Daniel Darling's Blog, page 76

How God Uses Relationships to Make You Better

Everyone wants to be better. Self-improvement gurus call it, well, self-improvement. Wise people and many in the church call it growth. The Bible calls this process sanctification. And for the Christian, sanctification is not merely the process by which you become a nice, better person. Pretty much all religions and even quasi-non religions do that. Even Richard Dawkins, I’m thinking, is okay with growth.

Sanctification is something deeper, better, richer. The Bible asserts a bold idea that Christians–those who believe, know and follow Jesus Christ–have something deeper going onside them. They have God in them through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Christianity, at it’s truest form, is not really about getting better by self-improvement, but about dying to your old self and seeing the life of Christ form in you. It’s a spiritual thing. It’s a supernatural thing. But how does God accomplish this? Or, perhaps a better question, what tools does God use?

Well, we know first of all that the agent of change is the Holy Spirit. And we know that He uses the Word of God to penetrate our hearts, cut us deep, and bring about change. The Word delivered, both in private reading and corporate preaching, brings about renewed thinking and renewed thinking brings about new behaviors, new loves, new affections.

But there is another tool that we often overlook, a powerful factor in sanctification. We change through God-ordained, dynamic relationships. In fact, I might argue that relationships, outside of the Word itself, are the primary instrument by which God changes us. This is why the New Testament is pretty clear that faith in Christ is best lived out in community.

Let me explain this. When I was a single guy, I thought I was a pretty spiritual guy. I did my devotions every day. I was faithful attending church. I read widely. But then I got married. This new relationship, a daily, 24 hour/7 days a week committment to another person, revealed areas of sin and selfishness I didn’t know I had. And my committment to my marriage forced me to change. In other words, God used my wife, who is very different than me, to change me. As a husband, I’m forced to adapt to Angela. I have to die to some of my needs and desires. I have to repent, daily, of sins against her and have to forgive, daily her sins against me. I grow. I change. And ten years later, though far, far from perfect, I’m an altogether different man.

This process only ramped up when I had children. Four of them. They test my patience, my leadership, reveal further selfishness and sins in me. And so the process of sanctification grows. And in much smaller ways, God has used coworkers, staffers, colleagues, family members, even those who’ve hurt me. They are not here by accidents, but are instruments of sanctification for my good.

Community is where the gospel is most lived out. Every day you rub up against certain people who are different than you. And you have to love, tolerate, forgive, repent. You have to adapt, sacrifice and grow.

Now you might say that this process is the same for those who are not Christians and to a certain extent that is true. But for believers, we have the Spirit in us, convicting us of our sin. We have the gospel dynamic in our relationships, motivating and empower us to forgiveness and grace.

Why does this matter? This matters because it affects our perspective. We should see other people in our lives not as irritants, but as divine tools sent by God for our sanctification. So that irascible boss–perhaps God put him in your world to chip off parts of your old self that needed chipping off. That troublesome child that tests your patience. Perhaps its God wanting to work on your heart and soul to bear the fruits of the Spirit.

Every single relationship for a Christian is an opportunity for sanctification and growth. This is why the idea of Western individual spirituality–me and God–actually hurts the process of change.

Why You Need Your Church Every Week

We live in an age when, increasingly, people are asking the question, “Do we need to gather on Sunday mornings for worship anymore?” It’s a valid question. After all, isn’t there a plethora of good sermon content online? Aren’t there churches that actually offer online services? And isn’t it possible to read your Bible, pray, and perhaps listen/watch/read a sermon at home?

The truth is that you can experience some of what you get at church at home. You’ll likely find a better message by listening to one of the popular preachers. You’ll might carve out more time to pray by staying at home. And you can even roll up your sleeves and get involved in works of service in your local community rather than going to church. You can even worship and sing in your shower.

Yes, to all of those. And yet, this kind of attitude really misses the point when it comes to church. At church we do hear a message preached from a pastor. And we do pray and sing and serve. But that’s not all church is about. There is more than simply what we “get out” of a Sunday morning.

