 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) |
Evangelism
Reaching Your Friends Through Facebook
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.
Your Church Can Thrive
Percy helps congregations answer tough, critical, and strategic questions about their ministry and mission. How do we serve the member in the pew, the casual visitor, family and friends of the congregants, and the neighbourhood beyond? These are where connections that build healthy congregations are make and nurtured.
This book can be purchased at your local Christian bookseller or online here
Good news people: An introduction to evangelism for tongue-tied Christians
- Good News People
What is evangelism? Why is it important? This book shows how congregations and individuals can join in this essential and joyful ministry. A study guide helps readers to reflect on their own experience and share effectively in the work of evangelism.
This book can be purchased at your local Christian bookseller or online at here
Spiritual Conversations in Unlikely Places
As a priest, I have had several conversations about The Da Vinci Code. None have been as memorable as the one I enjoyed, not as a priest, but as a rock climber and a friend. On a winter evening in 2004, between runs up the wall at the climbing gym, one of the guys asked if I’d read the popular bestseller. I admitted I had not, and after asking for his impressions, promised that I would read it and get back to him. That simple question, and an honest reponse, initiated a spiritual conversation as thrilling as the climbing itself.
So it is with most spiritual conversations. We enter them unprepared, in the midst of other, seemingly irreligious activities. My most fruitful spiritual conversations have taken place in living rooms, coffee shops, ambulances and climbing gyms. They are the conversations I relish most as a priest, and yet they arise regularly in my personal, everyday relationships, the ones that all Christians share. It is through these spiritual conversations with everyday Christians in everyday situations that people reguarly come to faith in Christ.
If you are like most Christians, I imagine such spiritual questions have been asked of you by friends or family, and you have been equally unprepared. Why do you go to church? What is it like? What do you believe about this, or that? These conversations can provoke fear and anxiety for the average Christian. I belive this likely comes from an impression that we need to be Billy Graham, that a spiritual conversation only succeeds if it leads someone from spiritual nothingness to full-fledged discipleship. This is seldom true. Good spiritual conversations are seldom one-time encounters, but usually just another chapter in a long spiritual journey shared by two or more friends, in the venerable tradition of the Emmaus Road.
In my case, I was unprepared to answer my friend’s questions, being unfamiliar with the book he had read and the challenges to Christianity that it posed. A knee-jerk reaction would have ended the conversation, but with my offer to read the book and respond, we entered into a spiritual conversation that lasted months and led us to much deeper questions.
The Gospels record the spiritual conversations Jesus had with people in the midst of everyday life, such as the woman at the well. His followers, like Philip, carried on the tradition, and we as his disciples today are called, in fact commanded, to keep sharing the story.
One Size Does Not Fit All: Seven Ways to Evangelize
The heart of evangelism is always the same—helping people take steps towards faith in Jesus—but the ways in which it happens can change from culture to culture, and decade to decade.
Example 1: I am currently editing the letters of Vincent Donovan for Orbis Books. Donovan was a Catholic missionary among the Maasai in Tanzania in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He went from village to village, asking if the people would be interested in talking about God. Their response? “Who can refuse to talk about God?” Donovan went back week by week to teach the Christian faith, and at the end of a year invited the people for baptism. He had an amazing ministry (the story is told in his 1978 book, Christianity Rediscovered)—but I can hardly imagine an equivalent in Canada.
Example 2: Bill was a Baptist pastor I used to know who became a Christian as a teenager. Several of his friends had made a Christian commitment, and Bill was the last holdout. So, one Saturday night, the group got into their van, and told the unsuspecting Bill they were simply going to drive round and round until he gave his to following Jesus. I forget how long it took, but eventually he gave in. Twenty years later, his commitment was still real, though by then he could laugh about the way it happened. (I hasten to add that this is not a method that we teach or recommend at the Institute of Evangelism.)
If those are two ways of evangelism—both fruitful, but neither exactly repeatable—there are others. Christianity Today recently ran an article by Tim Stafford (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/september/36.68.html) , suggesting that, while crusade evangelism had been popular in the 1950’s and 60’s, by the 70’s the emphasis had switched to relational, one-on-one, “friendship evangelism.” Today, suggested Stafford, the emphasis in many denominations is on church planting as the most effective way of helping people take steps towards Christian faith. (This is why the Institute was a co-sponsor with the Diocese of Toronto of the 2007 and 2008 Anglican Church Planting Conferences.)
