if I have all metaphors for love, but don't eat worms...

I came across an interesting story about William Reyburn in an unlikely demonstration of love:

When asked to eat singed caterpillars, Reyburn rose to the challenge and ate.  When he did, the people said, "White man Kaka is eating caterpillars.  He really has a black heart."  The pans were emptied.  Each one took a mouthful of water, rinsed his mouth and spat the water to one side, belched loudly, said "thank you, Ndjambie (God)", arose and departed.  My notes on that night contain this one line: "an emptied pan of caterpillars is more convincing than all the empty metaphors of love which missionaries are prone to expend on the heathen." (William Reyburn, Meaning Across Cultures, 1981, pg 473.)

I am constantly shocked by pastors and missionaries who essentially reject--if not hate--their host culture, be it their home culture or their target culture.  These people have a martyr complex for "suffering for Jesus."  That complex taints their ministry and effectiveness.  There are certainly things in all cultures which would irritate the daylights out of any sane person.  However, what if loving these "irritants" and "undesirables" is the key to communicating the love of God and the truth of the gospel in a true and compelling way?  Are we willing to be like Jesus and be fully incarnational?  Our cultures did more than vex him!

Worms anyone?

christian mugging (aka bait-and-switch: the struggle for relevance {aka the dangers of an evangelism program at your church})

Many people feel {or come across to others} just like the person in the video whenever they invite someone to church--not to mention share their faith.  The focus of this post is on the evangelism side of the issue.  Perhaps at a later point I will do something on extracted Christian living, if there is such a thing.

I was recently reminded just how hard/scary evangelism can be.  I was at a large mall in the D.C. area to do some intentional evangelism.  I was not the team leader; but was bringing a group with me to work with a group that regularly evangelized at this mall [they used EE].  Although I have taken many seminary classes in evangelism and missions, gone on numerous mission trips, shared the gospel with many many people from all walks of life and religions, and have even done those "crazy" and "radical" things like open air street preaching, the hardest part for me is walking up to a complete stranger and starting a conversation [particularly one wherein I will either be asking them about heaven and hell within 30 seconds, or announcing some completely ridiculous reason as a pretext for our "random" conversation].  Once I am in the conversation and we are deep in discussion, I am high as a kite.  But after all these years and all these hours of training and experience that initial fear remains.  Fortunately, I was working with a partner who was at ease overcoming the awkward [albeit through the interjection of his own special awkwardness-more about this in another post] introductory moment.  So I piggy backed with him and had a great time.  I was able to talk with several postmodern Muslims from Pakistan and Somalia and a postmodern Catholic from Bolivia.  We made some good progress in their understanding of the gospel, so the night was a success in those terms.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting a stellar missional, cultural thinker, Derek Webster{he is linked in my blog list-go check it out}.  I listened to him for a day, picked his brain on a number of occasions, and have thought about it all ever since.  He discussed the postmodern culture of Europe.  One problem he notes in evangelism, a problem to which the postmodern mind reacts and rejects, is the bait-and-switch.  This tactic exhibits itself in people who build relationship which are artificial in their nature and are instantly turned for proselytizing.  The moment someone doesn't convert, then the relationship is over.  I remember going out with the seminary evangelism team to the hood.  My partner went up to a group of thugs and started with some kind of "you have a Jesus shaped hole in your heart."  As part of his pitch, he promised them that he wasn't like other Christians who were there just to win people and then would leave.  The sad truth is it was his first and last trip to any hood, much less that one.  He ran it, shot off, and ran out.  He fulfilled his duty; he has a war story; he is finished.  Those people are no closer to the gospel as a result of his drive by shooting.  I am sure that there are many stories like this where people go back to their home church and talk about how resistant folks are to the gospel, when in reality they just don't like suburban Christians who are too clean to actually live in this world. The other kind of bait-and-switch is the cheesy segue and shameless analogy.  Are you really doing surveys as you knock on doors?  Is the blood of Jesus really like paint?  I think you get the point....  Someone who is dead in sin and hardened philosophically to the gospel is not going to be won by some quick shot across the bow.  The key to them understanding the gospel is not to be found in some pathetic analogy wherein you take whatever {and I do mean WHATEVER} they just said and bending it back around to whatever it was your were going to say anyway.