I call it body life. Some call it community. Regardless, you cannot replace that at home. You cannot get that at a conference. You cannot get that online. The truth is that God has wired us, created us, for commnity. And when God ordained the Church, calling out a special people for His name, you will notice that God didn’t call a “person”, but called a “people.” Our American Western individualism causes us to skip right over the plural aspect of the Christian faith.

In the Old Testament, God called out a people. In the New Testament, God called out a people. Read the Psalms, notice how often worship is spoken of us in a corporate context. Notice how often you find third person plural pronouns. It’s the same in the New Testament. The commands, the calls to worship, the theology. It was delivered to a people, not to a person.

Why is this? Because we grow best in community. When God’s people are gathered from every nation, tribe and tongue, when people of diverse social standing and race and financial status are put together by the Holy Spirit, something wonderful and powerful happens. We change. We learn from each other. We become family.

This is why it is so important to not simply be a token participant in your local church, but a full-on, all-in member. That means you attend as often as you physically can. That means you go to most of the events. Even the potlucks and the seemingly non-essential things. Why? Because you’re part of a local body, part of a family. We are all sacrificing time, energy, passion, and the best of our lives for Christ. And, here’s the big one, when God’s people gather corporately every week to bow their heads and lift up their hands in worship, it says something. It’s a powerful statement about who God is and who we are. It sends a loud message to our part of the world. Yes there is a God and yes we consider Him transcendant and holy and worthy of our deepest adoration.

We miss something when we check in on Sunday and then check out right after the service. We miss when we stay home and watch it online. We miss something when do a lot of Christian, churchy type stuff, but don’t actually attend church on Sunday. We miss the life of the body of Christ.

Church isn’t simply for self-improvement (I got nothing out of the message last week. I wish the music wasn’t so loud. Did you see that kid in the third row who was making all that noise?). Church isn’t just so I can change and be better at my job and my marriage and my golf game. It’s body life. And if you’re not all in, my friend, you’re missing out.

Writing, like anything worth doing, takes work . . . and love

I’m often asked by beginning writers how to “get started” in writing. How to get published. How to get that book on the shelves of Barnes and Noble. They assume I’m an expert, which I’m most assuredly not.

Nonetheless, I have been writing for a while and here is my advice: Writing takes talent, yes, but is mostly the combination of a lot of work and a little love.

I remember when I first got out of college and dreamt of being a writer. I had dreamy notions of a cabin in the mountains or a house by the beach. I’d listen to my favorite music and pound out thousands of words of beautiful prose every single day. I’d have publishers lining up outside my door and I’d be doing book tours, morning television, and would be an evangelical bestselling book hero.

The real world of writing, I’ve learned in the intervening years, is much, much different. I don’t say this to discourage, but to make writers aware of the work it will take to see their words good enough to be in print, which is to say, good enough to inspire.

Writing does take skill, a certain giftedness from God. And there is a rush when you are in the “writing flow” and pounding out words from heart to head to keyboard. Yes, those moments are exhilarating  when you know you are doing the very thing you were put on earth to do. I feel this way, sometimes, about preaching and studying.

But like any other skill, any other endeavor worth doing, writing is mostly work. By work I mean that you write a lot. You write often. You write when you don’t feel like it. You write really bad stuff to get to the good stuff. You write things about subjects you don’t want to write on to get your foot in the door or to get some income. And you learn along the way that you’re not writing to be famous or rich (there are much easier avenues to those fleeting goals), but you write because you can’t not write.

You must love to write if you are to endure. There are many many people who really say they want to publish a book, start a blog, become a columnist. Hundreds and thousands of these kinds of people. But there are few who love it enough to sit down beyond the keyboard at ten o’clock at night, when normal people are sleeping or watching Sportscenter or another episode of West Wing. In other words, real writers just start writing. They write and write and write. And at the end of their lives they will look up and realize they have created a body of work they can be proud of.

So I guess my best advice on writing is to work at it. Don’t fall for shortcuts that promise to get your words in print right now. Yes, you can easily self-publish a book tomorrow on Amazon.com. But will it be good and inspirational and weighty if you skip the rejections and the editing and the rewriting that the publishing process forces you to endure?

I don’t think so.

