Every Church an Evangelizing Community!
Speaking to the Church of England’s General Synod (Thursday 11th February 2010), Fresh Expressions (FE) Team Leader, Bishop Graham Cray, gave an update on the work of FE, saying much been achieved since the initiative’s launch in 2005 but there is “much, much more to do.”
On Monday nights in Toronto’s Bloor West Village, the Yellow Griffin Pub’s upstairs room hosts “God at the Pub”. A ministry of Runnymede Community Church for seven years, “God at the Pub” is the result of the church leadership’s fervent prayer and missional impulse to lower the “barriers to entry” posed by their traditional church building. By bringing the Alpha course, and a homegrown curriculum called “Jesus Who?” to this non-traditional environment, the church and its pastor, Mike Wilkins, hoped to share the gospel with the unchurched in their community. Has it worked? Is this a fresh expression of church, of evangelism, or something else?
All the textbook prerequisites for reaching the unchurched seem to be present. A welcoming, neutral venue, good food and community, and accessible, biblical content that presents the great news of Jesus Christ. On opening night in September, there were 18 participants, 2 leaders, 3 visiting pastors (guilty as charged) and 1 bartender in attendance. Drink orders were taken immediately, nametags distributed, and participants struggled in their first small group exercise, deciding among the pub’s vast selection of burgers. The first night is free, but the $150 course fee, payable if you decide to stay for the ten week session, covers all the food and drink expenses. Yes, people are paying and committing up front to learn about Jesus, and to enjoy some great food and drink!
After rushing to eat, Mike stood at the front of the room under a small projector screen to introduce the course. “Jesus Who?” is an exploration of Jesus’ identity, what Mike described to me as a “Pre-Alpha” course, to introduce the “who” of salvation history before the theology of salvation covered in Alpha. It’s designed to connect with those who are open to Jesus, but have little interest in organized religion. The course begins with some of the most universally accepted ideas about Jesus, as a teacher, rabbi, guru, friend and revolutionary, before dealing with more challenging aspects, like Jesus as master, Christ, Saviour and Son of God. The first week’s content was shorter than usual, and meant to get people thinking about how Jesus is portrayed in culture and media, and in their own minds. Normally there would be a half hour talk, followed by a half hour of small group discussion, but not the first week.
Instead of small group discussion in the first week, Mike asked each participant to introduce themselves, and tell the group why they’ve come. Person after person introduced themselves, and nearly every person said they attended Runnymede Community Church, or were visiting from another church. Many of them were new members, and could be described as “de-churched” people exploring their faith once again. What was missing, however, was the demographic we could call “unchurched” – those with no past or present involvement in Christian faith and/or the church.
Is “God at the Pub” a fresh expression of church? That is defined as “a form of church for our changing culture, established primarily for the benefit of people who are not yet members of any church. It will come into being through principles of listening, service, incarnational mission and making disciples. It will have the potential to become a mature expression of church shaped by the gospel and the enduring marks of the church and for its cultural context.”
The first part applies – it was established to reach those who are not yet members of any church. However, those it was intended to reach (the unchurched) are no longer present. Past sessions have included unchurched people, and hopefully future courses will also, but none were present this time. Perhaps we can call “God at the Pub” a fresh expression of evangelism, since it explains the faith to new attendees at the church, and then feeds them back to the established congregation, with no intentional plan for a mature expression of church to arise in this context.
“God at the Pub” is a creative, fun way to teach Christian basics. However, even with the barriers presented by traditional church buildings removed, it appears that there still exist other barriers to entry for the truly unchurched. It’s possible that the content, explaining the identity of Jesus, is still too advanced for the truly unchurched, and that a more general introduction to the “unknown God” of Acts 17 is in order. It’s possible that the icon of Christ used as the course’s logo and on posters turns people off, and they ignore the advertising. Another possibility is that “God at the Pub” has even more barriers to remove to truly reach an unchurched audience. It still relies on participants intentionally coming to a space set apart (the pub’s upstairs room), to commit to any pay for a complete session, and to join an unfamiliar group of people. A truly incarnational approach to pub ministry might arise downstairs, in the pub itself, with Christians sharing the content of “Jesus Who?” one on one, where people truly gather.
