Evangelism

The Emperor Has No Clothes: Evangelism

He has carried a burden on his heart as few men that I’ve ever known.
A burden for the evangelization of the world”

Rev. Billy Graham speaking of Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ

“Evangelism” to those saints before us was the faithful spread of the good news of Christ. Evangelism is an earmark of the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. Specifically, the ministry is known for the creation of and widespread use of the 4 Spiritual Laws, also known as the “Knowing God Personally” booklet.

“Evangelism” to a post modern, American generation means peddling that “Jesus died on the cross for your sins”…with whatever tool you have in hand.

“Evangelism”, linguistically, to a post modern, is a bad word. It may seem like semantics – but if you use it with a postmodern, and you mean it in a good way…they probably will not hear that.

When you tell a post modern that we are going “to do evangelism”, you are telling them, “we are going to sell Christianity door to door”.

Language will continue to be an important issue with the globalization of the world. We must continue to pursue understanding of one another beyond a surface glance within a conversation. Other words within our Christian subculture that have negative and inconsistent meanings are “witnessing”, “saved”, “born again”, “testimony”, and “missionary” in some cultures.

No clothes

“The Knowing God Personally Booklet is our Bread and Butter”

The modern campus ministry is rooted in the training and use of the KGP to share the “cliff notes” of the Bible with those on beaches and dorm halls.

However, in a post modern culture this method will prove to be less and less culturally relevant and effective. It is not that the approach has become merely unfashionable, needing better graphic design or that the messengers have become less dedicated and courageous needing to just “step out in faith” more often “sharing the booklet and leaving the results to God”.

In fact, the booklet is truly very culturally modern in its approach.

Bill Bright very effectively communicated to his culture, but the west has changed. The booklet offers a rational approach to salvation as it leads you through a logical progression:

1) God Loves You…God gave Jesus so you would have life, abundant life.

2) Man is sinful…You can not experience this life because of your sin.

3) God’s provision…Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sin so you could experience this life.

4) Your response…you must individually receive Jesus to experience this life and God’s plan.

“The modern perspective emphasizes the rational aspect of faith and individual understanding of God. Belief grows out of knowledge and knowledge grows out of study and observation. Modernism seeks to prove the existence of God; but this discussion ultimately relegates God to an idol or a mere concept. Proof uses positively what conceptual atheism uses negatively…in both cases, human discourse determines God.”

Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being

One concern I have with the modern approach to evangelism is that though a person may understand the "legal" transactions that needed to occur for our attonement of sin...and our "legal" need to place our faith in Christ...they may very well complete this transaction and be one to whom Christ would say, "I never knew you".

As I read more and more about reaching a postmodern generation, I feel as though I have a front row seat watching the Emperor’s New Clothes, or that I am the emperor. What I mean is that we are proudly marching on the college campuses with our tracts and everyone else knows what we are “wearing” (“invisible fabric”=naked) and that it isn’t what postmoderns want. It isn’t that some of these people, believers or not, don’t want Jesus…they don’t want a sales pitch and a booklet (even if in our hearts this isn’t what we are doing – this is what is communicated). This may seem harsh, but it is painful for a postmodern to go out on campus knowing they are essentially wearing nothing…and that their method is actually a barrier for other post moderns to knowing Jesus. Of course, sharing the gospel is a vulnerable thing…but I am speaking of the method when I speak of feeling “naked”, it feels humiliating because it feels inauthentic.

A postmodern needs a relational approach to becoming a believer and disciple of Christ. When I say relational, I do not mean simply, “friendship evangelism” or the “relational model” of evangelism. What I am referring to is introducing a person to the person of Jesus Christ, His story, His teachings, His friendship, His position, His Kingdom, His place in the God Head. Jesus said “I am the way…” The emphasis is on faith in the Person of Christ, rather than principles of Christianity and a list a propositions (even if valid).