Do Truck Drivers Matter to God?

Paul Rude asks a great question, “Do Truck Drivers Matter to God?” His answer:

The truth is stunning. The truth is that the regular, everyday, earthly work of a Christian’s life possesses breathtaking significance bestowed by the touch of God’s magnificent glory. God pulls the white-hot ingot of eternity from the forging fire of his sovereignty. Then, like master to apprentice, he entrusts the hammer to our hands (Eccl. 9:10; Col. 3:17, 23; 1 Cor. 10:31; 2 Thess. 3:6-12). He says, “Strike it. Strike it right here. This is your place. This is where I want you to influence eternity. Live the life I gave you to live.” And so, in stammering awe, we take up the hammer. We live our lives—our regular, everyday, toilsome lives. The hammer falls. Sparks fly. Eternity bends, and the Master is delighted (Matt. 25:21).

God, the Maker of the universe, destines our everyday lives to make a difference? Yep. Fuel filters, tax returns, laundry, and Southern-style barbecue are important to him? Yep (especially Southern-style barbecue). A life as a gospel-driven engineer, florist, or realtor can be as meaningful to God as the life of a pastor, missionary, or humanitarian relief worker? Absolutely.

There’s something massive going on here—God’s epic cosmic story—and we’re smack in the middle of it. He knows your name and mine. He’s given us each a life to live—a regular, everyday life—a particular place for us to shape eternity (Phil. 1:27; Col. 1:10; 1 Thess. 2:12; 4:11; 2 Thess. 3:6-12)

Read the whole thing:  Do Truck Drivers Matter to God? – The Gospel Coalition Blog.

What We Don’t Want to Hear: Leadership Is Hard

We live in an age when distrust of leaders is, perhaps, at an all-time high. I don’t have any statistics to verify that. However, if my Facebook and Twitter feeds are a reasonable sample, if the blogs and columns and books I read are an indication, people today just don’t like the people who lead them. For instance, Congress approval rating is at an all-time low. The latest negotiations over the Fiscal Cliff exposed the dysfunction in Washington between Republicans and Democrats. And so everybody, everywhere teed off on the politicians.

I think we’ve arrived here for two reasons. First, the last few generations have seen the stunning and tragic fall of leaders of all stripes, from Presidents to politicians. We’ve seen leaders abuse power, not only in Washington, but in the church, in the home, in the community, in business. Many wonder if there are any honest leaders left. Over the Christmas break and into our vacation, I read a few books on the American Presidents. I’m amazed at the decline in respect for this once-great office. Historians may disagree, but I feel that perhaps Watergate was a turning point, where the office of President became less regal. But it’s also the spirit of the age, I think, that we just don’t like or trust those who lead us. Some of this is deserved, but some of this a spirit of rebellion. And I think it makes leadership that much more difficult.

This leads to my second reason why I think we don’t like leaders. This reason points not to the leaders, but to us. You see, it’s much easier to be a critic of a leader than to actually lead. For instance, there is one President and 435 leaders. But there are a seemingly unlimited number of paid pundits, columnists, bloggers, radio talk show hosts, and other such members of the opinion media. Most of them get paid very handsomely to lob their criticisms at those in office. But, here’s the rub, they don’t actually have to lead. They are not in the arena. And so they can articulate purist ideological positions and hammer leaders who deviate, even in small ways. They can resist any kind of deal-making with the other party. They can live in a fantasy world where your side can get everything it wants all the time in every situation. Now, to be clear, I think the media and opinion-makers serve a valuable purpose in our democracy. They help shape the public discussion and influence those in power. After all, I’m a writer and blogger who sometimes gets paid for my opinion. However, looking at Washington from this perch is much easier than having to actually lead and get something done in a difficult environment with those who hold opposing views.

I think this view of leadership prevails in the Church as well. Church leaders should be open to criticism. One of the things that bothers me about some is that they dismiss all criticism with a sort of lazy “haters donna hate” defense. The best leaders bend an ear to opposing views and admit mistakes and weaknesses  But, it is far easier to be a Christian blogger with an opinion than to be a high-profile pastor in the arena. It’s easier to criticize Rick Warren than to be Rick Warren. It’s easier to criticize John Piper than to be John Piper. It’s easier to criticize Beth Moore than to be Beth Moore.