After chewing on Websters insights for a few days, I jotted down the following statement {probably during one of the boring sessions}

Evangelism exists because missional living does not.  That is to say, Evangelism--as a system or pitch--exists because missional living--living the daily life of a follower of Jesus--does not exist.  Since missional living does not exist, we live with the reality of vast lostness living in close proximity to the church.  The result is that there is now a need for those who are on a church campus to go off campus to proclaim what they believe.  They must proclaim since they are not living it out visibly before the world.  There is a disconnect between their life and their message.  This makes the message appear as a shameless ploy to try to fix the shortcoming of not living out the faith in and before the world. 

To put all this another way, it is necessary for us to evangelize because we are not truly living in the world in a way in which we can, from the ethos of our lives, genuinely tell them the gospel with any real conviction.  It is easier to "mug" them, and then blame them for the hardness of their hearts.  Perhaps some introspection would do us some good here?  God did not divorce his message from his messenger.  He put the gospel, and divinity itself, into terms that we could understand: the person of Jesus.  Jesus lived among us and put the gospel into a context.  To be honest, the people who address their distance with the world through active evangelism are the minority.  The majority try to close this gap through the voting box!

Here is a short list of the dangers of evangelism {evangelism that is divorced from contextual involvement in the world}:

• we start checking boxes {if we are even willing to check that box}

Evangelism becomes something of legalism.  It is merely an action which we perform.  It becomes a passionless sales pitch.  It doesn't matter if it is coherent or relevant to our hearer so long as we get through the pitch.

• we adopt a one size fits all mentality

Similar to the last one.  If we just HAVE to get through our acronym or survey or whatever, then there is never any need to think creatively about people as unique groups or as unique individuals.  Remember, the last thing in the world a Buddhist wants is eternal life....  Hindus and cultural Catholics are happy to "receive Jesus" though that means different things to both of those groups and it doesn't mean to either of them what we intended to say.  The gospel presentation of Peter in Acts 2 and Stephen is much different from Paul at the Areopagus.  Luke's presentation of the life of Jesus is vastly different from John's portrayal. 

• The gospel looses relevance {and we never blame ourselves}

Since the gospel is a placard and not a way of life {in this system} it comes off as headhunting.  Since the gospel is not given a face {ours} it will not be understood as it originally was {when it was Jesus' "face" on it} and the gospel will be viewed through the skewed lenses of postmodernism, Republican vs. Democrat, North vs south, black vs white, rich vs poor kind of dichotomies.   Do we really want to accept our portrayal by the media of who and what we are?  If you don't, then you better be willing to put a face and a life on the gospel {but count the cost, for you might loose your life!}  We present the gospel in such a trite scratch-and-sniff way, with no demonstration, that people are predisposed not to believe.  They appear to be "hardened."  {I am not trying to rub you reformed guys the wrong way, but I would rather work positively with God than for him to work in spite of me}  It is easier to pray for hardened peoples than to get involved in the messy, not to mention dangerous, business of living the gospel.

• we live extracted lives

More on this in a later post.

• the gospel has no natural context in our lives

The gospel turns into something that is merely believed and taught rather than something to believed and followed as well.  Thinking back to that guy in the hood {or any other lost person for that matter}, he had no means of connection with what my partner was saying.  My partner was only making a blitz through a part of town he knew nothing about.  The reason his presentation appeared to be artificial and empty is because it was.  There was no natural flow or context whatsoever.

• either we are in "evangelism mode" or "personal time mode"

There is a secularization of even our Christian life.  Either we are focused on presenting the gospel {by that I mean the acronym which we like best of have memorized} that we cannot really talk and listen to people, or we are in our normal mode where we walk about with an independent, segregated life with no real connection to people. 

