I am working on an article on Missional Evangelism for a brotherhood publication. I would love some thoughts on this concept and methodology. It seems to me that there are some strengths and weaknesses of the style of outreach. It seems to ask the right question of “how do we interact with the present culture to teach people about Christ?” But it seems that sometimes it is full of compromise in doing so. Also, how do you define what missional evangelism is? I have studied this concept for a few weeks now and I want to test my thoughts within community.
Related posts:
- Incarnational Cultural Evangelism
- Defensive Evangelism
- Evangelism That Will Not Work
- A Quick Review of Phil Sanders Article “The Emerging Church Movement.”
- Article in the Gospel Advocate
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About The Author
Matthew is originally from Nova Scotia, Canada. He has a beautiful wife named Charity and a precious baby named Gabrielle. 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 his Master’s of Divinity at Freed-Hardeman University. He is presently working towards 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. He enjoys hockey, golf, boxing, and chess. In his spare time he enjoys reading numerous genres of books. Also, he is working on climbing all of the 14ers in Colorado. Matthew is the Pulpit Minister for the Castle Rock church of Christ.
I personally do not know of any compromise that Churches of Christ have made that is any different then what most of North American Christianity has made. Missional Evangelism (disciple making) ought to call people Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This is more than just intellectual aggreement with the Christian faith. It is a way of life shaped by the values and world-view of Jesus. Further it gives sole allegiance to Jesus (not God, country, and family). In Acts 17 the Christians at Jason’s house are persecuted for calling Jesus “King” rather than emperor. From where I sit, there seems to be too many Christians living in the USA who treat this nation as though it were a king. I cannot imagine any Christian in the first century throwing a tiker-tape parade to celebrate the accomplishments of Rome. Why not? Because they believed Rome was just another fallen power and instead wanted to proclaim (and celebrate) that which was victorious – God in Jesus Christ.
I believe this is the most pressing issue Christians living in North America will face this century. It is a question of faithfulness to Jesus the King. Before we ask how we do missions evangelism, we need to clarify the goal.
God bless you on your article!
Rex
BTW… A question that all missionaries must ask is how to we contextualize the gospel without becoming syncretistic. I often think that listening to much of the hyper-nationalistic, God, Country, & Family, idea that pervades so much country music is a form of syncretism. Of course, if Christians would call it this then we would need to accept that it is wrong.
I need some more help folks.
Matthew,
The Christian Standard published a good article defining emerging, emergent, and missional churchs last fall at http://www.christianstandard.com/articledisplay.asp?id=702. As I see it, a missional church is a church that is intentionally seeking to serve and touch its community with the message and love of God. It does not need to compromise in its theology in order to do so. A good example of a missional church would be the Contact Church of Christ in Tulsa. I wrote about some of the activities of our congregation at adisciplesthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/08/introduction-to-contact-church.html. I hope this helps you in your research.
I’m not exactly sure what “missional evangelism” means. It sounds pretty theological to me. I’m a little worn out with methodologies and theological phrases, but I also understand that labels can help change people’s thinking.
I agree with Rex, though. Syncretism is everywhere. In my own generation we mix a postmodern world view (religion) with Christianity, and out pops the Emergent Church.
In the past Churches have been more like an organization than an organism. Like a factory, productivity and sameness were pursued. If people showed up at Church and were “active”, then we succeeded. But my generation is disgusted with that: we want to be genuinely transformed by Jesus. We love organic rather than plastic, and we hate “religion”.
People are getting obsessed with “reaching our culture”. To some extent it’s good, because we’re trying to communicate in a way that makes sense to people. I mean, I think we need to be less theological/intellectual and more practical/genuine. But in some ways “relevance” is pursued over truth, and sometimes even over Jesus and His teachings. One thing we have to remember is that the Kingdom of God stands in complete contradiction to every other world view (and culture). It always will.
When people are genuinely transformed by the cross and seek to follow Jesus, they will have a world view that supersedes all cultures or world views they are entrenched in.
When it comes to evangelism, I think the thing my culture hates most is fakeness (door knocking, weird religious conversation starters etc.) However, we need to EXPECT people to get angry with us for God’s message: it’s Good News but let’s face it… it’s bad news for people who don’t want it.
What Christians need is a heartfelt love that comes from knowing Christ personally. This communicates. People always have one of two responses to true God-like love: absolute hatred or awe. To some extent it’s always going to sound “religious” or weird or irrelevant. But the point is, it’s true.
For example, I went tubing in the Keys this summer with a couple of non-Christian guys and I was pretty honest about my standards when they were challenged (no sex before marriage). They made fun of me for a while, and I just laughed it off. It kept going and eventually one apologized. I said, “It’s ok dude, I’m used to it.” I didn’t care how weird or anti-cultural my faith seemed, because I believe it with all my heart. Well, once he saw I wasn’t ashamed (nor dogmatic) of it he started asking some questions. They both wanted to know how we believe people get to Heaven. So I told him: going to Church and all that gets you nothing, it’s trusting in Jesus who did it all for us that gets you there.
That’s not postmodern, that’s Biblical.
I’m not sure if any of these thoughts help, Matt. Maybe you can share some of your ideas so we know a little bit more of what you mean. I appreciate your blog, bro. Keep it up.
Thank you Terry for the article and the post. Joshua, thank you for interacting. Truth is found through community. Thank you everyone.