The formative journey of fresh expressions describes a movement from loving service to community to discipleship to worship. “God at the Pub” jumps right in with community and discipleship. Loving service exists, but in the form of basic Christian education or discipleship, which likely meets the needs of those consciously wishing to explore Christianity. They are tapping into the needs of church members, those on the fringes of church, but not the dechurched (those with a history of Christian faith, but who have drifted away) or even unchurched (those with no such history). This reinforces the importance of “listening” to and knowing our communities before responding with any form of church, fresh or not, and that this listening must continue throughout the life of the ministry, as the community’s needs change and the church adapts its response.
My congratulations go to Runnymede Community Church, Mike Wilkins and God at the Pub. This is a creative and fun extension of the church’s ministry, and has reached countless unchurched and dechurched people for Christ in the last seven years, and continues to engage and disciple newchurch members. As with every church, their challenge is to keep the gospel and the principles of incarnational ministry before them, and to constantly proclaim the gospel afresh in a rapidly changing world. “God at the Pub” is lightweight and nimble enough that I won’t be at all surprised to hear how God uses and adapts it transform lives for many years to come.
Link: This article from the local community paper from the same evening.
After visiting the IKEA in North York a few weeks ago, I had to ask, “What does IKEA have that we-the church-don’t have?” This question is at once tongue-in-cheek and a sober one. On the tongue-in-cheek end of things, they’ve obviously got more comfortable seats, a great deal of marketing geniuses (have you seen their commercials?!) and a multi-million dollar advertising budget! On the sober end of things, IKEA, as a culture, presents and represents a challenge to the church. This was made sharply apparent to me on this particular visit. On our way out, after buying a new door mat, some Swedish meatballs (if you’ve ever had their Swedish meatballs you know what I’m talking about!), a table lamp, and a lint roller (wow, I’m just realizing how random that purchase was) we were confronted with the following advertisement:
IKEA North York presents…SENSTATIONAL SUNDAY MORNINGS!!
Sunday Mornings are a great time for family, big breakfasts and coming to IKEA! Starting on February 22nd and running on
March 1st, 8th and 15th. IKEA North York will have another great reason to come to IKEA. We will have 2 crazy offers on great products.
From 10am-12pm the Sales team will reduce 2 good products at 50% off!
There will also be a great reason to bring the kids…
From 10:30am to 11:30am kids can enjoy a fun activity in the restaurant!
This advertisement was flanked by a picture of a happy nuclear family full of joy, optimism and looking so über-cool with their new IKEA gear. So there it was: “Sunday mornings at IKEA”-what every family is looking for! Drop the kids off at the activity center, eat good, inexpensive food and funkify (please excuse my creative vocabulary) your life at unbeatable prices all in one Sunday morning!
Now the reason that IKEA (bless its soul for where else could I find a lint roller for that price?) represents a challenge to the church is because it’s out-narrating the church; it’s beating the church at its own game of narrating and embodying a story about what life is all about. It’s not IKEA alone that’s successful here but it’s a good representative of the whole culture of commerce and consumption and its ideals. In fact, the whole industry of advertising is based on successfully narrating a way of life-a way of life that you can’t help but want to be a part of.
Do you know why IKEA is so successful? I mean, we’re in the middle of a recession and the place was packed with people with their carts full of stuff (ours included). The reason IKEA is thriving is because it knows its story, it knows how to tell and embody its story of consumption at fair prices. It knows its end goal, its reason for being. In other words, IKEA knows how to do its IKEA thing, and it performs it well. In fact, walking the halls, you can read the narrative about how IKEA came into being. They sure know how to tell a story.
“Church” names a story, it names a people, it names a certain performance; simply put, it names a way of life. Being a part of the church means being a part of this performance, embodying this way of life. The church tells and lives out a story about what life is all about. In doing so, it narrates an alternative story to the one our culture, so effectively told by IKEA, does. What does this mean? It means, simply, that the church tells a different story than our world does. This ought not to come as a surprise, since the Jesus we follow embodied an immeasurably different story than did the world of his day.
