Skip to content

Tag: mission

Published on Leave a comment on "I offered them Christ"

That was how Wesley and Whitfield would describe their evangelistic efforts.  Sounds so simple: just offer them Christ.

And it's so joyous too.  Nothing brings home to me the graciousness of my Lord as much as offering Him to others.  The availability of Jesus is so tangible when you just lift Him up before people and say "Want Him?  He's yours."

But it's so easy to fall short of it.

Here's how:

* We offer them "cool" not Christ

We spend our time reassuring people that they don't have to be a geek to be a Christian.  Christians can be trendy too.

* We offer them "credibility" not Christ

We spend all our time reassuring people that they don't need to be brainless to be a Christian.  Christians can be clever too.

* We offer them a creed not Christ.

Creeds are essential, I'm not suggesting we can divorce the personal from the propositional.  But teaching people 6 doctrines is not offering them Christ.

* We offer them a course not Christ.

Courses are brilliant, I've seen many people become Christians on things like Christianity Explored.  But offering a course is not offering them Christ.

Now, good evangelism might have all sorts of apt cultural references and thoughtful critiques of modern assumptions. It will certainly convey creedal truths and if it's followed by courses where Christ is also offered - that is an excellent thing.

But whatever else happens, it ought to offer Christ, oughtn't it?  Shouldn't it placard the Person and work of Jesus and ask "Will you receive Him?"

Here's some reasons I think we don't.  (And I genuinely say "we" - I fail at this all the time.)

1. We think cool, credibility, creeds and courses are more attractive than Jesus. Of course we'd never say that.  We'd rarely dare to articulate the thought.  But I wonder whether it's there.

2. We imagine that the gospel is a process rather than a Person. Again, if cornered we'd swear black and blue that faith is an event and the gospel a revelation. But if our evangelism is all processes perhaps we've begun to think of the evangel itself as a process.

3. We don't honestly think people will become Christians. Allied to point number 2, we've bought into some social science view of conversion and reckon that "people are much further back these days" and "we just need to bring them on a few steps towards faith."

4.  We don't believe in the Holy Spirit. We don't actually think the power of Almighty God is unleashed when the Word is preached.

5. We refuse to be as vulnerable as the Lord we proclaim. Paul knew that a foolish message (1 Cor 1:18-25) meant a foolish people (v26-31) and a foolish messenger (2:1-5).  But we don't want to be cruciform evangelists, opening our arms to a world who will despise and belittle the word of the cross.  We want to show the world how wise and strong we are.

What do you think?

Anything to add?

 

11

Published on 11 Comments on “I offered them Christ”

That was how Wesley and Whitfield would describe their evangelistic efforts.  Sounds so simple: just offer them Christ.

And it's so joyous too.  Nothing brings home to me the graciousness of my Lord as much as offering Him to others.  The availability of Jesus is so tangible when you just lift Him up before people and say "Want Him?  He's yours."

But it's so easy to fall short of it.

Here's how:

* We offer them "cool" not Christ

We spend our time reassuring people that they don't have to be a geek to be a Christian.  Christians can be trendy too.

* We offer them "credibility" not Christ

We spend all our time reassuring people that they don't need to be brainless to be a Christian.  Christians can be clever too.

* We offer them a creed not Christ.

Creeds are essential, I'm not suggesting we can divorce the personal from the propositional.  But teaching people 6 doctrines is not offering them Christ.

* We offer them a course not Christ.

Courses are brilliant, I've seen many people become Christians on things like Christianity Explored.  But offering a course is not offering them Christ.

Now, good evangelism might have all sorts of apt cultural references and thoughtful critiques of modern assumptions. It will certainly convey creedal truths and if it's followed by courses where Christ is also offered - that is an excellent thing.

But whatever else happens, it ought to offer Christ, oughtn't it?  Shouldn't it placard the Person and work of Jesus and ask "Will you receive Him?"

Here's some reasons I think we don't.  (And I genuinely say "we" - I fail at this all the time.)