I think all of us would do well to recognize that leadership is difficult and while we shouldn’t turn a blind eye to abuse and corruption, we should obey the Scriptures and hold our leaders with some esteem. We should recognize that the sideline gig is much easier than the one in the arena, that couch commentary comes easy, real leadership is hard.

5 Reflections for the Pro-Life Movement

40 years ago, the Supreme Court issued its infamous Roe-v-Wade decision, making legal abortion the law of the land. Since then, there has been a pitched battle between those who (like me) consider abortion to be the savage ending of innocent and helpless life and those who consider it a tragic, yet viable option for pregnant women in distress. This issue has shaped our public discourse, influenced local elections, and has galvanized millions into political activism.

Many feel that the the pro-life position has gained in the popular culture. Polls seem to indicate that younger generations may be even more pro-life than their parents. And yet, abortion still remains the law the land and millions of babies are sent to their premature deaths every year. So what is next for the pro-life movement? Here are five reflections for a 21st-century pro-life movement. 

1) The Prolife Movement Should Model Wilberforce’s Endurance and Courage

William Wilberforce is a model for the pro-life movement in that he spent an entire life devoted to ending the slave trade in Britain. There were no overnight successes, but a long, steady, courageous battle to win over the English public and to shepherd legislation through the Parliament. It was a long hard slog filled with many defeats and disappointments. For much of his life, Wilberforce was on the wrong end of public opinion, a minority, an extremist for his views. And yet God gave him the courage and backbone to hang in there. The prolife movement still has much work to do to convince the public that abortion should be wrong. It still requires courage to move legislation forward and get it signed into law. Some question the commitment and feel Christians should abandon the issue. But if abortion is a moral evil, then we should not tire in seeing it abolished permanently.

2) The Prolife Movement Should Primarily Invest In Crisis Pregnancy Centers

It disgusts me when I see the amount of money spent each year by conservative donors on candidates. I only imagine if half that money were donated to crisis pregnancy centers, where real lives are being saved each day. In my next book I devote an entire chapter to the largely unheralded success of these places. They run on shoe-string budgets and are largely staffed by dedicated volunteers who share love and kindness with scared, lonely, often-victimized young girls. These are places of hope and help, not simply for the unborn, but for young mothers. Many offer parenting counseling, give away supplies like diapers and baby formula. Our church supports a local center every year with a baby bottle donation campaign and some of our members volunteer at a thrift shop that supports the center. But sadly, most Christians are only prolife every four years. They are prolife in that they have a good reason to bash Democrats or liberals. But that’s the extent of their work. But a real prolife ethic is devoted not primarly to politics, but to saving one baby at time, whether it’s an unborn baby, a trafficked young girl, or an immigrant. It’s easy to be prolife every four years in November. It takes work to save the life in front of you.

3) The Prolife Movement Should Reframe The Issue as Justice Issue

The siren call of today’s generation of young activists is justice. And this is good, because God is a God of justice and calls His children to be on the side of justice. The prolife movement needs to adopt 21st-century language, to capture the hearts and minds of young evangelicals who are prolife but have a visceral distaste for the bombastic politics of the religious right. I think there are two ways to accomplish this rebranding. First, the prolife movement should break free from the conservative movement and stand on it’s own. In other words, there are young evangelicals who may be prolife, but who don’t subscribe to all the tenets of political conservatism. This would enable the movement to be more nimble, to engage and join common cause with people of all political stripes to save innocent children from death. Secondly, the movement should adopt a more holistic version of prolife. We shouldn’t simply champion the unborn, but we should fight human trafficking and join other causes that defend human life.

