The Zone Gathering

This is Part 5 of our Summer Leadership Lesson Series: Imaginative Evangelism. As we lead our groups and ministries, we must strive to forcefully advance the Kingdom of God through strategic evangelism, exponential discipleship, and sacrificial service. And that begins by understanding and being able to clearly communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Today, we will assess the strengths and weaknesses of different evangelistic methods and paradigms.

To share the Gospel, we must first understand and be able to communicate the story of God. Secondly, we must be able to clearly communicate the life-changing power of Jesus Christ from our own personal lives. And finally, we must be able to enter the stories of others to connect dots, reveal the fingerprints of God in their lives, and communicate the Gospel in ways that are relevant.

Let’s begin by considering some of the paradigms of Gospel sharing that we’ve witnessed or facilitated ourselves.

Translators vs. Transmitters

At Murphy High School, I prided myself in being the dispenser of Biblical and theological information. I could spew Scripture and spiritual sound bites faster than Mrs. Kuffskie could assign another research paper. I thought to myself that if people could only hear these facts about Jesus, their life would be changed. I was a young apologist in the making.

We often view our evangelistic role as transmitting the facts that people need to know in order to make a decision. We treat people like computers, thinking that if we enter the right data, the program will run properly. We definitely need to know our facts, and we need to be good apologists. But we also need to listen better to make sure we are answering the questions that people are asking.

What if we changed our paradigm to that of a translator? Translators listen. Translators have the difficult task of understanding the language of one culture, identifying the core message, and then wrapping that message in the language of another culture so that the message is understood and able to be applied. Translators are sensitive to both accuracy of the facts but also to the culture and tone.

Let’s be translators and not transmitters.

Pictures vs. Pitches

In high school, I was known to wear a dog tag that screamed, “I’m the Christian the Devil warned you about.” Huh? I’m not sure how that was being translated or even exactly what it was transmitting. But it is a great summary of how I viewed the process of sharing the Gospel: passionate stump speech. Someone would ask me a simple question about Jesus or church or a moral issue, and instead of answering like a normal person having a normal conversation, I would shift into preacher mode. I’m sure my eyes got all fiery and I stood a little taller and my voice became more authoritative and I would preach to people. Sometimes, I got into salesman mode. “You have a problem. Here is the answer to your problem. Would you like to procure this amazing solution to your problem?” C’mon this is a relationship with Jesus, not a vacuum cleaner.

I don’t know of a single person who ever came to faith in Christ because they lost an argument. I don’t know of anyone who fell in love with a diagram on a napkin. How do you make someone fall in love with something you love? I have a 7 month old niece that I think is the cutest baby in the world and the most perfect person in the world and I believe everyone should love this baby. But if I want you to fall in love with little Ruthie, I don’t list for you a bunch of logical reasons about why you should love her. I don’t diagram out what an awesome person she is. I just pull out pictures. And as I show you pictures of her, I trust that you will see what I see and fall in love with her, too.

Let’s stop making stump-speeches and sales-pitches and start pulling out pictures.

Tour Guide vs. Travel Agent

I remember sitting in awkward silence as a friend shared with me some extremely painful emotional struggles she was experiencing with her family. With every ounce of courage and spiritual authority I could, I told her she needed Jesus and that everything she was going through was designed to lead her to him.

Good grief.

Was that true? Possibly. Was my response in that situation helpful? Doubtful. Did she cross the line of faith that night? Um, no. And she still hasn’t crossed the line of faith.

We enjoy telling people where they need to go, why the need to go there, how to get there, and what to do once they are there. In evangelism, we often act like travel agents. Those individuals who tell you where to travel, how much you should spend, what do see once you get there, etc….all from the safety and security of their desk.

On the other hand, a tour guide enters into the journey with you. They actually leave their own comfort and travel step by step with you. Tour guides are typically people who have made the journey before and then go back to help other people experience what they experienced. They provide interpretation and translation and strive to make the experience more meaningful. Our friends and family need spiritual tour guides. Traveling buddies like Gandalf and Sam were to Frodo or the Scarecrow was to Dorothy.

Let’s move away from being travel agents sitting safely behind the desk with a slick map in hand. Let’s pack our bags and enter into the chaos of life with people. And we can hunt for evidence of God along the way.

Conclusion

Translators, Pictures, and Tour Guides. Let’s move away from vending machine mentality, sales pitches, programs, and canned speeches. Let’s move away from “methods” altogether and strive to become friends who listen and translate, discover and share great pictures of the God we love, and pack our bags and head into the chaos and unexpected twists and turns of the faith journey.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 3:34 pm and is filed under Imaginative Evangelism, Leadership Lessons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.