However, two other ways of evangelism occur to me. One is congregation-centred evangelism. The principle is that, if congregations are healthy, then they will be a natural focus for evangelism: those who are exploring their spirituality will be drawn there, feel comfortable there, find opportunities to explore and understand discipleship, and finally become Christians. This has been the thrust of the Institute’s ministry since its inception, and it remains a central and effective strategy.
Recently, however, I have begun to hear people contrasting a “come” style of evangelism (“Come to our special service”) with a “go” form of evangelism (“Go . . . make disciples”). I am not convinced that the distinction is all that hard and fast. It seems to me, for example, that before people will “come,” someone normally has to “go” to them and invite them. But the question has at least alerted me to the thought that there is no reason to put all our evangelistic eggs in the congregation-centred basket—or any other single basket.
Here are some examples of the “go” approach to evangelism I have come across recently:
• The Rev. Rob Hurkmans, in Port Colbourne ON, recently started up a monthly church service in the pub called Church on Tap—an informal service where people can sip a beer as they listen to a talk. You can read more about it here: www.niagarathisweek.com/news/business/article/129542.
• Mike Wilkins, a Baptist pastor friend in Toronto, has been running “Alpha in the Pub” for some years. People pay $140 upfront for a weekly drink and a burger in the upper room (yes, really) of a local pub, and watch the Alpha videos. A number of people have been baptized in Mike’s church as a result of this initiative. You can read more about this at www.Godatthepub.com.
• After the First Annual Church Planting Conference in 2007, the Rev. Chris Snow returned to St. John’s NF, and (after discussion with his bishop) hired a curate to start a monthly Saturday night service for families. The name? “Messy Church.” One hundred and ten came to the first one. You can read more about it here: www.toronto.anglican.ca/index.asp?navid=78&fid3=919&layid=18&fid2=-888.
None of these really fits into any of the previously described categories of evangelism. What unites them (apart from the fact that two take place in a pub—which may be significant in itself) is that they are (a) informal (b) not conventional forms of doing church or of doing evangelism (c) meet people where they are—either in the pub or trying to do the best for their children and (d) nurture a slow process of coming to faith.
The Church of England has been promoting such “fresh expressions” of faith in recent years. You can read about them on the fresh expressions website (www.freshexpressions.org.uk) One story I came across was of a priest who has begun leading a monthly Eucharist in his local police station. Twenty or so officers attend, many of whom would not otherwise be regular church attendees.
I am not suggesting that such fresh expressions are “the new wave” of evangelism, and where we should be putting all our efforts. In any case, unless those “free-floating” efforts at evangelism are linked to healthy congregations, they will simply be an evangelistic arm unattached to a church body. And unless there is a strong relational component, they will fossilize and die. So there is actually a natural symbiosis between different forms of evangelism, particularly congregational health, relational evangelism, and fresh expressions.
But such new ventures do encourage us to think freshly about our mission field, to ask questions like: Where do people gather in this neighbourhood? What are their interests? What are their questions? What would pique their curiosity? Why has God put us just here in our neighbourhood? What would be a good venue for those who are not ready for church (however friendly) to begin the journey to faith?
Such adventures will require creativity and courage. But the benefits could be out of this world.
Is your congregation an evangelizing community? An Evangelism Assessment for Churches
The quiz below is meant to help you assess your congregation, but also to show how the Institute can provide you with help. Make sure you click the submit button at the end to get suggestions on how the Institute can help in areas relevant to you.
Thriving as an Evangelistic Community
Your answers indicate you are doing well as an evangelizing community. That’s wonderful!
We would be grateful if you would email the Institute and tell us some stories of what you are doing by way of evangelistic activities. We will then post your message on the website, so that others can learn from your experience.
You could address the specific issues these questions raise:
- adult and teen baptisms
- programs for exploring Christian faith
- church publicity in the neighbourhood
- newcomers returning to church
- your approach to welcoming
- your congregation’s enthusiasm for evangelism
- your members’ ability to share their faith
- “easy access” events in and through your congregation
- your budget allocation for evangelism.
You could also tell us anything else you have learned about being an evangelizing community that you think would be of benefit to others.
Since there is always room for improvement, you might also like to check out the suggestions in the section, Growing as an Evangelizing Community
