Evangelism Today -- Asking the Right Questions

Many churches are still using evangelism methods that reflect a Christendom culture of the twentieth century. Years ago I was trained in the Kennedy “Evangelism Explosion” technique that centered around a key question asked after building a trusting relationship: “If you were to die today, could you say for sure that you would go to heaven?” The standard response to that question was “Well, I hope so. I’ve tried to be good.” Or, “I don’t know if anyone can say that for sure.” To which the evangelist would reply “Well, I’ve got good news for you.” and then proceed with a grace based presentation of the gospel.

As time went on, I saw a change in the respondent’s answers. Faithful Christians still answered “Yes,” but an increasing number of people would simply say, “To tell you the truth, I haven’t thought much about it.”

Research commissioned by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Church now backs up my observation. (See chart below)
People’s spiritual concerns seem no longer to be focused on the traditional concepts of sin and death, heaven and hell. Instead, they seem more focused on this life and finding meaning and purpose in their daily existence. (See chart below)It is easy to complain about “Whatever happened to sin?’ or declare this a shift to self-centered consumer society, but the truth is that “How can I find more meaning and purpose in my life?” remain relational and missional issues, and the good news we have to offer lies in our relationship with Christ and our participation in His mission in this world.

An old tool in the sin/heaven approach was something called “The Four Spiritual Laws,” an evangelism tool used for years, but not very effective today. Not long ago, someone devised a new tool called “The Big Story” that is based on the relational/missional model. Take a look at part one and part two below.


These are not the final answer, but they mark a step along the way to asking the right questions for a new time.
Addendum: A new tool getting good reviews in Reformed circles is the EvangeCube. It is graphically intriguing, but is basically the old "four laws" approach. Compare this approach with the ones you have just watched. Which do you think would be more effective among unchurched people that you know?

Leaders and Managers

One of the distinctions that many people seem to miss is the important distinction between a leader and a manager. The key, I suppose, is that leaders deal with people, while managers deal with projects. Often a person is chosen to lead because he or she has the ability to “get the job done.” Expect that person to be a good manager. A leader will first help everyone see what the job is that must be done, then inspire the people to use heir gifts to accomplish the job.

I ran across the brief, simple video below that is full of short quotes and wonderful ideas about the qualities of leadership. It’s worth taking a few minutes to watch.

Easter "Wordle"

"Wordle"s are word cloud pictures computer generated from any text according to a formula weighted by the number of times a word is used in a text. You can create your own Wordle at http://www.wordle.net (click here).

At Christmas I did a Wordle of Luke 2 and discovered that it was filled with the ordinary: place names, people’s names, the story of God coming down into ordinary life.

I thought I would do the same for Easter, and the result is the Wordle above of Matthew 28:1-10. Not many names and places this time. The big word was a human condition—“afraid.” That was followed by “Jesus” and “tomb”. (an empty one) And the next were calls to missionary action: “see” “go” and “tell”.

In this time of many fears, the message clear: He is risen. The tomb is empty. Now SEE … GO … TELL.

Who is Fighting the "Worship Wars"?

One of my “Christmas books” that I am just getting to finish was a recent paperback by Gary Nelson entitled Borderland Churches: A Congregation’s Introduction to Missional Living.
The book is about missional living on the congregational level, about the church engaging the culture that surrounds it in the borderland between faith and unbelief. For the church to live out its mission in the borderlands, we will have to understand that the mission field isn’t over there, it’s in our back yard. Borderland ministries, to be faithfully relevant, must move from a “come to” (attractional) understanding to a “go to” (incarnational) one. Borderland ministry requires a great deal of willingness to embrace radical change. But to those of us who preach change, he warns this call to change is not mere tinkering. True change, he points out moves beyond the superficial, beyond simply changing the style of music, to changing attitudes and presuppositions. He particularly speaks to the time and effort those of us in established denominations have spent in fighting the “worship wars”…

Learning to sing in this strange time has little to do with choruses or hymns. The cosmetic worship changes of the last decades of church life, while at times helpful, have also proven distracting. The desire to be more appealing and relevant in the rhythms of our worship to those who live in the borderlands is genuine. For some churches, altering our songs of worship was the beginning of a journey toward relevance and impact. However, the worship wars of the last two decades of the twentieth century were moments of trivial pursuit. They placed simplistic and shallow characteristics on people outside the influence of the church, making it sound too often as if borderland people were simply sitting at home on Sunday waiting for us as the church to change our worship. If it only changed, they would come. If we seek to engage people in meaningful dialog, we must engage them at deeper ;levels. Borderland people are not superficial. They are unlikely to be drawn into our world by the simple alteration of our music. Your next-door neighbor is not likely to be asking why you do not sing choruses. People searching spiritually are not agonizing over the hardness of our pews. Many of them are simply living in the sincere belief that they have found a much more meaningful way to live their lives on Sunday, let alone Monday and beyond. The song we must learn to sing is much more profound than a chorus or a hymn. It is about attitudes and presuppositions. It is about atmosphere where we offer genuine community and authentic relationships. The song seeks to answer the question of what it means to be the church relevantly in this context and these times. Trapped in our memories, we only hinder the sense of urgency required to initiate change. P. 17

Exponential Change and Luther's Catechism

Attached below is what I think is the latest edition of the “Did You Know 3.0” video. I say I think it is the latest edition because it deals with exponential change, and by the time it is published it is out of date.

The video ends with the question, ”What does this mean?” Keep it in mind as you watch the video. You will enjoy it. If nothing else, it will give you some sermon illustrations or interesting facts to share with your friends.