Expressions of Knowledge and Love

Proposal/Fireseed Anthology/Introducing others to Christ

“Alan said he was a big man, full of life, who listened without shifting his eyes. Alan asked a few questions. I don’t know what they were, but as a final question he asked Dr. Bright what Jesus meant to him. Alan said Dr. Bright could not answer the question. He said Dr. Bright just started to cry. He sat there in his big chair behind his desk and wept.”

Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

Bill Bright knew Jesus personally, he loved Jesus and he wanted others to know and love Jesus…and experience the love Christ has for them. He prayerfully found a way to express the gospel to his generation. He spoke the heart language of the culture at the time.

Can you imagine if there were only one love song in the world? Only one newspaper, one synoptic gospel? What if there were only one guy who got to paint a painting to express his love for the beauty of God’s creation? What if we told all little children…better not to sing your song…you might hit the notes wrong, best to leave it to your uncle Bob.

I think we miss an important part of knowing Jesus in a deeper way when we do not form our own words to express who Christ is, our love for Him, and what it is to know Him. Often, many “Christians” may not realize that they in fact do not know Christ because they are able to parrot and sing so much of others understandings and expressions of personal experience.

Part 1

FIRESEED ANTHOLOGY: WIN>BUILD>SEND: PART 1

Know and communicate who Christ is (Biblically) and what his teachings are.

Intentionally introduce others to Christ and His teachings.

Fireseed Anthology would seek to facilitate the exploration of individuals knowledge/experience of Christ and His Lordship as well as lead them through personally expressing their knowledge/experience of Christ and His Lordship, to each’s own degree…not assuming that all are in the same place.

We would encourage those to intentionally share about their relationship with Christ with those closest to them, as you would in a marriage situation. As people share with their natural networks, Christ becomes even more real as He impacts their personal lives and their personal networks. His impact becomes more organic.

We would encourage personal, creative expression depending on each one’s culture, gifting, personality, etc.

We would teach people to see:

As an artist, I can teach you to be an artist in two ways. First, I can teach you a formula of how to draw a tree. Then, I can teach you a formula of how to draw a house...the sun, a person, a cloud, etc. The unfortunate part of this is that you will only know how to draw these items in the way that I have taught you.

Secondly, I can teach you how to see...how to draw, in general. If I teach you how to look at the world...how to think about positive and negative spaces, lines, etc. Equipped to “see” you are able, even without talent, to take what is in front of you and create something that resembles what your eye sees on paper. You are able to express it.

It is the old idea, “Give a man a fish...he eats for a day”...”Teach a man to fish...he eats for a lifetime”. Teach a man a model of how to share the gospel…he can share the gospel when he is in the context of how he has learned to use the model. Teach a man to know and think about the gospel, he can express it in any context.

We must not spin our wheels thinking of the next “post-modern” model of a sharing the gospel track. We must take a step back and teach our staff and students to “see” the gospel, to think about it, to know it in such a way that no matter what situation they are in they can respond authentically. That is transferable.

Starting with whats there

Let’s Have a Rauschenberg: Planting with Persons of Peace

“We’ve begun by finding Christians. But if you want a really powerful church start, find people of peace. Bar the Christians; don’t let them in. They mess things up in the early stages.”

Carol Davis, church planter

Growth culture	Reproductive model
Focus on individual conversions	Focus on group conversions
Start on believer’s turf	Start on unbeliever’s turf
Teach Scripture for information	Teach Scripture for application
Begin by finding Christians	Begin by finding “people of peace”
Begin in facilities	Begin in homes, front porches, yards, parks
Start with celebration in a large group	Start with a small group
Build programs and buildings	Build leaders
Import professional clergy	Have indigenous and convert-emerging clergy
Leader leads all the participants	Leader equips the emerging leaders
Fund the church starter	Start churches with bi-vocational people

The Fall semester rolls around and the machine keeps pumping. Two days into planning, staff member’s calendars begin to fill. Fall Retreat in October, staff conference in November, winter conference, trips to campuses around the state to give lift to ministries, staff meetings, phone calls and discipleship appointments…the list goes on. Where is the time to reach out to those who don’t know or have not experienced Christ? It is hard to find unless you call it a survey.