But it’s when the church forgets who she is-when she forgets what her story is-that the church misses the whole point of this following Jesus thing. It’s then that the church starts to listen and buy into the stories that are told around it; stories like the myth of redemptive violence, or the story of unlimited consumption of resources, or the story of homeland safety and security at all costs, or the story of self-concern over the concern of those on the edge of society. Maybe it’s as simple as the story of “the best bang for your buck”-a story told without narrating anything about the condition of the production or the producers of our goods. The stories told around us are legion and often very attractive. When the church forgets to do its church thing, it loses its way.
Remember what happened to Israel when Israel forgot to do its Israel thing? Babylonian captivity, period. So, when we bemoan the state of the church, or when we contemplate the nature of cultural shifts and what role the church should play in them, we need, above all things, to remember that the malaise the church finds itself in (call it whatever you like, “ecclesial recession” is one of my favourites!) is first of all a loss of identity, which is a long way of saying that we find ourselves in our own Babylonian captivity.
Answers? Well, I get asked a lot, probably because I’m a young priest, about how the church is going to move forward into the future. And right now many Dioceses in our church are working with strategic plans as they look to that future. Let me add something that’s seemingly obvious but that gets lost ‘on the ground’ as it were: no amount of strategic planning, no number of core values, no measure of problem solving will secure the future of the Anglican Church in Canada if we are not willing to radically re-think what it means to be a church in a culture that has by-and-large forgotten about the church! Before we crunch the numbers, before we throw solutions at our problems, what this Babylonian captivity ought to engender and create is a penitential community-a community that can acknowledge our collective failure to embody the gospel call to live out the Kingdom of God in our world.
Answers? I only have one. Only God rescues. Only God takes unfaithful Israel back. Only God can rescue his people. I’m writing this on the tail end of Lent as we approach the celebration of resurrection. At Easter we tell and embody the story in our services, in our pageants, and in our choir choruses, of a God who rescues, and in the resurrection rescue of love that raised our Lord from the grave, rescues us as well. That’s good news; and, it’s incomparably better news-and a much better story!-than Sensational Sunday Mornings at IKEA.
“Do something outside of your comfort zone,” was her instruction, “and come to Thursday’s meeting prepared to talk about it.” At first I struggled with my small group leader’s assignment; not being the kind of person who really avoided uncomfortable things in life. But then a powerful real-life parable played out.
It all started with a call from the office (on my day off). A church staff member informed me that a woman from another church in our denomination had contacted our church to see if I’d be willing to visit her dying husband.
He was in a palliative state and she wanted to know if I could be available to help care for him until he died, and then do his funeral. When this request was first relayed to me (this is hard to admit) I responded in a less than positive way. The family lived over an hour away, and while their church was without a pastor at the time, I didn’t really feel like taking on the added responsibility.
My thoughts were fairly selfish, I know, but the idea of spending weeks or possibly months on the road troubled me. It took a few minutes to reluctantly get my head on straight. Then I returned the woman’s call.
She was quite reticent in making her request, but didn’t know what else to do or where else to go. She said she could pay me for my time. Being the big-hearted guy that I am, I feigned that time and money were not a concern in matters such as these. Then we set up a meeting time for Thursday (convenient for me); three days down the road.
That night I woke up having had a dream about the dying man. I couldn’t recall the details, but I do remember having a strong sense that I needed to visit him right away. After re-scheduling the appointment the next morning, I sat down to begin writing my sermon for the upcoming Sunday; on a film called The Dark Knight (it’s a story about how good and evil reside in all of us, and how there are bigger forces for good holding all of life together, keeping this world; in spite of our often divided hearts). My message came quickly and was uncharacteristically completed in two hours.
This left me a bit more time and space for my palliative sojourn.
And yet I continued to grumble, all the way to this dying man’s house.
Closing the door of my car in front of their home, I remember praying, “Help me get my heart in the right place for this God.” Within minutes, I was sitting beside his bed. The moment I laid eyes on him I could see that death was near; pallid grey skin, purpled bruising, agonized gasping. His arm was elevated on a blanketed bedside table in order to help him breathe.
He was asleep when I entered. But his wife immediately woke him up – for me. I felt like I was intruding on the last bit of peace this man had.