• we develop relationships and conversations which are merely "bait-and-switch"

We only make friends to share the gospel.  When they don't appear to accept our trite representation of the truth, we leave them behind.  This has all the romantic appeal of someone who is looking for love only to be continually wooed by a series of one night stands.  When we bait-and-switch we are not really listening to the other person.  Typically I am with someone else when I share the gospel.  I am amazed and shocked by some of the things my partners will say.  It has no real relevance, correspondence, or or even contradiction to what the witnessee just said.  It is simply point 2.a.II of whatever method they are using.  They don't care if the other person is really saying or hearing and thus no real communication takes place.  The witnessee will raise a valid concern or question, and the person will say "well this is why..." and they will start right back wherever they were before they were interrupted.  Recently at the mall, my partner had cornered a man from Pakistan, Salmon.  When I arrived, Salmon was firmly and verbally resisting everything my partner was saying.  Finally Salmon tried to use an analogy to help my partner understand how obnoxious he was being.  He said "I like Lost.  And if I go around and only talk about Lost then everyone will be annoyed with me and won't want to hear anything about it."  To this my friend replied, "Well, lost has a lot of Christian ideas, just like C.S. Lewis' books..."  My friend was throwing out ideas and labels as thought Salmon would mystically be brought closer to cross by only hearing the word "Christian" adjective, verb, and noun forms enough times.  Needless to say, no real communication was taking place, and my friend was only putting a cheap face on the gospel.  {I will tell you how we resolved this situation in another post}

Before anyone gets up in arms and thinks I am saying that there should not be proclamation, you are wrong.  I am not saying this at all.  But there must at least be equal parts of proclamation and demonstration.  If we aren't living in the world, we have no right to speak to the world.  After all, Jesus was the one who set the model of living in the world and proclaiming the kingdom.  I am not recommending the removal of evangelism as a plan, per se, only the addition of living with intentionality in the world and loving its people the way God does.  We do need to face the facts.  Few people actually evangelize even with a method.  The problem is that they are scared and it feels weird to go talk to someone they don't know {perhaps the first step is to become involved in people's lives}.  And for the few who do evangelize, very few people listen with any real interest.  Part of this is that they are dead in sin.  But a large part of it is because in their mind there is no reason we should be talking to them.  We are complete strangers and we just walked over and are getting all in their business.  Even believers react to this methodology.  When I go out, I think it is very odd when someone just walks up to me.  I am more at ease when they are obviously there to tell me/sell me something because that always answers my first question: why?  But when someone walks across the mall straight to me and starts making small talk and asking me questions, my street smarts kick in and I am automatically suspicious, defensive, on guard.  As a result, I am not really listening as I am trying to discern their real motives.  Usually, I get to the "I need to go" long before they have time to get it all out.  Sound familiar?  If it doesn't maybe you have never been "befriended" by someone who, to your joy, invites you over for dinner only to find out that it is an Amway party...  Get the picture?

I am not advocating less proclamation, only more honest incarnation.

language and context

This is for those who think contextualization is bad....

where does it itch?

I recently read an account concerning an anthropologist interviewing some tribal leaders concerning their feelings towards the local missionaries.  Although the tribe valued tolerance, understanding and patience, the anthropologist coaxed them into politely revealing a mild critique.  They said, "the missionaries scratch where we do not itch."

Reading that made me recoil as I remembered my first sermon.  I had finished my first year of Bible college and was all hopped up on Schaeffer and worldview stuff.  It was some kind of drivel about existentialism.  Not that it is not an important topic or that Schaeffer was not a brilliant philosopher-evangelist.  It was a great sermon for a crowd of philosophically washed up college students who were ready to sacrifice truth for experience.  The problem is that I preached that sermon about 100 miles from Mount Airy, better known as "Mayberry."

I am in good company concerning this mistake.  This was a lesson learned the hard way in the animistic world.  Missionaries were interested in answering the typical questions about "where do we go when we die?" when the people were concerned with the reaction the ancestors and spirits would have if they turned to Christ.  Eventually missionaries learned that they were asking different questions.  As they answered the questions at hand, they began to see people commit to their message.

A common mistake people make in interfaith evangelism is to read a classic description of a religion.  They take the high version of the religion, build an apologetic against that, and try it on some hapless victim.  The problem is that few, if any, people practice the textbook definition of their religion.  Part of the problem is that there is more than on "text book".  Would someone assuming traditional catholic doctrine be able to build an effective presentation to witness to you?  How many branches of Christianity are there?  Take just one of those branches and then look for an adherent who is a textbook adherent.  Good luck.  Most people practice popularized forms and folk forms of their respective religions.  We need to listen long enough to understand who we are talking to.

