Reviving Evangelism

So the question of this survey, I joined the board of Alpha USA not that many months ago. And the Barna folks have been friends … David Kinnaman for years. And so when it came to them saying, "We want to commission a fresh study and interview all kinds of people, particularly younger people, younger people that would call themselves Christ followers, as to how they view evangelism," I said, "Yes, I would absolutely love to be part of it." And I think they me part of it … partly because of our context in Portland, Oregon, because we're in a challenging place, and partly because, as the Louis Palau Association, we think about evangelism a lot, and we think about how do you mobilize people for evangelism? Not just put up there an evangelist to preach, but it's all about how do you mobilize the masses of Jesus followers to be more bold and confident in sharing their faith. So I think, for those reasons, they somehow thought, "Maybe this guy has something to say."

And one of the things I get to do in that regard is lead our apologetics ministry, which there's not a whole lot of formal apologetics ministries in local churches around the country, or world. And so it's a unique opportunity to engage consistently with skeptics, atheists, agnostics, people who are having a crisis of faith, and engage with them around the central plains of Christianity. So, that's the world of it.

So I'm never surprised, and I find that many people are practical universalists. They wouldn't really want to be pinned down, but they, practically speaking feel, "God is good and loving. Everyone's okay in the end. I definitely believe in Jesus. I love Jesus. I think it would be great if my friends knew Jesus. But if they don't it doesn't really make that much of a difference." So I think there are these undercurrents among … not everybody … but among many evangelical young people that kind of undercut evangelism. And it's just, with all the cultural pressures, young people, even if they live in the Bible Belt, they're affected very much by social media, and it's just not comfortable to express clearly the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Even if you say it in a humble way, "Well yes, I do believe that every single person needs to have an encounter with Jesus Christ, or they face a Christless eternity. Well, what about other religions?" And so many people find it very difficult. And I think it's a stark spotlight to say that almost 50 percent question whether it's morally right to do it.

I think we have a lot of work to do to evangelize for evangelism within the evangelical church, and bring forth the biblical nature of it, the beauty of it, they joy of it. I think positive is always better. How do we positively remind Jesus followers of the goodness of the good news? I always say to people, "If you really believe the good news is good news, if you dwell on that, if the holy spirit's revived your own heart and faith and love for people, you'll find it easier. But the average person, it's easier to stick with people that already believe the gospel, and almost never open your mouth and try to share with someone who doesn't.

And so a lot of what I do as an apologist is clarify for people what Christianity is. And I think it translates immediately over to the issue that we're talking about, because I think that there … myself being one of them … grew up in a context where evangelism was seen in very reductionistic terms of like a transaction. So you're a dirty, rotten, scoundrel. You definitely … you need somebody to take all of your badness or God's angry at you, and he's gonna judge you and throw you into hell and be glad about it. And so you better trust Jesus, or else, kind of thing. And so, I think for a long time, that's what evangelism, at least in cultures that I've been a part of, have seen evangelism as … people view it as, "Well, okay. You're trying to make me into a used car salesman that's gonna go try to close a deal." And so I think that that's probably … plays into this on some level, where people are like, "I don't want to do that." And again, I'm going, "Hey. Well, why don't you tell me what your view of evangelism is. I probably don't want to do that, either." But that's not what biblical evangelism is. And so it's a recasting, it's a re- … it's casting in a positive light, what evangelism is and should be.

And then another point is, I think that … I'm encouraged, like Kevin said. I'm encouraged because I think we have a unique opportunity to recapture some of the essential nature of what the gospel is, because again, for so long, I think it's been given in terms that are very reductionistic. And so when you're able to recast the vision for what the gospel is, then you're able to start not with sin, but with creation, and God saying, "I created you for a purpose, and in my image. I care about you. I love you. I have a purpose for you." And then talk about sin, not in terms of, like I've heard you say, "You dirty, rotten, scoundrel."

So we begin our journey in Portland recognizing this ten foot hole of misunderstanding that we were in in trying to communicate the gospel to people in Portland. We're not talking the same language. So we said … we had to back up and say, "We have to start with relationship building, and earning the right to even be in conversation." So we went to our mayor. We went to the openly gay mayor of Portland, Oregon … at the time he was the first openly gay mayor of a top 25 city … and said, "Hey, you know what? As a Christian community, particularly the evangelical community, we know that we're known mostly for what we're against, and not what we're for. And we're a little embarrassed that we have not been in conversation with the city. If we could mobilize thousands of Jesus followers to love and serve Portland, and make Portland a better place, how could we do that in relationship with you?"

So we spent years earning trust and building relationships, and changing the narrative to say, "Jesus followers are seeking the shalom of Portland. We're seeking the peace and prosperity of Portland. There's a common good. We all want to see kids in foster care well taken care of, and refugees well taken care of, and our public schools thriving." So, we had to start with a rebuilding of trust and saying, "All of us, Jesus followers, non Jesus followers, we care about the city." We would say, because we're made in the image and likeness of God, we have something in us that wants to see beauty and flourishing and joy in life. And we all share that. So, as Jesus followers, we want to work to make Portland a better place.

So we spent years learning to live well with people that disagreed with us, loving and serving. But, I would say this very, very strongly, we also recognized that unintentionally we drifted a bit. It's very easy to mobilize people in a place like Portland to love and serve their neighbor. And so what we recognized was we had to form a little team to really keep evangelism focused, because while I do agree that we had to earn the right to be heard, and rebuild trust, it cannot stop there, and we needed to take advantage of … when I say take advantage, I mean in the proper sense … leverage the credibility and the good relationships that were being built for the sake of the good news.