Yet, the moment he awoke, he immediately lifted his dying hand to shake mine. I can still see his laboured effort in slow motion; using almost all of his limited resources he weakly raised his trembling hand to properly greet me. “If a dying man can do that for me,” I thought, “how can I possibly begrudge a one hour trip to come see him?”
He didn’t have a lot of energy for dialogue. For most of the time his wife and I did the talking while he, fading in and out of consciousness, listened in. She handed me a piece of paper with the words John 7:37-38 written on it. “This is the passage he’d like you to preach at his funeral,” she whispered. I opened my bible, searched the text out and then read it.
“On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
Then I asked the man why he chose it. With a weak, gravelly voice he said, “Because we’re the vessels…” To be honest, I didn’t understand what he meant at first. Now I do.
A few minutes later I asked if I could pray with the two of them. Hand in hand in hand I read Psalm 23 – The Lord is my shepherd – and then prayed one of those prayers where even you find yourself listening in to what’s being said. It was one of those times when the Spirit seems to be subtly leading.
Earlier in our meeting the man’s wife had told me that all she really wanted was for him to die peacefully, “In his sleep, at rest.” Building on her desire, I prayed that God would indeed take him soon, but then I added, “And not just in his sleep Lord, but in the middle of a beautiful dream… in the middle of a dream where he’s breathing freely, and running in a wide open space, filled with delight… in the middle of that kind of fully alive and free experience, take him home… and then let that moment live on forever.” For a second the beauty of the image took my breath away.
After finishing the prayer, as I was getting up to leave, I grabbed the man’s hand again and said, “I promise that I’ll do your funeral in a God honouring way. I’ll do the best that I can.”
Then I left for home. Content.
It wasn’t until the next morning that I received the voicemail. The woman had called overnight to let me know that her husband died 7 hours after I’d left, at 11:00 pm. When I heard the words I gasped, and then let out a deep cry. The kind of cry you cry when you feel totally convicted of your selfishness and sin, while at the same time being held by this amazing sense of God’s forgiving grace and goodness. So many ‘what ifs’ ran through my head.
I immediately called the woman back. She saw the timeliness of my visit as nothing short of a miracle. A miracle!
How can that be? Even as my heart was so reluctant and out of line, God was working out his perfect will with a timing that was just right for this woman and her family.
How incredible is that? It truly was a miracle. God it seems -perhaps more often than we know – works in spite of us.
“Because we’re the vessels…”
Shortly after the 2008 Vital Church Planting Conference, I shared some church planting principles with my sister on a winter camping trip. Among other things, I explained the importance of understanding cultural context, and how evangelism and church planting efforts can be helped or hindered by geography. Months later, for my birthday, she added to the conversation by presenting me with Who’s Your City by University of Toronto business professor Richard Florida. Its cover claimed the book would answer “how the creative economy is making where to live the most important decision of your life,” and its pages contained a treasure trove of demographic data, survey results and surprise revelations for church planters and evangelists called to specific segments of the population.
The first of these revelations was Florida’s debunking of globalization’s promised “flat world.” This myth says that with the advent of high-speed communications and transportation, “place” has little or no relevance for the creative and mobile classes. For example, stockbrokers armed with high-speed Internet and a cell phone could work from the dock of a Muskoka cottage, a hotel in India, or their home in Eastern Ontario, just as if they were on Wall Street, and Wall Street itself would lose its status as a financial hub. If this were true, Florida says, we would have seen a mass exodus from city centres into rural areas. After all, why would a stockbroker pay Manhattan rent when he/she can do the same work in a country hideaway that can be bought for the same amount as a few years’ rent in the city? Yet the reality is that since the advent of these technologies, we have seen continued growth in urban areas, and continued population decline in rural areas, despite skyrocketing urban rent and housing prices. Florida illustrates this increasing concentration on a continental scale with creative analysis of night-time satellite images, where artificial light indicates population. The truth, Florida says, is that place does matter, and it matters so much that people will pay thousands more to live, work, and locate their businesses in the right place, surrounded by similar people and businesses. Florida calls this the “clustering effect.”