1. We think cool, credibility, creeds and courses are more attractive than Jesus. Of course we'd never say that.  We'd rarely dare to articulate the thought.  But I wonder whether it's there.

2. We imagine that the gospel is a process rather than a Person. Again, if cornered we'd swear black and blue that faith is an event and the gospel a revelation. But if our evangelism is all processes perhaps we've begun to think of the evangel itself as a process.

3. We don't honestly think people will become Christians. Allied to point number 2, we've bought into some social science view of conversion and reckon that "people are much further back these days" and "we just need to bring them on a few steps towards faith."

4.  We don't believe in the Holy Spirit. We don't actually think the power of Almighty God is unleashed when the Word is preached. So instead we trust to the resources of the flesh.

5. We refuse to be as vulnerable as the Lord we proclaim. Paul knew that a foolish message (1 Cor 1:18-25) meant a foolish people (v26-31) and a foolish messenger (2:1-5).  But we don't want to be cruciform evangelists, opening our arms to a world who will despise and belittle the word of the cross.  We want to show the world how wise and strong we are.

What do you think?

Anything to add?

Published on Leave a comment on Onya Patto

...as we'd say if Patrick was Australian.

Tim's got some good links on what a great evangelist Patrick was:

Patrick gave his life to the people who had enslaved him until he died at 77 years of age. He had seen untold thousands of people convert as between 30-40 of the 150 tribes had become substantially Christian. He had trained 1000 pastors, planted 700 churches, and was the first noted person in history to take a strong public stand against slavery.  (Mark O'Driscoll)

Here's a video from Veggie Tales people:

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UociNQHztiY"]

And as a Christ the Truth exclusive, I have a poem dedicated to Patrick by my new online friend Michael Mates.  He explains the poem first:

"In 1982, I completed my doctoral thesis, The British Church from Patrick to Gildas, at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena California.  For St. Patrick's Day, I reduced the thesis to a shorter form, to fit the tune "The Wearin' o' the Green."

"Both the thesis and the song recapitulate Patrick's birth in western Britain (c 390 AD), his capture by Irish pirates, his time spent as a slave in Ireland, his escape, and his eventual return to Ireland to preach the Gospel to the natives, despite the opposition of the British church.  The British church in the late 4th century was following the practice that non-Christian tribes really ought to become Roman (i.e., wear togas, speak Latin) before they could think of becoming Christian.  Patrick thought that was backwards, and defied his home church in returning to Ireland."

When Patricius, born in Britain,
Saw the ships upon the shore,
He little knew his future
Or the life we'll underscore.

'Twas about the year 400,
Roman Britain's crumbling fast,
When the lad was taken captive
By ship-borne iconoclasts.

O those ships were full of pirates
Who enslaved poor Pat for years,
On the isle now known as Eire,
O those rotten buccaneers.

But their evil had a purpose,
For when Pat escaped to home
He took an altered heart within;
He'd prejudice outgrown.

When the call to preach in Ireland
Came, young Patrick volunteered;
The British Church front office
Though, was mightily afeared:

"Why preach the Word to pagans
Ere they speak the Latin tongue
Or wear a toga rightly?
Pat, it simply isn't done!"

But Patricius answered boldly
"So you think they're troglodytes?
Well that's why I'm pros'lytizing
For religious freedom rights."

And so boldly back to Eire
Strong-willed Patrick made his way,
To preach to slaves and chieftains
Who converted day by day.

When at last his life was over--
That is, having lost his starch--
Old Patrick breathed his final breath,
The seventeenth of March.

'Tis the most ironic situation
And not one bit counterfeit:
That the patron saint of Ireland
Was a stubborn-minded Brit!

 

Published on Leave a comment on Ten Thoughts on Planning Missions [repost]

Like many churches across the country, we're planning our involvement with the Passion for Life mission initiative taking place in Easter 2010.  Here are ten thoughts on these kinds of missions in no particular order.