Under our current model of planting movements, it is my understanding that our primary method is to surface strong believing students and to coach them to lead a movement on their campus. What usually results is a glorified Bible Study with few reports of totally transformed lives from darkness to light.

At a Catalytic Training school, I head a speaker who said that Dr. Bright used to say WINBUILDSEND almost as if it was one word or one thing. Often, enhanced by our structures (randoms, Bible studies, retreats, conferences), we tend to divide the process into three separate compartments and few within our ministries experience the full transformational process.

Person of Peace defined

• The Person of Peace: (from the article on reproductive church planting)

• They are receptive. Not every receptive person is a person of peace. There will be many people along the way who receive Christ before you have found this person. But every person of peace is receptive.
• They are a person of reputation. They are known. They may have a good or a bad reputation. But they are known. The woman at the well had a bad reputation. Cornelius' reputation was good.
• They have influence. They are a person who, when they respond to Christ, will bring many others along with them.

The person of peace is someone that God leads you to that may or may not yet be a committed follower and believer in Christ, but one who is open and receptive to Christ and who has the qualities listed above...obviously this isnt a hard and fast rule....but a guidline of keeping your eyes open to who God might be working in and through to reach a community.

Assemblege Art

Proposal/Fireseed Anthology/Planting Movements

Robert Rauschenberg was an artist in the 1950’s and 60’s. Rauschenberg’s oft-repeated quote that he wanted to work “in the gap between art and life,” suggested a questioning of the distinction between art objects and everyday objects when he began experimenting with assemblages that broke down barriers between painting and sculpture by incorporating everyday objects such as Coca-Cola bottles, clothing, newspaper clippings, taxidermied animals, and photographs into his work.

Rauschenberg took found objects and created art with them rather than casting a mold and melting down materials into the mold. In the past, I think what we in the campus ministry have deemed transferable has too often become a mold in which all should fit. We go onto campuses and into our years with strategic plans, full calendars, and pre-designed resources that allow little room for anything fresh, unique or custom made…sometimes it feels that if the Holy Spirit did want to move in a new way He would have to make sure it fit in conveniently between appointments.

I think taking a cue from this post-modern artist would inform us well about planting transformational communities in a post-modern matrix.

Perhaps as we go onto non-believers turf, rather than imposing molds we work with God in creating something fresh with the raw souls before us. We seek to create a fresh work within an existing network of people…with the personalities, gifts, languages that are there. We do not ask these people to conform to the mold of Campus Crusade culture yet let Christ make them a new creation, redeeming His handi-work as unique and beautiful as individuals within a greater work of art…and even this work( this local community) within the greater body of work, the Body of Christ.

We seek to orchestrate and create being flexible and responsive to the uniqueness of each community and what each part offers.

Part 2

FIRESEED ANTHOLOGY: WIN>BUILD>SEND: PART 2

PRAY FOR THE HOLY SPIRIT TO LEAD YOU WHERE HE IS WORKING, LOOK FOR THE MIRACULOUS

BEGIN WITH PERSONS OF PEACE RATHER THAN MATURE BELIEVERS TO START MOVEMENTS

FOCUS ON GROUP CONVERSIONS, ORGANIC CONVERSIONS AMONG THE P.O.P.’S CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE

Fireseed Anthology would seek to intentionally initiate meaningful spiritual dialogue to locate the Holy Spirit’s work and the Person(s) of Peace in which a movement could be started.

We would seek to simply equip the emerging leaders within the community to guide the group. We would not make the group dependent on us.

With the internet and the vast amount of resources, we would guide them to helpful materials and readings to inform their spiritual growth.