Stop interacting with culture and trying to reach the world. Start visiting your neighbor; give a pie to the grieving on the next block; show love, joy, peace, patience to fellow workers. Hospitalized folks need prayer and love, not “cultural understanding.” Check out how “uncultered” Jesus was at the well in John 4. You win the championship one game at a time, one play at a time; you win the world one by one. I fear we have removed personal from personal evangelism–Nick at nite in John 3 wasn’t part of a focus group, etc. Forget trying to think up approaches that make church attractive to folks–the issue is that Jesus is attracted to sinners so much He loved them to death. Cross-eyed love is not convenient to a modern or post-modern or post-post-modern culture.
Joshua said “In my own generation we mix a postmodern world view (religion) with Christianity, and out pops the Emergent Church.”
I would not necessarily blanket all emerging church as syncrenistic. Some emerging churches may understand the gospel better than many non-emerging churches.
Besides, one could easily claim in pops modernism and out comes the protestant movment. In pops baconian rationalism and out comes the Restoration movement. But then again, all blanketing statements are too wide.
Rex
Eddy:
Respectfully I would ask what Paul meant when he said become all things to all people? Each approach at bringing people to faith must be based on their thinking and understanding. Paul didn’t take the approach you suggest. So why are you suggesting it?
Rex, yeah I agree. The Emergent Church is hard to pinpoint though, because there’s many forms. If you’re talking about Emergent Reformers, I would totally agree. Many evangelicals have made the Gospel a set of theoretical and theological facts, while many Emergents take those facts and help apply them to everyday life.
However, the Emergent Liberals (as Mark Driscoll labels them) are quite different. People like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren both have some great ideas, but they also call into question many foundational beliefs about morality and the Final Judgment. Some wouldn’t necessarily say Jesus is the only way to Heaven, but merely the best way. Or they’d say that Paul’s writings were opinional, or even that Genesis is more mythological than it is truthful.
Postmodernism embraces complexity over truth. It rejects a universal reality and favors spirituality and questioning.
Some of these “questions” aren’t harmful until they become taught. Then it turns into a doubt of God’s Word which turns into a disobedience of God’s Word. This is not only syncretistic, it’s dangerous and damnable. It causes some to lose faith in Jesus, which is a very scary thing.
Hope this clarifies what I meant.
Joshua,
I understand what you mean. I am not very familiar with Rob Bell’s work. I have read some of McLaren’s writtings and listened to him speak, I never heard him say anything that indicated he thought Paul’s writings were optional or that there was another way too God besides Jesus. His understanding of Jesus as the only way may differ some from modern evangelicals but I am not sure modern evangelicals have it all figured out either.
I am not trying to defend McLaren or the emergent movement as though he and the movement are flawless. Like us all, he does have some flaws in his thinking (at least from where I sit) and so does the emergent movment. But so does modern evangelicalism, as well as our restoration movement and the wider protestant reformation. This is the nature of movements that are reacting to mistakes they see among those they are reacting against and one of things that emergents, restorationist, evangelicals, and protestants all share in common is that each movement began in reaction to another predecessory Christian movement.
Two hundred years from now (if the world exists) there will be Christians looking at all four of these movement with both amazment at their faith and amazement at their mistakes. I am guessing that the flaws of every movement are equal in terms of their danger. After all, evangelicals and restorationist may have it right when it comes to affirming John 14.6 as a proposition but when it comes to function, we forget all about Jesus (otherwise, how can we be so willing to kill our political enemies and support those who do despite Jesus’ CLEAR teachings on how to treat our enemies?). In the end, what does more damage, a flawed belief or a flawed practice? Only history will answer that question. But given the violence and ethics of Christians in Europe over the last four centries and seeing the current status of Christianity in Europe, perhaps history has already rendered an answer.
Despite our flaws and their flaws, we need to just be thankful that God chooses to work through jars of clay!
Rex
All things to all people? That is a summary statement not a vague concept! Don’t “study” Athens or synagogue comittees or earthquake resistant prisons. Culture is people with real faces and real names; not some program thunk up in a classroom. Your marketplace is different from mine (and from Paul’s)–if you share the multi-faceted grace of God, the church will emerge! Using Paul as an example, I have seen a “whole city filled with confusion”, I have asked, “Can you speak Greek?”; I have had my “spirit provoked”. I have been unable to make the lame stand up straight on their feet so I lift her and put her in a wheel chair (BTW–I have used a wheel chair in the baptistry); I have praised in a prison. The appeal of a Paul is not that he was up on culture–it was that he was called and led by the Lord. Studies about cultue and the emergent church rarely encourage folks to strike people blind and tell them they are “sons of the devil” (And it wasn’t even in an elder’s meeting?!?) Don’t confuse a reporter’s view of Olympic swimming with getting in the water.
Eddy,
I get your point (and I appreciate your satire). You are right. We need to start thinking in terms of individuals (who may or may not fit in with the culture). Good observations! By the way, where did you serve time in a prison?
Eddy,
I just realized that my question could be seen as disrespectful toward you. I apologize. One of our ministers has been in jail also, so I was interested in your story. I did not intend to ask about something that you may not want to discuss. Please forgive my rudeness.
If we are worried about “compromise” in evangelism we need to read 1 Corinthians 8-10. We need to be concerned with “communication.” We are so tuned out by the people we are trying to reach that we are speaking different languages.