Matthew is originally from Nova Scotia, Canada. He has a beautiful wife named Charity. Matthew has two wonderful children, Gabrielle and Noah. He has graduated from the Brown Trail School of Preaching, Heritage Christian University with his Bachelors of Arts in Biblical Studies, Lipscomb University with his Master's of Arts in Biblical Studies and Freed-Hardeman University with his Master's of Divinity. Presently, he is working on his Doctorate of Ministry at Harding Graduate School of Religion. His articles have appeared in the World Evangelist, the Highway to Holiness, The West Virginia Christian, The Christian Echo, The Firm Foundation, Church Growth, and the Gospel Advocate.
Loading ...Defensive Evangelism
Posted By Matthew on September 2, 2010
For the last few months, I have been working with the missional team at Castle Rock. During the last class, we were discussing the “mission” of the church. Particularly, we were dealing with Castle Rock’s focus on mission. During the conversations, we heard numerous stories of the negative public image of the churches of Christ. Of course, here in Colorado, you have less of this, but if people have an impression of the church, it is a negative one. This caused the group to start to ask the question, of what is at the root of a lack of evangelism in the church. We talked about the fear in evangelism as well as the barriers to evangelism. We honed in on this talk by identifying that often evangelism in the churches of Christ starts with a defensive position. It seems that we start by having to defend ourselves from criticism. Instead of starting at Jesus, or love, or some more positive element of the faith, we are defeating ourselves from misconceptions or harsh past behavior, or whatever. Instead of focusing on “the faith” we are focusing on image issues. Think about what this dynamic creates. We feel we are backed against a wall at the beginning. This really starts a conversation in a bad direction. In a culture that does not want to fight about religion, or a culture where your ideas are as valid as mine, this creates a difficult conversation. Of course the people you are talking with can label you, and attack you, so much for this your ideas are as good as mine, usually this is a one sided issue, but we are in a precarious situation. Maybe this helps to explain why evangelism is on a decline in our congregations.
It seems that every preacher goes through these seasons of preaching. Maybe not, but I do. For months you will have great sermon ideas, a ton of them, and you will write some of them down, and you will be excited to preach them. It seems that you will never get to that next great big idea for a sermon. You will go for months with high inspiration for your lessons. But then it seems that everything dries up. You still have some ideas, but you are not as excited about them. It just seems like another sermon. If mule around a couple of ideas, but nothing really takes hold. You have a illustration, a point, a insight into the text, but really you find it hard to preach it. How do you make it into a great sermon? There is the summer preaching season full of living ideas and then there is the winter sermon season where everything seems to grow so slowly. How do you handle the winter season?
It seems that some people can never admit they are wrong. No matter what, some people will defend themselves, only look at the situation through their eyes, or just pridefully ignore reality. My mentor always told me to be quick to repent or humble yourself. People do not realize the nature of humility. In situation where maybe you were right or maybe your were wrong, if there is doubt, take the path of humility. Admit that you were wrong, apologize for your behavior. The last thing you want to do is fight for a wrong position. I have noticed in life that rarely people will kick a humble dog. If the dog turns on his belly, people will pet the dog, but a dog that comes fighting creates a fight. In situations where the other party is wrong, be the bigger person and be the first to admit making a mistake. It seems that some times people can never see any wrong doing at all. It is always the other party’s problem. Maybe some leaders see admitting a mistake as weakness, but I see it as strength. People do not care about following a super strong leader, unless you are in a cult, but follow people with humble hearts. This way you are approachable, you are loving, and people feel loved by you. And you might even be shocked at how many people come to your rescue with love and forgiveness. There is not much wrong in being wrong, there is just a lot of wrong in not admitting when you are wrong.
Goals in churches are important. If a church selects the wrong goal, everything else will go wrong in a congregation. One of the goals that seems to be satisfying in congregation, which might be good in some aspects, but misses the divine mark of the church is the idea that congregations are striving to be “a big happy church.” Well, this is not always correct, some churches just strive to be “a happy church.” Of course we should want our congregations to be places of peace and joy. We want our congregations to live in harmony and fellowship. But this goal of having happiness misses the true goal for the church. The church has to be centered around more than happiness. If it is not, you will have a congregation that avoids all conflict, unhealthy behavior will reign because people will not want to deal with the unpleasant elements of the people in the congregation. Avoiding conflict is never a healthy response. Also, the desire to be happy misses the mark on purpose. In fact, our churches should be organized around, and function with a sense of purpose or better said mission. The mission of God must be at the forefront of the defining characteristics of the church. Happiness might be the America goal, but it is not God’s goal. God wants mission to take place. This means that happiness might not be there for a while, people might be upset, people might leave because they are not happy, but this is alright if mission is taking place. The mission of God is the centering goal of the church, not just happiness.
The momentum cycle is a powerful dynamic in a congregation. The way that this cycle is turning can have a long lasting impact on a church. There are few congregations that have no discernible direction to the momentum. Most congregations are turning either in a positive or negative cycle. If one can manage this turning, the congregation will grow easier instead die quicker. So how do you manage this powerful force in the congregation.
A friend of mine gave me some advice this week on an opportunity that was presented to me. He had some wise advice, but mostly it boiled down to you are going to get criticized if you do and if you do not. This made me think through my value system. Then it moved to how this plays out in the church. I do not want to be a preacher that is opposed to everything, so I just sit around doing nothing besides being opposed. I do not want to be a “anti” minister. This is fine that we are oppose to some stuff, but if we are, we need to be working hard on something. Being opposed to stuff is not a Christian ministry or talent. “Well Fred, I am the official defeater of everything the church wants to try new.” Wow, what a great ministry, but sometimes it seems that people have this as a spiritual talent. And some churches seem to have this attitude, “we are the do nothing church because we are not allowed to do anything because it might make someone mad.” As for my personal ministry, I rather be attacked or written up, or blackballed for what I do, instead of being the minister of “you cannot do that.” In those matters of judgment, should I speak there, or should I start this style of outreach, I am going to be a doer of the word and not a “you cannot do that because of the word.” I rather be criticized for my actions instead of for doing nothing. And churches should have this attitude as well.
I always feel that the attitude of a leader will influence the congregation. This goes for the eldership and the ministers. If those people that appear to be leading the flock have a negative attitude towards the future of the congregation than this attitude will prevail throughout the church. Right now, I feel the most optimistic about Castle Rock since I have come. Usually a minister is the most high on a church when he first comes to work with the congregation, but this was not the case with me. When I first arrived in Castle Rock I sensed that there was much work to do. The opportunities for the church were vast, but we were not organized to move in this direction. The congregation had to go through some hard times before we could move forward. This is the normal principle with God. We had to be faithful through resistance, but we have overcome and the blessings at the other end are huge. We had two baptisms yesterday, and our attendance has been way up over the last few weeks. We are hitting some all time highs since I have been here. We had 250 last week. But the most impressive aspect is all of the people that are stepping up to lead ministries. We have people who are leading the church in a positive direction. I sense a great vibe in the church, a we get what we are doing vibe, and how important it is. It is the small things, like showing up to the church building today and seeing one of the members mowing the grass, I see people developing ministries to include new people like fantasy football, I see people sitting with newcomers. I see the wonderful elders being more intentional, seeing the big picture, and having serious conversations about the future. And the best thing is that this is just the beginning. The ball is rolling, but it has just started. God is moving quickly, and as I told the missional team that I work with, God does not stop his mission for the church to get it, you get it or not, but God still moves with us or without us, but right now Castle Rock is moving with God.