The ecclesiastical version of the “flat world” hypothesis says that in today’s world, geography is obsolete, and people prefer to arrange themselves in “networks”. The Anglican tradition of dividing ministry into geographic parishes should thus be replaced with churches that serve “networks” of people, whether connected by their work, pastimes or simply friendship, recognizing these networks may gather people from across several parish or even diocesan boundaries, a sin next to heresy in some circles. In many ways this is true, but the model falls apart when it’s pushed too far. Taken too far, one could conclude that a church planted for young professionals could thrive regardless of its location. Whether in a sprawling metropolis or a small city, it could theoretically gather its target population by affinity rather than by geography. The problem that Florida’s research shows, however, is that affinity networks are increasingly clustering in geographic areas, and no wise church planter can discount geography. “Who” and “Where” are deeply connected. A church called to a certain geographical location will be wise to understand and engage with those clustered there, and a new plant called to a certain people group will be wise to locate where they cluster.
The most obvious example of clustering is that instead of globalization, enabled by high-speed communications and transportation bringing us a flatter world without geographical constraints or advantage, we have an increasingly segregated world where, thanks to the same developments, up and coming musicians cluster in Nashville, ‘A’ list film stars cluster in Los Angeles, and top fashion designers cluster in NYC and so on. Trying to break into those industries outside of those clusters is exceedingly difficult. . . . Place matters.
Less obvious, but more relevant clusters can be identified by age. Florida divides the life of a person in the creative/mobile classes into five segments, separated by three “big moves”. Remember, these are generalizations, and are focused on the “creative class” and not the entire population, where many are immobile due to economic and other circumstances. The first segment of the creative/mobile class is made of recent college graduates, 20-29 and generally single, establishing careers and relationships on their own for the first time. The second segment is young professionals, 30-44, established in careers and relationships, but still childless. The third segment is families with children, aged 64 and under. The next segment is empty-nesters between 45 and 64, followed by retirees 65+. In each stage, distinct needs cluster people together. First an active nightlife attracts young singles to a vibrant city center, then as young professionals, the cheaper real estate of the suburbs, still within a reasonable commute, becomes more appealing. For a young family, good schools and safe streets are of primary concern. Finally, for empty-nesters, arts, culture and recreation become more attractive, and for retirees, access to high-quality healthcare, safety and warmer weather are draws. Florida uses these survey results and other criteria to rank cities and neighbourhoods across the United States by their appeal to each segment, as well as by “personality”. A Canadian edition is said to be coming soon. Until then, the US edition is still helpful, and gives honourable mention to several Canadian neighbourhoods. For his target audience, members of the creative class contemplating their next move up the ladder of success, this is meant to help one choose a city of residence. For church planters and evangelists called to serve a specific segment of this class, Florida identifies and ranks the kinds of cities and neighbourhoods where that segment has “clustered”. In other words, it helps us locate and understand our mission fields.
Christians will also find much of concern in Florida’s book. Not least among them is the “stratification” of the world, where Florida observes a massive segregation of people by wealth and class. His use of gay and lesbian populations as indicators of up and coming neighbourhoods is both intriguing and contentious. Finally, the book reveals how the pursuit of wealth and success drives many human decisions, often at the expense of others, even though Florida’s research reveals that happiness has more to do with one’s place than one’s wealth (although the two are not unrelated).
However, when it comes to church planting and evangelism, we of all people should hardly be surprised that the world has different values from the Kingdom of God. Florida is making valuable, realistic observations about the world that is, and not the world that God wants. For someone like me, finding that my call to plant and evangelize is based on the question of “who” more than “where”, Who’s Your City describes and locates a mission field ripe for introduction to kingdom values. Evangelists and church planters will surely benefit from understanding the demography of this mission field as they, with the dedication and enthusiasm of a pearl merchant seeking a pearl of great price, seek clusters of those among whom they are called to share His kingdom.
In recent years, many of us, in churches large and small, have taken an in-depth look at what we are doing to welcome people. We want to make sure that our children’s areas are clean, bright and cheerful, that the bathrooms are spotless, that the church is comfortable, that our Sunday greeters are out in the parking lot to help people as they arrive. We want to ensure that our worship service is accessible, that directions within the church are obvious so that folks can find their way, and that our outside signage is visible and welcoming. We want to be very certain that our coffee is amazing, and that our savories and sweets are so awesome people will come back for more. We also encourage members of our congregations to be aware of any newcomers and not to leave them alone holding up the wall during coffee hour.