We would begin with facilitating learning the stories of Christ (see next chapter) orally.

Fireseed Anthology would also seek to be a portal and peacemakers to the church universal. We would give basic Christian heritage so that the new community would have an appreciation for the tradition and family of the church, as well as a Biblical understanding. We would give guidance in how to choose a church home.

We would encourage all those who have placed faith in Christ and committed their lives to be baptized in accordance to Scripture, at this point: through a local church body and to partner with that church (as a group) in some way, and to eventually find membership.

Stories

A Bouquet : Stories of Disciples

“Current estimates suggest that almost two-thirds of the world’s population is illiterate or has an oral preference (can't, won't or don't read and write). The proportion is significantly higher among the nearly 5,000 people groups not yet reached with the gospel, and among these include many of the 2,700 remaining Bibleless peoples. For these oral communicators, life lessons are processed by observation, participation and verbal communication—i.e. stories”

Epic Partners website, a partnership of CCC

Proposal/Fireseed Anthology/Building Relationships

In the fall of 2005...I began to think about how cool it would be if I could sit around with my friends and we could tell the stories of Jesus. I love the gospels....and I love the parables. I can tell you the Parable of the Good Steward...or give you a snapshot of the Prodigal Son....but what I can not tell you is this: Who was Jesus talking to when he told that parable? Was Peter there? Was it in the beginning of His ministry...or near the end? Has he performed the miracles yet?

Why does this matter?

I want to know the teachings of Christ within the context of the relationships He had. I want to know Christ and tell stories of Christ as I would the stories you tell of old friends when you try to explain who they are to someone...and you remember warm memories of them.

As I lay in bed, I tried to think of one story...just one. I could not do it. I could remember only the pieces of everything...He rode into town on a donkey...He died on the cross...thy spat on Him...Peter betrayed Him.

I began to imagine what it would be like to create a culture that(no matter who they were, followers of Christ or not) that knew from their hearts the stories of Christ and His teachings contained within the context of that.

How amazing would it be if students within our own, post modern culture could learn the stories of the Kingdom of God, the Stories of Christ, the stories of God in their own heart language...and then take the gospel to much of the unreached world and teach them to understand these stories in their own heart language?

To reach the postmodern west (America and Europe) we will need not only to use story in merely oral forms but also through the media and the web. This is very much part of the heart language of the student culture.

PART 3

an·thol·o·gy n. pl. an·thol·o·gies A collection of literary pieces, such as poems, short stories, or plays. [Medieval Greek anthologi, collection of epigrams, from Greek, flower gathering, from anthologein, to gather flowers : antho-, antho- + logos, a gathering (from legein, to gather. See leg- in Indo-European Roots).] FIRESEED ANTHOLOGY: WIN>BUILD>SEND: PART 3 LEARN AND TELL OUR OWN STORIES IN CONTEXT OF RELATIONSHIP/COMMUNITY LEARN AND TELL THE STORIES OF CHRIST IN THE CONTEXT OF HIS RELATIONSHIPS Fireseed Anthology would be a gathering of people, people with stories. We would seek to facilitate the telling of personal stories through a variety of means such as methods used in Europe, Soul to Soul, Poetry, Art, Myspace, Media, etc. We would seek to help people know and value to story of their own culture and lives. This would strengthen community and provide a creative means of engaging one another. We would also engage and facilitate learning and telling the stories of Christ and His disciples through oral and technological/media means. Participants are not necessarily committed followers of Christ yet could be considered disciples…some becoming converts through getting to know Jesus. It would be expressed from the beginning the duality of the group both to learn stories of one another and to learn the stories/teachings of Christ.

The term Fireseed in the name implies that this collection of stories (people and their lives/disciples old and new) would also be a gathering of “Fireseeds” that when they go out they have great potential to create an outbreak of change, and revolution, i.e. fire.