Scratching where people itch requires sacrificing our prepackaged theologies, strategies, and CPM plans, in order to listen and build relationships.  I am amazed how patient Jesus was when he took time to answer the interruption concerning an inheritance and two brothers {Luke 12}.  Not only did he listen, but he shifted his teaching for the day.  We could learn something here.

when message and medium colide try on a little contextualization for size

Look at the dichotomy above.  I tend to agree with the message of corduroy girl on the right.  Nevertheless, I find myself laughing with holier-than-thou denim man on the left.  A few things strike me about this photo:

1. This is the way the world views us.  Odd, outdated and out of place.  Willing to fight but not to love.  Preaching at people rather than talking with them.  Part of a different community.

2.  We some times let method get in the way of message.  I remember going to NYC for a mission trip and passing a man who was in the median of the highway holding up a "Jn 3:16" sign.  He had the right message, but how many people's lives were changed by the sign.  Could he have been more effective with the same (well, flesh it out some first) message but in a different format.  One time I went to a pagan pride fest.  There were hundreds of Christian (presumably) protesters.  You learned a few things from their signs: they were angry these people were here, they wanted them to go, they thought these people were wrong, and they were angry with them.  Since I brought no sign, they let me through the front door.  I talked with many people face to face about real life issues and how to answer them.  I was able to present the gospel with several participants.  Who was more effective?  Who was heard?  In spite of all of their shouting, the protesters were ignored.  They did manage to accomplish one thing, they made "Christianity" look ugly, hateful, and dumb.

3. She is in corduroy....  There is nothing inherently wrong with it, but she looks odd to the world.  Do you think she would be received differently if she were to put the sign down, dress in a culturally normative way, get involved in peoples' lives, and spread the gospel?  My glowing description of this alternative betrays my own thoughts on the topic.

4.  Probably no one was changed in the slightest by the sign.  I doubt any gay in America wonders what evangelicals think about their lifestyle.  All gays know that we disprove and think that they are in sin.  They are probably even familiar with the fact that the Bible calls homosexuality a sin.  So what is her purpose?  What is she accomplishing?  I can't imagine any gay walking by, seeing the sign, and deciding that it is time to change.

We have to stop tract bombing, Christian mugging and protest evangelism.  They are going to get us exactly where they have always have: nowhere!

do you have to be born into a christian home to hear about jesus?

Recently, in a very prominent article, Newsweek chronicled the decline of Christianity in America. Al Mohler, President of Southern Seminary, was part of this discussion and had his own thoughts on the issue. From a completely different angle, Voddie Baucham has examined the rise of Islam in France and compares the birth rate between the native French and the immigrants from across the Muslim world. Voddie’s answer: Christians should have more kids. I believe that there is a connection between the shrinking western family and the decline of Christianity in the west. Furthermore, I don’t believe that the church is in decline any more or any less due to how much or how little we are evangelizing.  Said another way, the decline of Christianity has more to do with the shrinking size of the family than it does evangelism {and this is a travesty}. 
The logic goes like this:

1. Church’s methodology centers on evangelizing those already in the church. The majority of baptisms come from the children of those already attending the church and not from outside the church network.
2. couples are having fewer children than in yonder days
3. therefore our evangelism numbers our down and the church is in decline.

So I pose the question, does one have to be born into a Christian home to hear the gospel?

It appears to be the case. This is a multifaceted issue, especially the way I have linked the decline of the church, in part, to the decline of the family. Unlike Voddie, I am not prescribing that the answer to the rise of Islam or the decline of Christianity has anything to do with family size or family integrated church (FIC). I am not prescribing that we should stop evangelizing our children. I do think it is a shame, however, that it appears that unless you are born into a Christian family you are destined to hell. We certainly should evangelize our families {and perhaps even have more children. In the new “immigrant America” we appear anti-family to most other cultures, and, not to be vulgar, weak and unmanly—its true}.