It’s a lot that we ask of our congregations, especially when our budgets are stretched, and our people’s own personal day timers are packed, even on a Sunday.
A common scene in church kitchens on a Sunday, once the coffee hour is over, food is put away, dishes are done and the wardens are locking up, is that someone will say “Well, that’s done for another week.” But is it? Is that it? Is that hospitality?
Yes, it is hospitality-and if we have done even some of these things we have done well, we have “packaged” our church and presented it very well to newcomers and visitors.
But what happens when the packaging comes off? What is going on inside our respective churches? This is the tough question to ask of ourselves, because the hospitality of the Kingdom going on within the church community, between brothers and sisters in Christ, is what is truly vital to the health of the church. This inside hospitality is essential if we want to sustain our outward hospitality of welcoming people into our midst.
For me, this is all about the hospitality of Jesus. It continually awes me that we–you and I–have the privilege of offering and sharing the hospitality of Jesus with one another within our church families.
When we look at Bible, we see over and over again that Jesus had the extraordinary ability to meet people exactly where they were at, he met them in their doing, he met them in their interests, he met them in those things that were on their hearts. He welcomed people as they were. He not only welcomed people into conversation, but he welcomed them into his time, he welcomed them into his full attention. He welcomed those who came to him to share in his life and invited them into the Kingdom of God.
What’s more, Jesus, at the same time that he was extending his hospitality to others, was himself completely open to the hospitality of God and the power of the Holy Spirit in him.
How are we offering this same hospitality of Jesus to one another within our congregations? Here are some questions I invite you to ponder with me:
1. What is a newcomer? While we think of a newcomer as someone who is new to our church, may we also think of a “newcomer” as an existing parishioner who is coming into the church in a new way? They may be recently widowed, have lost their job, be newly married, have a new baby. Life circumstances can change the way we know ourselves and are known. As brothers and sisters in Christ, we want to be sensitive to this “newcomer” and to meet them in their new place. I have heard from so many people who have become separated in marriage that they felt their most uncomfortable and marginalized when they came to church, their own church, the church they had attended for years. Why is that?
2. Hospitality is vital within the various ministries of our church as well. Welcoming existing members of the congregation into new positions of leadership, the Choir, ACW, Sunday School team, or into small home groups is not always as graciously extended as we might wish. Yet within a community that follows the way of our Lord, encouraging, equipping and empowering each other to be all that God created each of us to be is a huge part of what we are about.
3. Think for a moment about the generations that exist within our church families. God willing, we are dealing with a least four generations and in some cases even five. Church is the only place outside of the family unit where the generations gather on a regular basis. What is the hospitality like between the generations? I have had the joy of experiencing one warm and wonderful woman who happily took it upon herself to position herself in the main entrance hall each Sunday in order to greet the church family as they arrived. What was remarkable about her ministry was the way in which she greeted each young person. They felt valued and welcomed. It was heart warming to see the little ones come up the walk way with anticipation and as soon as they would see her waiting for them, their little faces would light up. She was, and still is, always there for them.
4. How transparent is the leadership team? There is something uncomfortable about being a member of a church family and not knowing what’s going on-as if you are not important. Inside hospitality is about inclusiveness. While we are thinking about transparency, how easily would a member of our congregations, or any of us for that matter, be able to articulate the core values, purpose and vision of our church? How well have we as leaders communicated what we know so well?
5. I wonder too sometimes about the hospitality that we, as a church, extend to the Holy Spirit. I’m sure that sounds odd, yet I believe the question is valid. I had the joy of hearing the “Himig Singers” last spring. A great song that they performed for us was called “You ain’t got church til the Holy Spirit shows Up”.
Recently, I was involved in a Bible Study on the Book of Acts. We came to the word “favor”, a word which Luke uses in reference to Mary, to Jesus, and to the early community. It is a beautiful word and captures the significance of hospitality of Jesus. The word favor, according to my Strong’s Concordance, means “divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life” The hospitality of Jesus in us is the divine influence upon our hearts which is then reflected in our lives, both individually and communally.
