the commitment to membership. There needs to be a way for the community of faith to demonstrate the gift of hospitality to the stranger which can enable them to rest at the inn until their wounds are healed. Like the Good Samaritan, we must be willing to pay the price of their care until they are able to resume their journey.

Beginning tomorrow, I will try to provide a concrete example of how this might take place,

The unique perspective on the world that the church provides is often overlooked even by those who experience it. The church needs to be conscious of the importance of making space for people to honestly struggle with their own issues. Even when these saving possibilities are experienced, people have often lost the language by which they can be named. Because we live in a secular society, it is important that we provide for the congregation the language by which people might understand what is in fact taking place in their midst. It is equally important that such experiences be lifted up and celebrated so that they become part of our common story. It is only out of such a conscious awareness and celebration that people become aware of what they have to share.

People outside the church often seem to encounter one of two types of people in the church. They either meet people who overspeak the faith and rob it of all mystery or those who are too embarrassed to make the faith connection with what is happening within their lives. Those who overspeak often seem to hide behind religious language in a way that often makes it difficult for the listener to make connection with what is happening in their own lives. Yet those who underspeak do not allow the listener to understand what is indeed taking place in their lives. And the key to effective sharing of Good News is that it comes out of the felt experience of the believer and that it takes place in a community which can be pointed to.

It is important to recognize that often the church has a reputation of not being open to exploring the deeper issues which give life meaning. Too often we are experienced as wanting to impose a set of answers before we have even fully understood the questions. It is important to approach this very real concern from two different perspectives. First, those who are active in the church need to set their fears aside and learn to trust that when they sincerely approach the questions of life, Christ can address them in fresh ways.

Second, however, we need to recognize that even in the most fearful of churches, there are aspects of their life together which do allow for the probing for deeper meaning. Within the liturgical community there is a language that can enable people to look at their life from a perspective outside of their life. To praise God is to be reminded that God is Lord of the world. To confess sins is to remember that we are more than our sins. To pray for those in Iraq or Darfur is to put our personal struggles in perspective. Scripture reminds us that the great questions of life have been struggled with before. The offering is a visible sign of our commitment to reach beyond ourselves. Hymns and anthems integrate feelings into our faith expression. A benediction opens us to the blessings of our life.

So the first task of a church in preparation for evangelism is to help people recognize the Good News that we experience and have to share. We need to reflect on and provide concrete examples of how the Body of Christ feeds the hungers of the world.

For example, in a world marked by greed and excessive materialism, the church provides a means to reflect on stewardship. In a world that hungers for experiences of intimacy, the church has a unique vision of community which cuts across age, economic, racial and cultural divisions. In an age whose spirit has been numbed by the artificiality of high-voltage entertainment provided by specialists, the church offers the experience of worship that enables ordinary participants to offer praise to a different audience.

In an age that exhibits a fear of commitment and mistrust of community, the church offers the concept of covenant. In a time when people feel crushed by the pressures of time, the church proposes a rhythm which centers on the issue of the Sabbath. In a world which is continually torn apart by conflict and violence, the church is invited to witness to how a people are able to confront difficult issues united by Christ as their peace. In a world that often is in such a rush that it does not pause to dip below the surface, the church provides the opportunity to explore the deeper issues which give life meaning and hope.

This is not to deny that Christ can work beyond the church and address people outside the church. While God can and does work saving reality outside the church, it is the church that has been provided the language by which such experiences can both be interpreted and integrated into the whole story of God. It is in the church that we become connected to God’s larger story. Paul, having experienced his Damascus Road revelation, still continued to be blind until he was able to make connection with Ananias who was part of the continuing community of faith. It may have begun as an individual experience but it had to become corporate to find its completion. (Acts 9:1-19)

The key is that people who accept Christ as their Savior must be prepared to meet and be addressed by Christ in the continuing Body on earth. It is by the language of faith that we are given the eyes to see what God is doing in the Body of Christ. Church members must “have a belief that the church has a message that is both meaningful and challenging.” (Vital Signs; p. 111) It is there in the church, through Scripture, tradition, ritual, and prayer that Christ reveals to them the meaning of the events of their lives. It is only when they have recognized that what is happening in their lives is meaningful that they will feel an urgency to share that same experience with others for whom they care. “Growing churches believe their church has something to say and offer. Therefore they invite people to church.”

Without a community we do not have a place to which we can bring someone to share in the experience of Good News. We only have an idea which can be debated, dissected or combined with other self-help ideas to improve your life. Of course some will object that they have not experienced any Good News in their church and in fact have experienced some really painful bad news or at best some very boring, life-draining news. But this is a result of a misunderstanding of the nature of the church. As Karl Barth has reminded us, the Word of God is embedded in the all too apparent “fallenness” of our society in which the church is a full participant. It is an ecclesiological doceticism to assume that for the church to be a proper witness, it must be superior to the world in which it exists. (Church Dogmatics; Karl Barth, Volume 4.3; pp. 723-725)

The Good News of Christ was not revealed in a world of comfort and pleasant experiences. In many cases it required great personal sacrifice and pain - Bad News - in order for people to experience the fullness of the Good News of Christ. In brutal terms Jesus is quoted in Luke saying, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27) It is not that the church should deliberately be a painful experience but that even in those painful moments, moments when the church or person is being disobedient to their Lord, still Christ can address you in a way that enables you to experience Good News in your life.

We are rapidly experiencing our third disestablishment or loss of power as a church that is more cultural in nature. If the churches can no longer count on legal support and also have competition in spreading their message, now they cannot count on a friendly cultural environment to reinforce their message either. From children’s soccer leagues to working hours at stores and restaurants, the church has competition for its time. If a person makes a choice to become an active Christian, they do so in a culture which not only does not support that choice but at times is hostile to the practices that reinforce that faith. (See Sydney Mead’s The Lively Experiment; Harper and Row, 1983 and Robert Handy’s A Christian America; NY: Oxford Universeity Press, 1984)

One might hazard the suggestion that we are also experiencing a fourth disestablishment which might be called ecclesiastical. It is no longer assumed that the church is necessary for the practice of one’s faith. In some ways this is the most dangerous disestablishment of all. In its beginning the church lacked legal, religious and cultural support and yet it flourished. In fact the church has often been at its best under circumstances of persecution. But the faith has never flourished independent of the community.

At least two factors have contributed to this fourth disestablishment. The first factor is the distortion of the belief that you are saved by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. The cultural assumption, based on the principle emphasized by Protestants that you are saved by faith and not by works, is that salvation is the result of a mental decision. If you say in your mind that you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then your ticket to salvation is purchased and will always be honored. This mental act does not require a community in which you “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12)

The second factor is that we have come to assume that Christianity is an idea and ideas do not require embodiment in the lives of a community. If truth is an idea, theoretically you could come to such a truth even though there was no practice of that truth in existence. You could discover that truth in your own mind and hold on to it as your personal possession. In contrast, Scripture declares that God was revealed not as an idea but as an act that was experienced. In the Hebrew Scriptures God is not discussed theoretically but is experienced because God chooses to act in relation to a people. Christianity emerged in this world in the body of an actual historical person who related to other people in a manner that revealed truth. The church, as the Body of Christ, becomes God’s chosen instrument by which that Good News continues to be experienced and therefore revealed in the world.