I was talking with a friend about all of this the other day. He is part of an FIC church, and he suggested that this was the way that it ought to be. God designed the family to carry down the gospel. I agree that the family is an ideal form for passing on the covenant, new or old, from generation to generation. We are even instructed to do so. This was how the old covenant was passed down. The problem was that Israel forgot that family, though important, was not the end in itself. Israel was to be a “light to the nations” {Isa 49:6, 51:4}. The covenant was for them and their children. They were to faithfully past it down from generation to generation. But they forgot that they were to be a blessing to all peoples {Gen 26:4}. Again, I do not suggest that we remove this element, only that this method by itself is insufficient. It seems that churches intent on reaching their own and the whole FIC crowd have also forgotten this.

Extended families, in many cultures, are the fastest venue for transmitting the gospel. But the gospel must jump from clan A to clan B, and from B to C, and so forth. Right now, churches are only reaching the people who are already there or people who are inclined to come and seek. It is the exception, not the rule, to find people who were saved outside the context of the immediate family or church attendance. The average church, not to mention the FIC crowd, seems to take this description as a prescription. Since, they think, most people are getting saved at a young age, or as a result of family, then this is obviously how God intended it and we should schedule our resources accordingly. On the positive side, this means that our children are getting saved. On the down side, it appears that unless the lost are our children, they will probably never hear the gospel. As our country becomes less “Christian” and as our families become smaller, we will see Christianity shrink since we are only reaching our blood kin. Again, this is not the result of more or less evangelism. Rather it is because we have reduced strategy to family only and we happen to be having smaller families.

So I leave you with the question, how do we get our churches to remedy the travesty of only reaching those who are culturally Christian or are directly related to our membership? In your circle, are people outside of your genealogy hearing about Christ, or is it only your children?

All of that said: I am grateful I was born in a christian home; but we need to reach out to those who aren't.

windows and doors

In a previous post I referenced partnering with a group who did evangelism at a mall.  The mall received very international clientele, and the group's goal was to talk specifically with Muslims.  The mall was full of people from all across the 10/40 window.  My partner was long on zeal and short on tools.  I do not say anything to puff myself up {for certainly I still make many blunders} or to tear my partner down {He truly loved God and was zealous to reach people with the gospel}.  This story only serves to illustrate a point.

My partner's style of approaching people was rather caustic.  You could see the shock {and at times terror!} on the faces of those he stopped.  My partner was highly educated {PhD in English lit} but lacked certain social graces.  For those who know me well, know that it must have been bad for ME to have noticed.  At the evangelistic level, he was very fast to pull out labels to describe himself or his beliefs.  "Protestant" "Conservative" and others were freely thrown around.  {The problem with this approach is that the gospel is more than a label.  Labels are sometimes loaded terms with different meanings for different groups.  Point being, offend them with the cross not a label.} 

There was one encounter in particular which will serve our purposes here.  Technically, you are not supposed to be doing this sort of thing at a mall and we started to receive attention from a security guard.  I have been picked up mall security before-for some reason I look like a terrorist...-and didn't want the evening to end prematurely with us being thrown off of mall property.  I decided to divert them, and I left my partner to step into a bookstore and get a cup of coffee.  By the time I returned he was in the middle of talking to a Pakistani man, Salmon.  I sat down in time to hear the tail end of an exchange something like this:

Partner: You need to read the Bible
Salmon: I have already told you, I don't want to read the Bible.
P This is the most influential book in history
S I don't care: you need to go watch Lost
short pause
P I have never seen it, but I have heard that Lost has a lot of Christian ideas in it just like Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis' books.  Have you read any of those?
S {shoots him a frustrated glance}
ME  I show up
P hi ME, I was just telling him that he should read the Bible, but he doesn't want to
S Actually I am telling him he should go watch Lost