4) The Prolife Movement Should Not Make Women the Enemy 

So-called “war on women” is mostly a media creation, a caricature of prolife activists. Most pro-lifers I know are generous, giving, compassionate souls. Still, there are some whose articulation of pro-life views hurts the cause. Abortion is a sensitive issue. In championing the unborn we should not disrespect the very difficult choices faced by young women. We should be winsome in our public words and actions. Too often issues like abortion are used only to create enemies out of those who disagree. And the issue has been often used, by both political parties, to gain power. But perhaps this generation of activists will embrace engagement over demonizing. Perhaps we can find common ground and reduce the number of abortions. Not one baby is saved from death by using the issue as a sledgehammer against those who disagree. And let’s offer forgiveness and hope for those who have made the tragic choice to end a life, pointing them to the grace found in Christ.

5) The Prolife Movement Should Continue to Shape the Culture

According to Gallup, only 41% of Americans consider themselves pro-choice. That’s a  historic low. I think this is the result of many things, including the development and wide use of ultra-sound technology, creative attempts to shape the media culture, and a younger generation keenly focused on justice for the vulnerable. And yet we have more work to do. We need politicians to craft pro-life legislation, but what we need more is a culture willing to accept such legislation. Politicians largely respond to movements in the broader culture. So more creative media, more education, more small victories. 

We also need to address the factors that lead to abortion, particularly the crisis of fatherlessness. Abortion is downstream from the breakdown of the family. So while we fight the wanton destruction of human life, let’s recommit to strengthening the family, building up of our local churches, and preaching the life-saving message of the gospel.

The Kingdom of Disney and the Kingdom of God

As I write this, our family is wrapping up a long vacation in Orlando, Florida. We took our kids to a long-awaited, much-anticipated trip to Disney World. Specifically we spent our time at the Magic Kingdom, the epicenter of Disney world. Even though it was a herculean effort to lead four children through the teaming masses of people at the park (a clerk told us it was the busiest day of the year, go figure), we had a thoroughly enjoyable time. It was way more fun than I envisioned and our kids had a grand time.

I was struck by the idea of Disney World. Christians have long had their beefs with this iconic entertainment company. There was the famous ill-fated boycott in the 90′s. There is the company’s profiteering off of violent media. And some feel that Disney introduces secular themes through the cute back door of seemingly innocent characters. There is substance to all of those complaints. It’s not too hard to see in the Disney ethos a sort of pantheism, that there is no transcendant God, but that the real hope for the world lies within your heart and my heart. Good parents subtly correct this with biblical theology.

Still, the idea of the Magic Kingdom is one worth celebrating, I think, in so much as it speaks to the longing in each of us for a place, a time, an environment where all of our hopes and dreams are met. Where evil is destroyed, life is fun and creative, and beautiful. I don’t think this idea originated with Disney. I think his idea originated with God, who once created such a perfect place called Eden. Eden, of course, was not Disney and Disney is not Eden. But Eden was the place where God dwelled and where life was as it should be, as it was created to be. The Bible tells us that Eden was violated by a destructive enemy and a force called sin. And if you look closely at almost every fairy tale that originates from Disney and others, you will find a glimpse of this story.

The Bible also tells us that a Kingdom is coming one day that will spell the end of violence and war, of evil and death. That our hopes and dreams will finally be consummated and life will be as it should be. As we all know it was intended to be. Unlike the Magic Kingdom, the hope for this new city is not within us, but in the King who defeated the enemy and will usher in the Kingdom. Pantheism tells us that we can, by mere belief, usher in the Kingdom. But we all know that is not true. Human history tells us that man cannot create utopia. He can try. He can create pretty cool things, like Disney World which have echoes and glimpses of a perfect Kingdom. But ultimately someone outside of us must do this work. Someone transcendant and powerful and sovereign.

So, yes, Disney gets much of the theology wrong. It’s Walt Disney’s attempt to create Heaven on earth without the ruler of Heaven. And yet we shouldn’t dismiss Disney World as mere fantasy in that we shouldn’t imagine Heaven will be any less wonderful than Disney World. We should know that Heaven will be much greater than Disney world.