What does this mean? The answer to that is a complex one. For some it means the world is going crazy. For others, it means we live in an exciting time of change and cultural revolution. I lean towards the latter, though sometimes fear the former. Leadership Network recently published a chart of how people adopt change.

In a time of exponential change, the wave of change moves faster. Perhaps most of us –even the early adapters – never catch up. By the time the smartest people have figured out what is happening in the economy, the culture, the church, it has already happened and something new is on its way. Long range planning as we used to know it, must take on a different face. More time is spent in preparing than planning--preparing through establishing our core values, our mission, our giftedness that will enable us to serve, witness and re-form ourselves as God’s people in the steady stream of change.

Beyond that, “What does this mean?” strikes my Lutheran mind as a typical Lutheran catechetical question that is always answered within the gracious will and work of God in Jesus Christ. And so, facing the future of change, one says with Luther …

Thy will be done.
What does this mean?: The good and gracious will of God is done, indeed, without our prayers, but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also.

Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
What does this mean? The kingdom of God comes, indeed, without our prayers, but we pray in this petition that it may come among us also.

Oh, yes … “This is most certainly true.”

Reggie McNeal: Missional Renaissance -- A Review

Reggie McNeal’s latest book is certain to become a primary resource for those who want to learn and to teach others about the missional church movement. It is a “must read” for anyone interested in the direction of ministry in the twenty-first century.

If you know Reggie or have heard him speak, you know that he is a gifted communicator, able not only to convey complex ideas in a “down-home” style, but also capable of anticipating the audience’s questions and objections, even the ones they are sometimes afraid to ask.

McNeal had three goals in writing the book. CLICK HERE or on the picture below to hear them in his own words.

McNeal’s first goal was to set forth the language and definition of the missional church. Those not familiar with the missional church movement will find in this book a clear, practical, Biblical, understandable statement of what it means to be “missional”. They will also find someone who understands their fear of change, anticipates their questions, and gives practical guidance for taking a step at a time. Those who are already well read in the subject will find not a lot of new concepts. McNeal builds on the work of people like Bosch, Guder, Newbigin, Hunsberger, Frost and Hirsch and others, but he does it with a style that is his own and that brings new clarity to what may be already familiar ideas. He recognizes that the “missional renaissance” has as much to do with ecclesiology as it does missiology, and he addresses both with integrity.
His second goal was to set forth a clear path and compass settings for the missional journey. This he does by outlining three missional shifts:

Missional Shift 1: From an Internal to an External Focus

• Shifting from a "member culture" to a "missionary culture."
• Refocusing and reallocating resources (prayer, people, calendar/time, finances, facilities, and technology) for missional impact. This is really about stewardship, although he doesn’t use the word.

Missional Shift 2: From Program Development to People Development

• “Are people better off for being part of this church, or are they just tireder and poorer?”
• Seeing the world as the shaping ground for spiritual formation, not the inside of the church.
• Moving from mass standardization of programs to mass customization of discipleship.
• "The missional church assumes that service to others is the first step, not some latter expression of spirituality."

Missional Shift 3: From Church-Based to Kingdom-Based Leadership
The leader must deal with…

• Paradigm issues (How the leader sees the world)
• Microskill development (Competencies the leader needs)
• Resource management (What the leader has to work with)
• Personal Growth (The leader as a person.)

His final goal was to establish a score card for measuring progress on the missional journey. His inclusion of suggested metrics to assess missional faithfulness and vitality is something that s missing in most other books on the missional church. Those metrics make a unique contribution to the literature. For years we have measured our faithfulness and vitality in terms of growth of attendance, budget, programs, What happens if we measure vitality in terms of the growth of people, service, prayer, outreach? McNeal would have us move from measuring how we are doing church to how we are blessing our communities.

Get a copy of this book and read it. It is a good one.

Internet Evangelism

God has given his church a wonderful gift in the internet, and slowly we are beginning to learn to use it. But change comes hard for the church, and often our use of the internet follows the same rules we have been using with print media for several years, and our audience continues to be confined to an exclusive audience of those within the church, or even our own congregation.

I look at a lot of church web sites and a growing number of Facebook groups, and I continue to observe how many say things like “This group is designed to provide information and discussion for members and friends of St. John’s-by-the-gas-station Church.” The web site or Facebook group is full of announcements, inside chatter, and pictures of the latest Youth Group car wash,

Increasingly, however, some are using the internet as a means of outreach to their community. Their websites are inclusive, rather than exclusive. They meet people where they are, rather than fitting them into the program and schedule of the church. They invite people to share their needs, their prayer requests, their questions. And they reach out to help these people in word and deed with the love and mercy of Christ.

A web site called “Internet Evangelism Day” has assembled a broad array of resources for congregations looking to use the internet in outreach and is setting April 26 as “Internet Evangelism Day,” Watch the video below, and then check out the web site (CLICK HERE)

A good place for any congregation to start is with an assessment of its web site. The movement to a blog or to Facebook or Twitter shifts the approach from a standardized message on a fixed platform to a more customized approach to individuals. Another avenue being explored by some, including my own denomination, is outreach through Second Life, the virtual world community. Second Life enables one to actually plant a congregation and hold worship services in this virtual world. See the video below for an example. As it stands now, Second Life has (in my opinion) a rather demanding learning curve and an aura of mystery that limits it from really taking off. As the developers work to make it more user-friendly, it will become a fertile field for outreach.