Those transformed believers in Christ having emerged from Fireseed Anthology would be encouraged to participate in Epic Parter/Orality missions and/or plant other Fireseed Anthology movements as well as partnering with Christ, the Church and is His mission to the world in a variety of ways.

Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done

KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE

"Missional faith asserts that Jesus came to preach the good news of the kingdom of God to everyone, especially the poor. He came to seek and save the lost. He came on behalf of the sick. He came to save the world. His gospel and therefore the Christian message , is good news for the whole world. The idea that the Christian message is universally good news for Christians and non Christians alike is , to some, unheard of, strange, and perhaps heretical.......Jesus was a Jew and so saw Himself as one of Abraham's descendants. Abraham's original contact with God involved a kind of mission statement: I will bless you, God said, and I will make you a blessing to others. I will make your name and nation great, God said, and through you, all nations will be blessed. "

Proposal/Fireseed Anthology/Making Disciples

When Campus Crusade mobilized 10,000 students last year to reach Katrina victims, I was extremely proud of our organization.

Social Action and Service are at the heart of the post-modern students. Faith married with actions, Orthoproxy (right practice) lining up with Orthodoxy (right belief), will be expressions of true faith for the believer.

Self-addiction, a consumer mentality has plagued recent decades of Christians…journals filled with prayers about me, me, me. I fear that too often the vision of the gospel and a relationship with God that is given is so individualistic and selfish in nature that many don’t realize the revolutionary call Christ gave to those who would be His disciples…I wonder if I realize it.

Jesus’ central message and teachings centered on the Kingdom of God. I am not an official theologian…but when I was first reading the Bible on my own in college, not influenced by the church culture…I would have told you this was central to Jesus’ teaching. The Kingdom of Heaven is the reign of Christ in the lives of men now and for eternity to an ever increase. In the Kingdom of Heaven a man forgives an infinite amount of times realizing the forgiveness of Christ. In the Kingdom, you don’t merely love those who love you but love your enemies. In the Kingdom, God is more than fair…He is extravagantly generous to the one who has earned nothing…who has not bore the heat of the day. Jesus’ vision of His Kingdom calls us to go beyond what is comfortable, safe, and fair to be generous, radically loving, and to value the beggar, to live more righteously than a Pharisee, and to never be ashamed of Christ. Jesus calls us to take up our cross and follow Him.

PART 4

FIRESEED ANTHOLOGY: WIN>BUILD>SEND: PART 4

FIRESEED ANTHOLOGY WILL PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES AND ENCOURAGEMENT FOR A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO DISCIPLESHIP WHERE ONE NOT ONLY APPLIES RIGHT TEACHING AND MORAL LIVING, BUT ALSO KINGDOM VALUES AND PRACTICES OF CHARITY/SERVICE.

FIRESEED ANTHOLOGY WILL SEEK TO PARTNER WITH OTHER GROUPS IN THE COMMUNITY AND THE WORLD TO BE A BLESSING AND A SERVANT IN THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST.

Associate staff

I think more and more we will need to seek staff that are volunteers and associate staff. Often times I hear that the reason that staff do not have effective personal ministries is that they are always in "ministry mode"...they have little time for relationships outside of official business and the longer they are on staff the further they drift from natural relationships. In order to be able to model the kind of ministry that will be most effective in this generation, I think it will be imperative for ministers of the gospel to take time to be tent makers here and there.

For me personally, there is also a struggle in that I know I am made to create art - even though my passion is ministry. It seems like the work of ministry is never done and thus far in my staff career it has proven very difficult to create art on a consitent basis.

Some starting places

A STINT for staff and students that would allow them to experiment, search, and pray for ways to reach the current western generation. I know for me it is daunting to think of trying to do this basically on my own.

A facilitated time at CSU for all interested staff to discuss, pray for wisdom, and come up with stepping stones to move forward on the field in reaching post modern students.

Leadership must commit to form multiple teams to pioneer the way to reach the next generation.