Sometimes Christian teaching makes Heaven seem, well, boring. Like going to Disney World in Orlando is way better than going to Heaven. As if Heaven will be a bunch of Christians in suits singing four verses of every hymn without smiling. As if Heaven will be uncreative and unattractive. But if you read the Bible, you will know that Heaven will be anything but. The Kingdom of God will not be any less than Disney world and will be so much more. God, the first Artist, the original Creative, the source of all joy and love and goodness will design a place that will make Disney look like a fold-up carnival in a Kmart parking lot. Because at the center will not be the misplaced hope in the human heart, but the glory of God and the light of His Son, Jesus Christ.

So until that Kingdom is fully here, let’s celebrate glimpses of it when we see them, however flawed, however obscured by the dark glass of a fallen world. When it comes to Disney, let’s dismiss the faulty theology, but celebrate it’s creativity and beauty.

10 Most Popular Blog Posts

This was a great year for my blog, the best ever. I’m still fairly unknown compared to heavyweights like Tim Challies or Jon Acuff, but I’m proud of the fact that my number of visits nearly tripled as did my number of visitors, while my pageviews more than doubled. I also added quite a few Twitter followers and email subscribers. All in all a very good year.

Here are the top ten blogs posts in 2012:

1) Ten Things Nobody Tells You About Being a Dad

This is a half-serious/half-humorous post about the unknowns of fathering. What’s funny about this post is that I wrote it late one Sunday night after an evening church service. I had a bit of inspiration rolling around in my head. I had no idea that it would “go viral” as the cool kids say. It was linked to by quite a few popular blogs.

2) The Sin About Which No One Will Speak

This post addressed the sin of envy, a sin which we seem to cultivate in America as something good. My post makes the argument that we talk quite a bit about the sin of greed, but too little about the sin of envy.

3) What You Don’t Like About Your Church (And Why That’s Good)

Here I discuss the importance of finding a church that doesn’t perfectly suit your preferences. It’s important that Christians die to their preferences for the good of the body and for their own growth.

4) Three Pitfalls for Young, Evangelical Leaders

As a young evangelical leader, I see a lot of hope in my generation. But I also see some potential pitfalls for our leadership. this post generated quite a bit of good discussion on Twitter and elsewhere.

5) Five Reasons Why Pastors Should Apologize

One of the most potent words a pastor or any leader can say is, “I’m sorry; I was wrong.” Rather than weakening his leadership, it empowers it.

6) 5 Ways You Can Help Your Church

This post generated a lot of reaction and I have had several who requested permission to print it for church newsletters or bulletins. Essentially I give some practical ways in which Christians can be good church members.

7) 5 Resolutions for a Christian Communicator

“To communicate the truth of the good news of the gospel, in any form, is a high privilege and a sober calling.” I drafted five resolutions that might guide anyone privileged to communicate the gospel in way.

8) 5 Ways to Pray for Your Church

We complain a lot about the Church and about our own churches. But how often do we pray? This is a simple prayer guide to help folks pray for the local body of believers to which they are called.

9) Bible-reading plans for 2012

I challenged our church to read through the Bible in a year and listed a variety of resources and plans. These are “evergreen” so this post might be helpful if you’re planning on doing it in 2013. (BTW, I’m almost finished with my plan for 2012).

10) What Pastoring Taught Me About Spiritual Growth

Pastoring has taught me a lot about spiritual growth, especially how to disciple different people in different ways.

 

What Advent is and Why We Should Celebrate

There is something really wonderful about the word, advent. When you Google the word, one of the definitions you get is: the arrival of a notable person, thing or event. We know this word from other contexts besides religions. We say things like, “Since the advent of the automobile . . . .” Or “Since the advent of the modern era . . . ”

Advent means something new is coming. The dawn of a new and better era. This is really what Christmas is about, isn’t it? It’s the celebration of the advent of a new era. God broke into time and space and entered our world. He is Immanuel, God with us. He broke in the midst of the sin and clamor and the fallenness. He came as a vulnerable baby in a poverty-stricken town to ordinary people, in a time of great political unrest. Advent–Christ’s Advent–means that God sees us in our distress, in our sin-ravaged condition, in all of our helplessness.

We’d like to think that we can save ourselves from ourselves. We’d like to think that with a few tweaks here and there, we can create the Heaven we long for. We’d like to think that with a bit more progress and education we can overcome evil. But alas, we know we cannot. If the tragic events in Sandy Hook tell us anything they remind us that evil invades even the safest, most beautiful environments on this earth. But the hope of Christmas tells us that Christ invades even the most evil, sin ravaged places on this earth.

