Loading ...Evangelism of the Converted by the Converted
Restoring New Testament Christianity and a group of believers who have been baptized in His name for the forgiveness of sin are two ways that those in the churches of Christ describe themselves. These phrases and thoughts come from some material that I received from a local church of Christ congregation. It was given in a welcome pack for visitors and for the purposes of evangelism. Coming from a non-Christian background, sometimes I have a different impression of some of the material that we use to present ourselves to those in denominations and those who are non-Christians.
In this welcome pack, there was a business card introduction that had a brief statement concerning the nature of the church of Christ. The first line stated “The First Street church of Christ is an independent group of believers who have been baptized in His name for the forgiveness of sin, (Acts 2:38). Everyone who is sound in the churches of Christ would agree with this line. The problem is that we are not trying to reach church members with this information. A person coming from a denominational background is automatically going to disagree with this phrase. The proof for the line is cited but only half the verse is given. If one did look up the scriptural reference, there would be questioned of why the second part of the verse was left out. Does the church of Christ not believe in the Holy Spirit? It seems best in welcome material to connect with the individual between stating points of disagreement. Instead of stating contentious truths, maybe it would be best to establish rapport and agreement before jumping to debatable differences between the churches of Christ and the denominations.
Also included in this welcome pack was a nicely printed tract on “What to Expect When You Visit the church of Christ.” This tract had high quality publishing which made a favorable impression. But in the back there was a section about why people desire to be members of the churches of Christ. The first item was “seeks to restore New Testament Christianity.” This line might make sense to a denominational member, but mostly it seems important to those already in the churches of Christ. To a non-Christian with little knowledge of God’s Word, this line makes no sense. A non-Christian would wonder if those in the churches of Christ believed in the Old Testament. Someone who had no background in Christianity would wonder what New Testament Christianity even was. This phraseology connects with grounded members in the church, but is vague and confusing to outsiders to the churches of Christ. The tract did present some points of strong connection for a non-Christian like “making people feel welcomed,” “being goal-oriented,” and “helping families fulfill their God-given mission.” These statements seem to be what the church should emphasis to a non-Christian audience.
These materials illustrate the fundamental problem in some of the evangelism that is taking place in the churches of Christ. As a church, we have forgotten the audience in evangelism. Sometimes it seems that we are seeking to convert the converted. We are writing evangelism material from a Christian perspective instead of a denominational or non-Christian mindset. We emphasize the aspects of the faith that are important to us instead of highlight the points of the faith that are important to outsiders of the church. We are using church words on non-church people and we are using debatable doctrines on denominational people to lure them into the fellowship of the churches of Christ. As Christian, I want to tell people about baptism and the nature of the church, but these are not my first impression points. In some of the evangelism material in the church, we have forgotten about the audience. We are writing material for evangelism with the converted in mind instead of the unconverted.
Related posts:
- Defensive Evangelism
- Incarnational Cultural Evangelism
- Article on Missional Evangelism
- Attending Evangelism University
- Evangelism That Will Not Work
About The Author
Thank you for communicating this. I have grappled with how to address this without leaving the wrong idea. You nailed it, and I am saving this post.
Great job.
Thank you James. Hope this helps. We are going to continue a series on this in the next few days.
There are too many congregations whose efforts to describe who they are do so by telling the intended audience what “we have done.” That is precisely what is being communicated when we speak about being people who have been baptized, restored primitive Christianity, etc… The only problem, our postmodern culture could care less about what we or anyone else has done, because they are too aware of how much of a mess humanity has already made of the world. So why do they want to hear what we have done. I contend that we must start telling the world what God has and is doing. And after all, if the world is to hear the true gospel (not a distortion) then the star of the story must be God and what he is doing – not us and what we are doing.
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Let me also say that the goal of “restoring New Testament Christianity” needs to be severely questioned. Most CoC’s tell churches this is what they are about. In other words, restoring New Testament Christianity (which we know, means the restoration of the apostolic church FORM) is our goal. I question this whole approach. If we are going to let the Bible actually speak, the Bible teaches that we are to be followers of Jesus not any particular historical period of the church whether that is first century or any other century. To be follower of Jesus in the 21st century means that we are to be 21st century Christians and this requires that we pay more attention to the FUNCTION of Jesus (which will at times necessitate certain forms but not always). This is what the 1st century church understood. They were trying to reproduce the functions of Jesus in their own Jewish and/or Gentile cultures rather than being bound to the forms like the Jewish Religious Authorities that opposed Jesus. And for those who do believe that FORM is always inseperable from FUNCTION… I find it increasingly disturbing that in the CoC we continue to divide of worship issues that have very little (if any) to do with the New Testament BUT are increasingly shaped by the means of this world (high-handed, sword weilding power) rather than the means of the cross (self-sacrificial servanthood power) which is a major theme in the New Testament. To be fair, this problem is a problem with North American Christianity in general, not just a CoC problem.
Good post!
-Rex
All of the introductions as you describe are for people who are already churched or religious. This was our audience prior to the mid part of the last century, but no longer. George Barna will tell you that numerically the USA is the largest un churched developed country. Rex you are correct also saying To be fair, this problem is a problem with North American Christianity in general, not just a CoC problem.