In the Book of Acts (2:47 ), it is this grace from God, this “favor” that attracted others to the early church community daily. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, these early Christians extended to each other their willingness to be together, to come to table together, to learn together, to share, to love and to serve each other. And this willingness is the hospitality of Jesus, “hospitality inside”, if you like.
For the individual soul, this inside hospitality assures us that we are valued, that we are beloved, that we belong. It gives us confidence in who we are as children of God. It also gives us confidence in our own church family.
If the hospitality of Jesus is appropriated into the very heartbeat of our congregations, the natural outpouring of this will then flow outside of ourselves into our lives in the world. It becomes natural and normal for us to be Kingdom hosts, inviting others to come and see, to come and share in the way of Jesus and the Kingdom. We are able to extend this hospitality to others because we are confident about what it is that we are inviting them into.
And that’s hospitality from the inside out.
 One afternoon this Spring, I met the Rich Young Ruler. He was a well dressed young professional, who sat next to me and simply struck up a conversation. Eventually the conversation turned to my vocation, drawing out his thoughts on religion: “All religions are the same,” he said, “they all teach the same basic message: Do not murder, do not steal…” He rhymed off most of the Ten Commandments. I listened to his story as he recounted to me the ways he had observed various world religions having failed at keeping the commandments they claimed to believe would save them. Following these commandments did not seem, to him, to be the way to salvation.Taking my cues from Luke 18, I agreed with him that what so many beliefs (including perversions of our own) seem to have in common is that they start with rules and laws, or some other human achievement. There is always something that one must do in order to gain eternal life, spiritual awareness, or whatever end result is sought. This is what the Rich Young Ruler had naturally come to expect, and why he asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” What my friend observed was the same reason the Rich Young Ruler left in disappointment: the bar is always set too high for humans to reach, and we always fall short.
What is unique about the Christian faith, I shared, is that God came to Earth as one of us, the very best of us, and so the starting point is not that we have to do the impossible, but that in living the life we could not, and conquering death for us, God has already done it. Of course our faith has rules and laws, including the Ten Commandments, but as a worshipful response to God’s loving gift of eternal life, rather than as a prerequisite. He told me he had never heard the gospel story all at once before, and when it came time to go, my new friend was reflectively saying, “that makes a lot of sense” before we traded email addresses to keep in touch. What friend of yours echoes a familiar story from scripture? Do you know a prodigal like the one in Luke 15? Someone worshipping a nebulous “Unknown God” like those Paul met in Acts 17? A curious reader like the one Philip met in Acts 8? As we continue to grow as disciples of Christ, and naturally share our faith with family, friends, and even with new friends as I did this Spring, our witness will often follow the shape of such stories in scripture. |
Luke 18:18-27 (The Rich Young Ruler) – A certain ruler asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honour your father and mother.” ‘ He replied, ‘I have kept all these since my youth.’ When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ But when he heard this, he became sad; for he was very rich. Jesus looked at him and said, ‘How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ Those who heard it said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ He replied, ‘What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.’ (NRSV) |
Social networking sites are a big deal these days. Love them or hate them, they are a part of the new reality of how people, especially young people, choose to interact with each other online.
This past year in my work as a cyber-evangelist I have invested some time in looking at ways to interact with people through social networking. It can be a great way to reach out to people and help them become followers of Jesus. Although the principles outlined here can apply to different online ministry situations, my examples come from working through Facebook
Whose Profile Is This Anyway?
When you set up your personal profile online for a social networking site there are many decisions to make. How much information will you disclose and to whom? Do you want to display a funny or a serious picture of yourself? (A close-up shot is best, I think, for easy recognition.) Who will you invite and who will you accept to be your friends online?
While these are important decisions, the first and most important decision that you will have to make about your witness online is actually something that you won’t type in when you set up your profile info. Who really owns this profile? Who calls the shots? Who sets the priorities? Is it you or is it the Lord whom you serve? If Jesus is in the driver’s seat, then that will make a big difference about how you use your time, what kinds of things you will and will not attach to your profile and who you will seek to interact with.
Telling Your Story
Just as in real life, it is always good to be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you (See I Peter 3:15 for a great guideline as to how to interact online.) You can post the story of how your life was changed by your faith in Christ in the “notes” section of your Facebook profile. The power of your online faith-story can be multiplied. You can grab the url address from your faith-story, repost it in the mini-feed section, refer to it in other documents and use it as a part of your online signature.