It continued like this for another ten minutes.  I think I was as shocked as Salmon.  With increasing certainty, Salmon insisted that if you continue telling people the same thing that no one would ever want to listen to you.  He followed this with several "I am really not interested" with a kind of "no means no" grimace. 
When I am witnessing with a partner, I do my best to allow them, if they are the one leading, to finish their train of though/line of reasoning.  It always bothers me, when I am headed somewhere and my partner decides that he wants to head somewhere else and cuts me off.  I think disunity in a conversation is confusing to a witnessee.  I broke the code; I had to.  Much to the shock of my partner, I started discussing the Pakistani culture with Salmon.  It shocked both of us that he, who I was sure was about to walk away at any second, leaned forward, looked me in the eyes, and started telling me all about his homeland.  So I started with questions:  What is the language?  Culturally do you have more in common with Afghanistan or India? {most Americans don't ask him that one, but he really liked it}.  These questions were not merely random.  They served a number of purposes.  First, it slowed down the conversation.  Prior to my interjection, it looked like a Chinese ping pong match.  Second, they served to demonstrate I was truly interested in him as a person--and I truly was.  I really do enjoy studying cultures and worldviews.  Third, the questions functioned strategically to discover who he really was, what he really thought, and to guide him down a certain path of reasoning.  Turns out he was as postmodern as any American or European {for those who are intimidated by the thought of talking to postmodernists, you don't need a degree in philosophy or apologetics.  Just give an honest projection of yourself, gain trust through relationships, and tell your story in terms that are relevant to them and not the church crowd}.  He had been raised Muslim.  He had heard about other religions and philosophies.  Now, he had a good education, a great job, lots of money, and he really just thought that all religions are true enough for themselves and that everyone should get along peacefully and quietly, and, most importantly, should leave him alone.  He was a far cry from the stereotype with which my partner was labeling him.

From the common interest of culture, I started asking him about the role of honor and shame.  What brings one honor?  What brings one shame?  What does one do when shamed to fix the problem?  Then I asked if I could tell him my story.  He leaned forward in his seat and eagerly said "yes."  He listened for thirty minutes to my journey from a hyper religious neoamish group to a mad search though all religions and philosophies to settling on a more culturally integrated/transformissional Christianity {primarily how I was able to move from my state of having shamed God and myself to how my situation was rectified without retribution on my head--I told my story in worldview terms he understood}.  To make a long story short, he wasn't ready to convert when I was finished.  He wasn't even ready to take the Bible I offered him.  But real communication did occur.  I actually listened to him enough to know who he was and what he needed to hear.  He actually listened to me tell him my story in vocabulary that was relevant to him.  The event turned from a very negative event to a positive event where we listened and learned.  He was visibly touched when I said I would pray for him that night {if I could go back, I would have prayed for him on the spot-opportunity lost...}

So what is the point?  I believe it was Donald Mcgavran who formulated the harvest principle.  The basic idea is that we should be going to where we see the harvest happening.  We should be going to those fields which seem to be receptive.  This is similar to Blackaby's "find where God is working and get involved."  Both of these rules are good, but one must be careful when applying them.  Many people have used these rules to overlook vast areas of the globe which appear to be unreceptive, such as North Africa and the Middle East.  As of late missiologists have realized that when you look at a geographic region, such as a city, that there are some groups within the city which are hardened, while others are receptive.  This is a better rule of thumb.  But what if everyone, or almost everyone is receptive at some level to certain approaches while not receptive to other approaches?  What if they are actually not receiving us and our methodology rather than actually rejecting the cross?  Here was a man who for all practical purposes was highly resistant.  Or was he?  My partner was slyly trying to crawl through the window  by recommending certain books in hopes that he would read, be lulled to sleep by the art and some how wake up believing the Christian worldview.  Salmon reacted the same way any of us would react if we caught someone sneaking into our house through a window.  We would be appalled, shocked, and defensive.  But what about if we just knock on the front door?  Will we perhaps get invited in and served some tea or coffee?  Regardless of our efforts and intentions, when communication does not really take place, then no evangelism actually occurred.  Inevitably we will go to peoples half-cocked and and preach against stereotypes which we assume they ought to be.  When they kick us out we will come back with our war stories of suffrin' for Jesus and talk about how resistant the world is to the gospel and probably revert by to trying to vote in our religion.  But what if we had just walked through the front door?

Christian Mugging

I have some forthcomming thoughts on "Christian mugging." Here are two skits to get you thinking.