Joe – are you sure about that statistic? I’ve heard there’s more full-time Christian workers in the States than the rest of the world combined. I know when I lived in Russia (a pretty developed country), I never met a single “churched” person whatsoever. Don’t mean to sound challenging or something, but that statement doesn’t seem correct.
Matt – Great post. Of the different denominations I’ve been a part of in the past, the CoC seems to be probably the worst at catering more to members than outsiders. That could just be my perspective. Without sacrificing God’s holy standard and teaching, we need to be about welcoming outsiders into this amazing Kingdom of Christ.
By the way, it was not first street church of christ, just wanting to not call names. But hopefully most people realized that with the name first street.
It’s interesting that I have been able to connect with a number of evangelicals through my blog without making an effort to do so. (I have also connected with a few people from Churches of Christ.) It has been a pleasure to get to know you a little through your blog. I hope that you will continue blogging when you move.
Well said Matthew. We in the churches of Christ seem to have our own language which goes right over everyone else’s heads. I agree that we need to communicate better with the outsider in mind. That is one of the things I like about 7 Practices of Effective Ministry. The authors said something similar to what you said here. Well done! God bless. Grace and Peace.
Preach it, Matthew. Great comments, Rex. Joe, I would have thought the UK or Australia were more unchurched than the USA. Only about 12% of the Aus population attends church regularly. OK, I reread and saw that the USA has the largest number of unchurched in the developed world.
Though the USA has more regular church attendees, the reseach that I have read suggests that church attendance is in rapid decline and that the USA is only 30-40 years behind Australia and Western Europe in terms of a post-Christian culture. When I lived in Ithaca, the culture was dominated by a thoroughly pagan college named Cornell University. One of the coffee shops that I frequented had a picture of Jesus and the Devil hugging each other behind a pulpit saying “we’ve collaborated for the good of society. Ithaca was a culture that was religiously indifferent because any religous belief was acceptable so long as it was a privitized belief. However, the culture of Ithaca was a political powderkeg filled with conservative and liberal capitolists, socialist, communists, and many other political viewpoints. This is one reason why I want to pull my hair out everytime I hear Christians who sound more passionate for Republican and Democrat ideologies than the kingdom of God — politics will not redeem the world, Jesus Christ, who preached the good news of the Kingdom, will. Also, Ithaca is where I met the first person who was raised in the USA and had never heard of the Bible (the person was an 18-year old college student from Conneticut). So any ways, that is one example of how the USA culture has become/is becoming a post-Christian culture.
My suggestion is that Christians need to get out of the business of American politics, redicover what it means to live the life of Jesus Christ, and preach the good news of Jesus and the Kingdom (people will begin to believe the truth if they see it embodied in the local churches and Christians they encounter). Some of us are already striving to do this but we must teach the rest (many?) of the Christians we have influence over to learn how to be disciples once again, for it seems that their is a wide gulf between being a “Christian” and being a disciple (and this includes the CoC).
If you want a good read at what true discipleship means let me suggest first that we re-read all four of the Gospels. As for books… the classic of course is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Cost of Discipleship” but a more recent well-written book is Lee C. Camp, “Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World” (Lee Camp is a Professor at Lipscomb University).
Good conversation!
-Rex
I agree. My church has that same “What to expect” pamphlet in our Welcome Packet. The “New Testament Christianity” does seem to be a phrase set up to be contentious. It’s like saying “We seek to restore the 4 wheeled car”. Is there any other kind?
One thing that is bugging me about churches lately (this isn’t specific to churches of Christ as it happened to me visiting a Baptist church last night) is that when visitors are present in a Bible class, the teacher always assumes that everybody is unsaved and dumbs the lesson down to the message of the cross and salvation. Obviously, this is a glorious message, but to be honest, it feels like perpetually auditing a Kindergarten class. With 66 books in the Bible and Jesus Christ on every page, why can’t classes, even with unsaved visitors present (especially with visitors are are Christians but are assumed not to be until after the class when they can be talked to) cover other topics? When I’m teaching a class, and I have visitors, I just continue with my material. Even if I have a visitor who has NEVER set foot in a church and knows nothing more about Christianity than what he read in a “New Atheist” book, hopefully I can throw out something intellectually challenging enough to make the person interested in hearing more.
As aways, you did a wonderful job with this post.
Since scripture does not speak of early church “restoring Christianity”, does it not sound goofy to say that I am scripturally doing church work by “restoring Christianity”? If I want to restore/plant the game of football in a non-footballed place, methinks the starting point is not with uniforms and team mascots–if I throw a football to enuf folks, a game will happen and somewhere down the line uniforms and mascots will happen. Otherwise, I’ve not planted football but rather, uniforms. (Kinda like the parent who thinks they’ve taught a kid to clean house when they only taught the kid to yell at a dirty house.) Planting seed is nothing like trying to glue an apple to a dead branch.
Eddy,
I love your illustrations, especially the planting seed vs. gluing apples to trees.
-Rex
As a percentage the USA has more but at a total real number of unchurched the USA is the largest.