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In “Foundations In Community – Part 1″ and “Foundations In Community Part 2″, I have (so far) proposed four foundational convictions that we are exploring at Little Flowers Community. Building on those convictions, we will continue to explore another.
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In the above video, author and illusionist Penn Jillette, an open and outspoken atheist, recounts an experience he had with a Christian after one of his performances. If you haven’t already, stop and watch the video before reading on.
Evangelism, a word so close to the heart of our faith, yet one that has been loaded down with baggage from countless examples of misuse and abuse, often well intentioned. Most Christians I know are not comfortable evangelizing- some because of the fear of rejection or the uncertainty of how to approach people, others because they don’t want to perpetuate those same mistakes eluded to above. I have known people who are passionate evangelists, half of whom make me cringe (and half of those who make me angry) and the other half who leave me in respectful wonder.
Despite this reality, we know the critical importance of living and proclaiming the gospel to the world around us. At Little Flowers Community, being a missional community is central- and not just in the current buzz-word sense of the word “missional”. Rather, we see living into the mission of Christ together to be a fundamentally defining characteristic of who we are, not simply a program or special vocation for a few Christians. Yes, we affirm that some are called into this vocation more explicitly, but we still affirm the universal vocation of every Christian (especially together in community) to the mission of God.
Thus, the fifth foundational conviction we are proposing for our community is as follows:
“Our response to the love and grace of God as a community is to live missionally- that is, to live & proclaim the mission of Jesus to others where they are at.”
It is important to note the motivation for mission- namely our response to the love and grace of God, a love that in turn calls us to love others as ourselves. It is a love that must be humble, for we are no more deserving of God’s love than the worst of sinners. That humility, then, shapes the posture with which we live and proclaim the gospel into the world around us. This posture alone confronts the often arrogant and/or ignorant approaches of often well-meaning Christians who have contributed to evangelism’s bad reputation.
The emphasis on both living and proclaiming the gospel is also critical. On one hand, the faithfulness of our witness is essential to the credibility of our proclamation. This is not to say that God cannot works through the preaching of hypocrites- if that were the case, the world would have no hope. In fact, as our previous discussions have reflected, the humble confession and repentance that should define our communities often become the most powerful witness of all, not some impossible moral perfection.
On the other hand, as we live in humble and radical faithfulness in our lives, our words gives meaning, direction and clarity to that which is transforming our hearts. Proclamation of the gospel in words is essential in most cases. Frankly, the very love and grace that motivates us to share- that love and grace that has given us real, immediate and eternal hope- should be something we cannot help but talk about. Yes, we must do so with sensitivity, humility and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but “preach” we must. St. Francis of Assisi modeled this tension very well, as I explored in more detail here. While he never actually said the now-famous line “Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary use words“, what he did say was:
“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”
However, the fact remains that many forms of evangelism (perhaps even most forms, in recent years) have left both Christians and the world somewhat gun shy. There are two critical dynamics in this challenge that I want to name, though we do not have the space to delve into them here:
First, we need to recognize which of the “techniques” and models for evangelism that have been most damaging and/or ineffective and why. Some approaches, like handing a person a New Testament, would have had a much higher level of positive response in a more solidly Christendom context, where the recipient would likely have at least a foundation is basic Christian worldview through which the text would have meaning. As Christendom crumbles, these approaches are decreasingly helpful.
Second, we need to rediscover the gospel we are called to live and preach. All too often it has been reduced to the important, but far too narrow emphasis on individual salvation. However, as we explore Scripture and see the gospeling work of the Church in the text and in Church history, we realize that it is much bigger and broader than this. In many ways, salvation is to the gospel what a wedding is to a marriage- the inauguration of a transformative relationship. In the “soterian” culture that I was raised in, getting saved ended the bulk of my responsibility as a Christian- beyond being moral, devout and getting other people saved. Yet, the gospel Jesus lived and proclaimed suggests that salvation is the start of a greater relationship and vocation of His people. Again, space does not allow us to dig in deeper, so I would highly recommend to you Scot McKnight’s new book “The King Jesus Gospel: The Original News Revisited”.
Another critical point in this foundational conviction is that we are to live and proclaim the gospel to people where they are at. In other words, we need to be living into their worlds in meaningful ways. This will mean that we will find ourselves (as Jesus did) in places that the religious status quo might find questionable or even unacceptable. However, such presence is not license to compromise for the sake of our witness. While are not to be self-righteous in our engagement here, neither are we to disassociate from “those religious Christians” by being permissive of morality. It is a tension that is critical for us to be aware of (1 Cor. 9:19-23).
Further, we need to resist the impulse to make our Sunday worship gathering the primary place for evangelism. While I think we need to be welcoming of people during our worship and be aware of how our “insider” language and experience might alienate them unintentionally, I do no think we should subvert the purpose of the worship gathering for the sake of evangelism. It is also all too easy for us to then shift the expectation and responsibility of evangelism onto others- namely the pastor(s). While it is natural for some to be more gifted than others, and thus we are able to rely on each other in this way, it is wrong for us to shift responsibility. We are called to go into the world.
Regardless of how we approach evangelism, the reality is that we will still offend some. This fact should not lead us to being dismissive or combative with those people. Neither should it dissuade us from our commitment to pursue God’s mission faithfully and appropriately. In the end, we cannot get around our calling to live and proclaim the gospel. It is to be a centrally defining aspect of our Christian identity.
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1. “Every member of this community is an important part of the whole that reflects Christ. Our ability to live & thrive as Christ followers is dependent on one another. Thus, we must VOLUNTARILY make the common good of the community our priority. Only in this way can our individual well-being truly be protected.”
2. “For our community there can be only one ultimate authority- our loving God, whose will we discern together as a community by His Holy Spirit”
3. “The only requirement to be welcomed as a member of our church community is the desire and commitment to follow Jesus.”
4. “The primary place the discern God’s will is in the context of the Christ-committed community.”
5. “Our response to the love and grace of God as a community is to live missionally- that is, to live & proclaim the mission of Jesus to others where they are at.”