So, to me, when you look at the bigger picture of the joy of following Christ, it does begin with creation. It begins with a sense of God created this entire universe. Think of what that means. Think of what it means to be in right relationship with this creation, with each other, with creation itself, which in Portland people are very environmentally conscious. When you can put salvation and a right relationship with God in the broader context of creation care, and relational harmony as a society, and then get to the fact of Jesus Christ as a perfect representation of what it looks like to be a human being that is flourishing, sometimes it takes a little bit longer than the 30 second, four spiritual laws kind of conversation. We find people in Portland far more open to those kind of conversations than you'd think.

And I've been going through my … an Alpha group. Many people may be familiar with Alpha as an evangelistic tool. My wife and I are going through our first Alpha group, and it has been remarkable to see these nine guests, my Jewish, atheist neighbor, some people that are in recovery from heroin addiction, an openly gay couple, Richard and RJ that have been coming to church the last six weeks, the openness to talk about Jesus. Three of those people, including Richard, who is openly gay and in a relationship with RJ, has come to faith in Christ. It's crazy, the people that are coming to faith in Christ, as they see the beauty of the good news. We're not hiding anything. We're not hiding the fact of sin and repentance, and who Jesus is. But I think when they can see it, and you can topple some of the straw men and some of the negative views, and it's all just about legalism, I've been shocked at how open people in Portland are.

But the moment you connect the gospel to the creation, who we're designed to be, how we're designed to relate to one another, how we're designed to relate to God, you're in the space of what I like to call the great commandment, love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. That's relational. That's the … One of the places the gospel is supposed to take us is to a place where we are able to live that out. And to live that out in surprising ways. Loving your neighbor means loving your enemy. It gets translated that way by Jesus. So when you put it in those kinds of terms, and you put it in that relational, as opposed to more abstract, personalized, privatized sphere, all of a sudden the dynamics for evangelism and the angles that open up to talk about seem to me to broaden significantly.

And yet, I think that communal environment invites people in to a group, as opposed to, hey, you need to go down to the street corner and proclaim the end of the world is coming, if that makes sense. So …

And when you start there, it isn't just about what your fate is. The way I like to say it, the way you can identify the reductionistic gospel is by, are you being told you're being saved from something or are you being told you're being saved into a relationship with someone?

And then, what you said as well about celebrating. Let people see the fact that people are coming to faith in Christ all the time, even in Portland, Oregon.

And one of the things that I've seen as I've had conversations with people is a reorientation around that concept to say, "Hey, no. Actually God is the one who is transforming you. He's the one who started this work in you. He's the one who's gonna complete it. And oh, by the way, he's also the one who's saving people." And so, instead of them having this weight of responsibility it's like, "No. Go co-labor with him. He's inviting you to join him in what he's doing. But just know, if you're gonna follow Jesus, then you're gonna be involved in this, because that's what he's doing. He's saving the world.

The other side of this that I think is so important, and you've already suggested it, Kevin, by what you've said, is when you crash a stereotype about what people think Christianity is, what they left when they came to Oregon, that kind of thing, all of a sudden this open space is created into which I have a conversation with you because I know you care about me and I care about you, and we can discuss things more openly. And boom, you're off and running.

So evangelism doesn't have to be this programmed, programmatic thing. It emerges naturally in the relationships that we have. Is that part of the recasting that we're talking about?

But I would say that one of the real roles for those in pastoral leadership, people that have the gift of evangelism in particular, is to encourage and inspire everyday believers to believe that it is … one, it's a responsibility. Whether we feel like it or not, we are called to bear witness to Jesus Christ, and to be unashamed of Jesus Christ. So it doesn't mean that we're all immediately going for the jugular, and immediately jumping into the deep end of substitutionary atonement. But to even have a spiritual conversation, look and lean into, ask people questions about their spiritual background. I find that if we are unapologetic, unashamed, joyful, if they know that we believe what we say we believe and we're excited about it, a lot of barriers go down. Most of the time unbelievers can tell that we are scared to death, and hope that it never comes up, and that just makes them awkward about the whole conversation, as well.

My primary job is to accurately portray an image, the beauty of Christ to you. And if I'm by the holy spirit, if I'm able to do that, I don't have to worry about you responding. When people see God as he actually is, then they respond. And that's why I like … I don't have to worry about being rejected. I don't have to worry about people calling me names or whatever. In fact, that doesn't happen often, because when you engage people personally, and when you show them the love of God, that's embodied in Jesus, and now in us through the Spirit, then, as we would say in the south, now you're cooking with grease. Now things are happening. And that's the way I think about it. And I would say, in my experience, I think that's the way, probably, all of us should think about it.

So, I think what we've been saying … our time's rapidly going away here … that the key to reviving evangelism is not introducing a program, it's being a certain kind of person.

We're seeing more people come to Christ, more churches planted as we have in a holistic way loved and served people in relationship. We have a great relationship with our gay and lesbian community in Portland. We agree to disagree on all kinds of core things. We're not downplaying important issues. We've been able to say, "You know what? We're gonna disagree on some stuff. That's probably never gonna change. But we can focus together on making Portland a better place." And that has only accentuated and open doors for evangelism. We are really, really encouraged to be seeing more and more people come to Christ as we've done both evangelism and social justice / serving the community well.

And when you put that all together, you're in the center of what God is asking us to be as people. That's the way he created us. And when he saves us, that's what he creates us to be. And so … And then we're supposed to model that and share that. And when we do that, we witness to who God is, and in the process open the door for evangelism. And I think that would be the way I would summarize what it is we've tried to say today.

What do you think?