EVANGELISM IS NOT SALESMANSHIP
Recently we have seen lots of articles about the fall in church membership and the rise of those who claim that they are spiritual but not religious. The rise in anxiety among denominations and churches can easily cause them to forget that Jesus was not a slick salesman. Anthony B Robinson, a United Church of Christ pastor, in a Christian Century article on April 27, raised the question of whether we have become a victim of our consumerist society. The task is not to develop better techniques to convince people to join the church. The task is to remind ourselves about who we are as a church. Jesus did not build a slick sales force to convince the world of his superior ideas. Rather, he sought to build a community of disciples who had experienced the presence of God through him.
FIRST STEP IN EVANGELISM
The first step in spreading the Good News is to identify how we have experienced Good News in our life. Here is a brief exercise. Take a piece of paper and draw on it seven concentric circles inside each other. Now let the center circle represent approximately the first fifteen years or so in your life. Then divide the rest of your life in segments represented by the next six circles. Try to think of one incident, person, or event in each segment that significantly altered your view or understanding of yourself and your life. Not all events may have been positive, but all of them helped to shape who you are today. Now, assuming that God was at work shaping your life, what was God trying to say to you through those events, persons, or ideas? That is the first step in understanding the Go0d News you have to share.
SECOND STEP IN EVANGELISM
Because we live in an age of individualism, as represented in the increasing number of people who want to claim that they are spiritual but not religious, the next step is to learn how to articulate how you have experienced God’s Good News in the Body of Christ–the church. Again, you should operate out of your own personal experience. Try to form answers to some of the following questions for yourself.
- What has happened in your church experience that has helped you link the human and the divine dimensions of life?
- How does belonging to the church help you to confirm and strengthen your personal faith?
- How has the sometimes uneven experience in the church been used by God to stretch and strengthen your faith?
- In what way does the church offer a healing experience that is beyond what the individual can obtain just through personal effort?
- How does participation in community worship differ from and add to what is gained through private prayer?
- If someone should point out that the church is full of a group of hypocrites, what biblical examples can you give that from the beginning God chose to work through less than perfect people and communities? And why would God choose to work that way?
- If you are saved by faith and not by works, purity of doctrine, acts of piety, or innocence, how does accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and belonging to the Body of Christ connect?
In answering these and similar questions, you are building up your awareness of how Good News has worked in your community experience of the church. When you talk to others about the faith, you are speaking out of your own experience. If you are going to speak to someone about a beautiful waterfall, it helps if you have seen that waterfall for yourself.
In the next blog, we will talk more about how you move to sharing that Good News with others.
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