  1. 'A mission' should be part of a church's ongoing life of mission.  The one-off sports event with gospel talk at half time is one thing. Having a bunch of Christians join a local sports team season by season - befriending and gospelling non-Christians there - now that's an ongoing life of mission.  Its effects will be so much more hidden and ambiguous than the grand week of events.  But the impact will be so much greater for the kingdom.
  2. 'A mission' should be owned by the whole congregation.  The priesthood of all believers applies especially here.  It takes a body working together with speaking and serving gifts working in harmony.  Too often we impose a mission on an unprepared church from the top down.  The events will be unbalanced, few will bring friends and the strong impression will be given that mission is something compartmentalized - done only at special times and only by special people.
  3. The greatest problem with our 'missions' is that typically our Christians don't know any non-Christians.  Not very well anyway.  Now by all means door-knock your locality. By all means lift high the name of Jesus in your community at large. But our priority must be our neighbours, friends, colleagues and families with whom we are already involved.  Or if we're not already involved, we ought to be.  Ideally 'a mission' should be a dew point collecting together the scores of gospel conversations that Christians are already having with the people they're involved with.
  4. Our perceived need for apologetic events is inversely related to our willingness to love our neighbours.  In other words - if we actually loved our neighbours we'd probably find that we didn't 'need' apologetics events after all.  The real trouble is that we're not actually involved with non-Christians, we don't really love them.  And so the only bridge into Christian things that we can think of is an 'apologetic' bridge.  I use the term 'apologetics' advisedly (click my 'apologetics' tag for more).  Because 1 Peter 3:15 (where the word 'apologetics' comes from) is not describing the 'apologetics' that people tend to do today.  1 Peter 3:15 is about giving the gospel reasons for the hope that is so obviously in you as evidenced by your many and deep interactions with unbelievers.  Now if we lived in 1 Peter 3:15-world then our friends and neighbours would see this hope and would ask us about it.  We could give some kind of witness, but - joy of joys - we could also bring them along to a mission event where this gospel hope would be proclaimed by a gifted evangelist.  And if this were the case we'd be praying to God that the evangelist would stop trying to be culturally relevant and would please just sock it to our friend with Christ. The reality is that a) our hope aint that evident and b) we don't get close enough for non-Christians to see it anyway.  Therefore the only way we can think to get non-Christians in the door is to put on talks about "What Jesus would say to the G20 summit" or whatever.
  5. Conversion is not a process. Conversion is a miracle. How much of our evangelistic strategy belies the evangel we say we believe.
  6. Non-Christians are nowhere near as excited by 'A Christian view of the Credit Crunch' as Christians are.
  7. If it's credibility you're after, non-Christians figure that the thing (really the only thing) that Christians can speak on credibly is Christianity.  There might be a clue there.
  8. The bible must be front and centre if people are to truly trust the living God and not simply the oratory powers of a visiting speaker.
  9. Often we greatly underestimate the amount of Christian input a non-Christian is expecting / willing to bear once they've accepted an invitation by a trusted Christian friend.  It's a huge deal for a non-Christian to come to an event in the first place.  They're basically expecting to be proselytised.  But once they get there, guess who's afraid of proselytising?  Not them.  Us.
  10. Evangelism is summons to Christ not the presentation of interesting information.  Calling people to repent and believe the gospel at our mission events sets our evangelism in its proper context.  Just by itself a call for people to trust Christ on the night is a powerful demonstration of the nature of the gospel. We ought to call people to Christ and not simply a follow up course

.

Published on Leave a comment on Who Do I Know Who Needs To Know?

I'm sure many of you have done similar things, I'd appreciate your feedback...

.............................................

Following on from this post....

 

Who Do I Know Who Needs to Know?

There’s no science behind this.  It’s just an opportunity to sit down and think prayerfully about our friendships.  Think of family, friends, neighbours, workmates, club members, children’s friend’s families etc!