The 1st Advent is worth celebrating with great joy because it tells us that a new day is here. Christmas is the dawn of something to come. It fills us with hope that the endless cycle of sin and violence and hopelessness of human history will someday be reversed. The curse that was put on mankind, on the universe is not forever. God broke in as man and God and by his life, death, and resurrection defeated sin and death. As hymnwriter Isaac Watts wrote:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found,

Far as the curse is found,

Far as, far as, the curse is found.

We should celebrate Christmas joyfully with presents, with food, with singing, with festive decorations because Jesus has come. God is with us. And because the First Advent signals a second advent, a coming of a King whose Kingdom will end all other kingdoms and whose rule will create the world we all long for but can’t create. His glory will spread through the earth and sin and sickness and death will be no more. The enemy will be forever silenced.

So, celebrate Christmas, not as a scrooge, not as a scold, but with overflowing joy. Because the Lord has come.

Evangelism as a Journey Instead of a Deal

I’ve been reading quite a few books on evangelism lately for some of my Mdiv work at Trinity. I don’t agree with all that I have read, but one of the things that I think I’m learning is the simple idea that evangelism is less of a “deal” that we must close and more of a journey, a conversation we must initiate.

The passion to win people to saving knowledge of Christ is good, but sometimes in our zeal we misguidedly think we, and only we, are the ones who have to witness the conversion. And we put all kinds of undue pressure on ourselves to get it all right. In reality, it is the Holy Spirit who does the saving. We are simply ambassadors. We share this great story. Empowered by the Holy Ghost, we go into the world and deliver the message.

And sometimes it is our message that needs tweaking. For instance, many people think witnessing is simply applying a few verses in Romans or Galatians or John and sort of hitting someone with a dump truck of salvation verses. This method may work with someone who has a base in Protestantism or Catholicism. Or it may work with someone who is at the end of years of careful gospel nurturing by someone else. But by and large, starting with the dump truck is ineffective and turns people away. Instead, we should begin by initiating conversation, building a friendship, establishing a repoire. And we might approach the gospel in ways that share the entire narrative rather than skipping ahead to the New Testament.

Recently I had the privilege of sharing the gospel with a Hindu friend. In previous years I might have been intimidated. I don’t have all the answers to rebut Hinduism with Christianity. But this time I was confident. First I asked him about his faith journey. Then I shared the narrative of the Bible. I said something like this, “I know you probably disagree with the Bible and affirm your own holy book. I understand that. Let me just share with you the story of the Bible.” And I started with Creation, then the fall of man and worked through the story of Israel up until the revelation of Jesus on the cross and on through Revelation and the coming Kingdom. I said something like this, “The reason I believe this is because it answer the deep questions people have better than any other narrative I’ve heard or read.”

My friend didn’t bow the knee on the spot and trust Christ. But the dialogue was open and he was intrigued. You see, most people don’t even know what the Bible’s true story is. They react against what they think it is or some misguided ways Christians have presented the gospel message. And again, having been released from the pressure of “closing the deal” so I could have another “notch on my belt” I was free to share only what the Spirit led me to share and then direct the conversation that didn’t make my friend want to shut down and never talk about it again.

We have to start looking at evangelism as less than a one-time, do or die opportunity and more of a journey. The Spirit is working and you may be one of several Christians used by God to win their hearts. When we approach evangelism this way, it takes much of the fear out of it. We don’t have to get out all of our Christian sales pitch in one moment. Instead, we can feel our way around, depend on the Spirit’s leading, and apply the gospel to each person’s differing lives. Sometimes your witness may involve a detailed explanation of the gospel story. Sometimes it may be a question or two that merely cracks open a seemingly shut door. Sometimes it may be as simple as doing a kind work of charity for a person that gets them to ask about why you do it. Other times it may be as simple asking someone to that church function.

The key is to be obedient to the Spirit’s call and be confident in His ability to convert seemingly stone-cold hearts.