Making Every Move Count
A key principle is to ask yourself what purpose every activity or potential activity in the social networking environment can serve. There are huge numbers of funny and fascinating applications out there that can help bring you closer to people. Not all of them are equally good for helping you to get in touch with spiritual “seekers.”
Some of them can turn into timewasters. Some of them can send people confusing messages about who and what you really represent. Beware of undercutting your message once you’ve let it be known through your profile that you are a follower of Jesus. Lots of application activities can simply be a tool to bridge the gap and create “meaningful touch moments”. The key is to be discerning and intentional about their use.
Send virtual flowers, play silly online games, tag your friends in your photos, post funny videos . . . but do it for a purpose and do it with integrity. If you are an interesting and caring friend in real life, you can find ways online to show your friends that you are interested in them and that you really care . . . if that is your goal.
Real Faces, Real People
The more meaningful experiences you have online in this environment to talk about your faith are likely to be with people you have already met. That’s not to say that you can’t have meaningful interactions with a total stranger whom you have only met on the Internet. By searching via the avenues suggested by Facebook, you can sometimes find long lost friends or keep up with someone you seldom see. Ask God to guide you and give you ideas of who to establish or re-establish contact with.
If you only have Christian friends on your profile and you all talk about church or “Christian stuff”, it’s not likely that your profile will have much influence or prove very attractive for your non-Christian friends. Choose to highlight those things that those who aren’t Christians yet can relate to. Be sensitive to their needs. You might think that the latest video that you found on GodTube is hilarious, but will your non-Christian friends you are trying to influence “get it”? Or will they feel excluded?
Care To Share?
Sites such as http://www.iamnext.com, the outreach focused website where I work, attempt to provide online material that helps to bridge the gap between the interests and needs of many non-Christians and the gospel. Consider posting an article on your profile from a website designed to reach out to those who aren’t yet believers. Be choosey. Passive posting where people come to visit you and observe your interests is one thing. It’s probably not a good idea to overwhelm your non-Christian friends by actively inviting them to lots of events or actively sharing material with them. An annoying friend is not a friend for long.
The Facebook application “Life Questions” (http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6611135350&b=&ref=pd) designed by our sister site invites your visitors to dialogue with you over a particular evangelistic article or a explanation of the gospel. I hope we will soon see a version of this application for iamnext.com.
Going Out On Chaplaincy Duty
I have found that another good way to “bridge the gap” is by joining groups where I share a common interest or experience with others. I have found that it is easier to initiate conversations that go past the surface when you find people who recognize a need in their lives. Sometimes people in this position are willing to share their own story and receive a part of your life’s experience in return.
I have found ways to bring Christ into the picture by operating from a starting point of a particular problem or experience I have had. Thus, I have had the chance to engage in a kind of “online chaplaincy” by looking for opportunities to help. Some of the interaction takes place on discussion boards and public wall postings, but most of it goes back and forth through private email messages to an individual looking for help.
Keeping It Tidy
A key to making online ministry from a social networking site work is being disciplined about maintenance. I re-prioritize and “weed” my page constantly for objects that are repetitive or don’t serve a purpose. Clutter is the enemy. I want to keep those points that are the most important for pointing people to Jesus at the top of my profile and let the rest of the “amusing stuff” and “interesting stuff about me” sink to the bottom.
Follow Me As I Follow Christ
Social networking is a very relational way of sharing Christ with others, both those you know personally and those you don’t. This article is only meant to be a first introduction to an idea that might be new to some. I’m learning all the time about how to be more effective in online witness. The essence of this type of witnessing is very incarnational. By asking people to take a look online at who we are, we ask people to look at Jesus who inhabits our daily lives.
If you want to know more about what I’ve discovered about ministry through social networking, ask me. If you are on Facebook and you want to look at what I have done on my profile to reach out to those outside the Church, feel free to (temporarily) join the Ottawa Facebook network and observe my profile.
Catherine Savard is a commissioned staff worker with Campus for Christ, working with the Campus Internet Ministry in content development. Catherine blogs at www.midnightoil.squarespace.com – Midnight Oil: Movies and More.