Before the Lord ask yourself where you are with the people around you, and where they are with the Lord.

How open are they to me?

1)    Nodding acquaintance / rarely see them
2)    We talk, not very deeply
3)    A friendship is there
4)    We could talk about most things
5)    We talk about everything

 

How open are they to the gospel?

1)    They don’t know I’m a Christian / Don’t want to know
2)    They know I’m a Christian but not much more
3)    We’ve spoken about gospel things once or twice
4)    They’d come to something / read a book / have a deep conversation
5)    They’re open to exploring Christianity in a deeper way

 

List the people you know - the more the better.  Think through their current levels of openness (not where you wish they were).  Pray through them and ask the Lord to lay on your heart one or two.

Perhaps with these in mind you could form a prayer triplet in which you pray regularly for three non-Christians to come to faith.

Just an idea.

.

Published on Leave a comment on God's Mission: Building a Family

This is something I'm using with churches to help them think evangelistically...

Building a Family

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”  (John 20:21-22)

God our Father is building a family.  He has always enjoyed His eternal Son, Jesus, in the fellowship of the Spirit (John 17:24).  And effectively they’ve said to each other “This is too good to keep to ourselves.”  The expansive love of this Family is the reason for everything, from creation to new creation.  Here’s the meaning of life: The Father wants many brothers and sisters for His Son (Romans 8:29).

So the Father sent Jesus into the world to share in our life so that we might share in His life.  The Son of God became man so that men and women might become sons and daughters of God (John 1:12-14).  Believers are those drawn by the Spirit into union with Jesus.  Now we call on His God and Father as our God and our Father (John 20:17).

But God isn’t finished yet, and neither are we.  From before the world began He has forever been outgoing. That’s what our Father is like and so that’s what His family is like.

In our verse from John 20 this is what we see: The outgoing Lord Jesus breathes His outgoing Spirit onto His followers.  Why?  So that they will be outgoing.  We carry on His life of reconciliation to the world.

Which means three things:

1)    Mission is God’s thing.

Our God is more evangelistic than we’ll ever be.  We don’t have to whip up evangelistic fervour, we only need to catch His!  As we go, we have Him behind us and for us and in us.

2)    Mission becomes our thing.

The Risen Jesus could have leap-frogged the church and just zapped the nations with eternal life.  But no, He uses us.  In fact He insists on using us sinful and weak believers.  We are His missionary body to reach the world.

3)    Mission is personal.

When Jesus sends us with the divine power of His Spirit, He tells us what it will look like.  Not a laser-light display.  No, as Jesus was sent, so we are sent.  Our life of mission will look like His life of mission.  It will be a personal, costly, time-intensive investing of ourselves in others.

What does this mean for us corporately?

Our Father loves the world and wants billions to share in His family life.  But He does it through us and He does it personally.  The Father sends the Son.  The Son sends the church in the power of the Spirit.  And the church reaches the world.  Personally. If God wanted to beam people up into some blissful state en masse He would send down some impersonal zapping.  BAM – India’s converted! But He’s not impersonal.  He doesn’t send zapping.  He sends persons.  As a church we seem to have forgotten about “personal evangelism” but according to the bible all evangelism must be profoundly personal.

What will this look like in my life?

It will look like going out to others.  Not in grand, dramatic ways but in everyday, ordinary life.  Jesus equips me with His Spirit to go person-to-person with the love of God.

In the next post there will be an exercise to help us think about the people in our lives.  Whether they know it or not, they exist to be drawn into God’s Family.  And we exist to reach out with His invitation.

.

3

Published on 3 Comments on God’s Mission: Building a Family

This is something I'm using with churches to help them think evangelistically...

Building a Family

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”  (John 20:21-22)

God our Father is building a family.  He has always enjoyed His eternal Son, Jesus, in the fellowship of the Spirit (John 17:24).  And effectively they’ve said to each other “This is too good to keep to ourselves.”  The expansive love of this Family is the reason for everything, from creation to new creation.  Here’s the meaning of life: The Father wants many brothers and sisters for His Son (Romans 8:29).

