Communicating the Relevance of the Gospel in a Changing Culture (V)

(My 2017 Break Forth presentation continued)

What needs to change is the way in which we communicate the message. But never dilute the message. Faith still comes by hearing and hearing still by the word of God. The key is to engage in a narrative, not to hold up the word of God as a club; to discuss, not lecture. Scripture can be used in two ways. We can confront authoritatively with, "The Bible says!" Or we can engage, with, “Here is what the Bible says. What do you think?"

Bringing people to faith is a process:

1. It's a Process of Understanding

The old model – one-off encounters, turn or burn, threatening non-believers with the fires of hell,  may still work in some cases, (God can work any way He wants) but I spoke to a young person, a Christian, in their 20’s, a Millennial, who has seen this approach and it put them off completely. They said they would be embarrassed to have any non-believing friends be confronted like this. It would be completely outside their realm of understanding.

I've seen an evangelist on line who confronts people on the street, engages them in questions and answers to convince them they are sinners bound for hell, tells them they need Jesus, encourages them to ask him into their lives, but then says thank you and goodbye, hoping, I suppose, that he has planted a seed upon which they will follow up. I’m not trying to be critical of a brother, and that kind of encounter may have its place, but we have no clue what happens to them, and neither, I suspect, does he.

First form or develop the relationship. Out of that, begin to talk about matters of faith. Alpha presents Jesus over a number of weeks. Then we let the Holy Spirit do the rest – in His own time.

On an Alpha a number of years ago, there was a young university student. I'll not mention his name, but he came as a skeptic, asking difficult but legitimate questions about the Christian faith. Many of his objections were too much for small group discussion so I suggested we carry on a discussion by e-mail after the course, which we did. He would pose questions and I would do my best to answer them. (|You may recall that I mentioned earlier that if our faith is the truth, then there will be a legitimate answer for every objection. If we can't think of it immediately, research (and prayer)should help us find it.)

In any case, our conversation carried on by email for a time, then we began to lose touch. I was transferred two hours west to Edson by my company, where I stayed for about 7 or 8 years, then returned to the Edmonton area. I was visiting with Amy (who is now an Associate for Youth with Alpha) a couple of years back when she asked, "Do you remember (name)?"

"Yes," I said, "We lost touch. What ever happened to him?"

"Oh, he's working with the youth at (another church in Edmonton!)" 

2. It's a Process of Building Trust:
It is extraordinary to me how distrustful people who are not Christians are of Christians, and what a false and negative picture they may have of us. We can't understand it — we're nice people! Why wouldn’t everybody want to be just like us? Why wouldn't everyone want to know God like we do? Why wouldn’t everyone want to come to our church? It’s such a wonderful place. What better place to be on a Sunday morning. But they don't seem to realise that at first.  People are suspicious. 50 or 60 years ago a politician running for office would publicize the fact that he went to church. Often you would see, in his campaign literature, a picture of him and his family coming down the church steps after Sunday service. Today, he would probably have to hide the fact he is a Christian to increase his chances of election.

It takes time to build trust. If we begin by lecturing people or putting them on the spot they may be nodding agreement with what we say, but really they just want to get away. They may not really be listening to what we’re saying at the beginning of a relationship, or in the first few Alpha sessions, because they're thinking to themselves; "Who are these people?  What are they after?"

I remember on one of my Alphas, on the first evening, "Who is Jesus?," the small group discussion began with my asking, "What did anybody think of the talk?"

One guest launched into a tirade against the church. She insisted that we can't believe what the Bible says because the church has controlled it and edited it and we can't be sure it is telling the truth; it's not saying what the original writers said. She was actually quite angry. My response was basically what an Alpha small group host is supposed to say, "That's an interesting point of view." I did sneak one little thing in, matter-of-factly; "I've heard that before," but then I turned to the rest of the group and carried on, asking, "What does anyone else think?"

I didn't confront her; I didn't argue with her. I just let her have her say, then turned to the group for discussion. I must say that I snuck in the bit about 'hearing it before' subtly, for a reason. Rightly or wrongly, I hoped it might make her notice, "Oh, he's heard that argument before and it doesn't seem to bother him."

I did, however, at the end of the evening, mention in an off-hand way, "You know it's interesting that when they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls, back in the 1940's, that had been buried for about 2000 years, they found a nearly complete manuscript of the book of Isaiah, and when it was translated it was almost exactly word for word what we have in our Bibles today, so I think we really can trust that it has been handed down to us accurately."

That ended the evening, but that guest was completely different the following week; friendly and non-confrontational, and stayed for the rest of the course.

(to be continued... next: Communicating the Gospel involves the whole person)

Blessings,

John