I love watching a baptism celebration. There are few things that excite me more. I am lucky (blessed is probably the right word) to be in a church to experience a lot of baptisms every year. Over the past two years I have observed every baptism asking the question, “what were their touch points to experiencing Jesus?” I observed and even took notes as they read their story. For every person our church was a touch point, but it was not the primary touch point. People were. Every time. An uncle, a friend or a foster parent had loved them well and introduced them to a counter-cultural way of Kingdom life.
This is quite a shift from the pressurized evangelism I was taught growing up. I was never encouraged to share the best thing that ever happened to me; I was challenged to be an evangelist. Tracts and canvassing seemed to be the methods. It terrified me, and it never quite fit my relational wiring. The most fruit I have ever experienced has been through relational investment and embedding into the lives of others. That’s not to say God hasn’t or can’t use us in other ways and other situations, those have just been few and far between compared to being in loving relationships with others.
Much has changed in the world and in the church through the last generations. In addition to the spiritual climate of our country experiencing a spiritual El Nino over the past few decades there are other factors influencing evangelism. There was a time when Billy Graham filled up Madison Square Garden for four months straight during a crusade. That is hard for me to fathom today. I have observed the world of mass-marketing and mass-emails cheapen and de-personalize relationships. Commerce focuses on high volume buying where Walmart wins against the mom-and-pop store on main street. Our world and our food is fast in the McDonaldization of North America. People don’t want to be targets, especially when you are talking at soul level. Eventually people will yearn for small in the midst of a world that honors big. Eventually the frenetic pace leaves us longing for slow. Here are a few things to aim at as we lovingly share the gospel of Jesus with those around us.
Personalize. People are thirsting for relationship today, and true relationship is always personal. Following the way of Jesus we must go even deeper than personal to become incarnational in others’ lives. Any approach without a personal element will continue to fall short in expressing the love of God to a world feeling unloveable. Make sure that you are translating the gospel into their life and the fabric of their story.
Patience. Fast food, instant one-click shopping and microwave dinners have allowed us to live as fast as we humanly can. We are taught to devour life, not savor it. Investing in people who are skeptical of the church will take time. Most people simply don’t want to navigate all the hidden agendas they perceive from Christians today to find something they don’t know they are seeking. It will take time to engage with others hearing their story and sharing yours. Trust takes time, and trust creates a beautiful platform to share the love of Jesus.
Invitation (with a twist). As I look back at every challenge I received to share my faith there was always some level of invitation to two areas: receive the gospel and attend my church. There was very little, if any, talk about inviting them into my home, my life, my struggles and my story. Without tweaking the invitation our story and the gospel story (that they are unfamiliar with) will lack credibility. With mass emails and Evites filling up my in box every week they have become easy to ignore, but a personal invitation is hard to deny. I am not advocating that you NOT invite others to a church gathering, only that most people desire to be folded into your life first. Front yards, third places and dinner tables are great introductions to sanctuaries.
Get creative. Many of the best outreach or evangelistic processes and events I have experienced are unique, even odd. I read a quote by Rowan Williams that perfectly sums up the evangelistic creativity we must embrace: “The church must be willing to move from the destructively familiar to the creatively strange”. The needed recalibration in our evangelism is a shift away from familiar and into the frontiers of strange and spirit-led.
This post is not an effort to deconstruct. If something is working for you or for your church you should continue to do it. Loving church communities are a beautiful apologetic of the gospel. This is a beautiful space where God is experienced in the beauty of a community. The touch points in a post-everything world will look different than they did decades ago, but perhaps not so different from the very approached Jesus took.