So the Father sent Jesus into the world to share in our life so that we might share in His life.  The Son of God became man so that men and women might become sons and daughters of God (John 1:12-14).  Believers are those drawn by the Spirit into union with Jesus.  Now we call on His God and Father as our God and our Father (John 20:17).

But God isn’t finished yet, and neither are we.  From before the world began He has forever been outgoing. That’s what our Father is like and so that’s what His family is like.

In our verse from John 20 this is what we see: The outgoing Lord Jesus breathes His outgoing Spirit onto His followers.  Why?  So that they will be outgoing.  We carry on His life of reconciliation to the world.

Which means three things:

1)    Mission is God’s thing.

Our God is more evangelistic than we’ll ever be.  We don’t have to whip up evangelistic fervour, we only need to catch His!  As we go, we have Him behind us and for us and in us.

2)    Mission becomes our thing.

The Risen Jesus could have leap-frogged the church and just zapped the nations with eternal life.  But no, He uses us.  In fact He insists on using us sinful and weak believers.  We are His missionary body to reach the world.

3)    Mission is personal.

When Jesus sends us with the divine power of His Spirit, He tells us what it will look like.  Not a laser-light display.  No, as Jesus was sent, so we are sent.  Our life of mission will look like His life of mission.  It will be a personal, costly, time-intensive investing of ourselves in others.

What does this mean for us corporately?

Our Father loves the world and wants billions to share in His family life.  But He does it through us and He does it personally.  The Father sends the Son.  The Son sends the church in the power of the Spirit.  And the church reaches the world.  Personally. If God wanted to beam people up into some blissful state en masse He would send down some impersonal zapping.  BAM – India’s converted! But He’s not impersonal.  He doesn’t send zapping.  He sends persons.  As a church we seem to have forgotten about “personal evangelism” but according to the bible all evangelism must be profoundly personal.

What will this look like in my life?

It will look like going out to others.  Not in grand, dramatic ways but in everyday, ordinary life.  Jesus equips me with His Spirit to go person-to-person with the love of God.

In the next post there will be an exercise to help us think about the people in our lives.  Whether they know it or not, they exist to be drawn into God’s Family.  And we exist to reach out with His invitation.

.

Published on Leave a comment on In or Out? In on Out.

Evangelicals believe in conversion.  It's absolutely foundational.  The human race is either in or out.  We're born out.  We need to come in through Christ.

But then, what are we coming in to?  Because if you only think in terms of "in or out" then it might start to sound like the Christian community is the safe-house and the world is going to hell.  And the church says: "Bring em in, batten down the hatches and ride out the storm."  It's us against the world and the godly traffic is all heading towards the safe-house.

This sounds like the conservative Christian picture.  But it's missing a key element.  God.

You see God is out-going.  The Father is a Sender - of His Son and Spirit.  We need to be in.  But we need to be in on the One who is ever going out.  Therefore, with Christ, the church says: "Get on out there, reach into the world in order to bless."  It's us for the world and the godly traffic is all heading towards the outsider.

We must, by all means, believe in conversion.  But let's understand what we are converted to.  We want people in, but we want them in on radical out-going-ness.

So it's not so much in or out, it's in on out.

11

Published on 11 Comments on Everyone’s X generations from gospel faith

I've been travelling through a very multi-faith part of the world and reading Genesis at the same time.  It strikes me that Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism - every religion - is a corruption of original gospel faith.  We haven't all emerged from a primordial soup of basic spirituality and diverged into different expressions of it.  The world has degenerated from trust in Christ.

There are many implications of this for engaging in mission.  But now I'm in Sydney, it's a beautiful day and I'm off to the SCG to watch Australia extend it's all-forms-of-cricket lead over England to 7-5...

 

 

 

Twitter widget by Rimon Habib - BuddyPress Expert Developer