With the great discussion on the last offering in the Kitchen, I want to continue a bit with the topic. Here are my concerns: as our society moves into postmodernism, evangelism is becoming an embarrassment. Evangelism, to some degree, involves saying, “My way is right, and your way is wrong.” Evangelism needs some absolutism, a conviction that Jesus is the way, the only way to God. Those sorts of concepts don’t fit well with a postmodern mindset that emphasizes tolerance and respect for the views of others.
In the same way, missions have also fallen in disfavor. Aren’t they merely a sign of cultural superiority, of “the ugly American”? With cultural sensitivity, won’t we come to see that the beliefs of other people also have validity? Why do we have to impose our worldview on others? The concept of “spreading Christianity” is extremely offensive in the 21st century.
In such a situation, it’s easier to focus merely on service. Not service as a part of evangelism; that’s been the norm for decades (at least; I’ll only vouch for my adult life, but in reading about great men of the past, I’m convinced that it’s been around much, much longer). What’s typically offered today is no different than what the Red Cross or UNICEF would be doing. That’s a broad generalization, one that I’d love to be wrong about. Maybe my limited experience has led me to a mistaken view of what’s going on.
Still, I’m worried about the future of the church. (Well, the church in my country, anyway; I see a lot more evangelism going on in other countries) We need to bring back the concept of taking good news to the world. I want to spend some time next week talking about what that good news looks like, but for now, I want to emphasize: we’re losing something valuable. We need to wake up and see that, or it could be gone forever. We need to teach our young people about the gospel and what it has to say to a broken world.
As the old saying goes, the church is always one generation away from extinction.
“As the old saying goes, the church is always one generation away from extinction.”
I am sure you are talking about the “reformed church of Christ” and not Christ’s Church here, so I will use the same logic used in confirming the authenticity of the bible “God’s will” . If the church of Christ is truly “Christ’s Church” it will survive, if not, I guess somebody was wrong.
Tim, sorry, to tell you but the reformed coc has been extinct for a while now. ever since the Christian universities took it from Christ.
It has been reformed again.
I have to agree with you on this and the last post about it. There are so many issues that this covers, I know a big one you covered is our relativist world where everything is true. How dare I tell anyone that I am absolutely right and they are absolutely wrong? Evangelism is just a hard kind of thing, but one way or another we have to figure out how to do it. I know I am a huge wimp when it comes to this stuff, and I feel as awkward as anything when it comes to talking about Jesus to people in my life. I feel that most people in the American church are wimps with this, so they are afraid of evangelism, probably more than anything else in Christianity. I feel like if you pushed this point in a lot of churches, it would upset people, because it convicts us of not sharing Jesus with people in our lives, and tells us to do something.
Another thing…We can’t give people what we don’t have…I feel like The Developed World (West Europe, N. America, Japan, S. Korea etc.) is full of people that don’t know how to form meaningful relationships and really connect with people on a deep level. This seems to carry over to the church, and younger generations aren’t that removed from this. What happens once we meet someone’s material needs? Or what if we are doing missions in developed countries or our own country where material needs are likely met? The world is full of people in total despair, depressed, and they lead meaningless, shallow lives. Many people are aware of this and if we can really connect with their hearts and show them this outrageous Love of Jesus and bring meaning to their existence it would totally transform people. Handing them a tract works sometimes, and giving them food is very loving, but how many souls are really saved through this? I certainly think holistic missions is necessary, especially in places where people are in desperate need.
This all reminds of the Sara Groves song ‘Conversations’
Laymond,
I would know that I’d failed if I didn’t give you something to be negative about. Thanks for consistently coming through!
:-)
—Tim
P.S.–OK, no I mean that Christ’s promises will fail, the church will disappear, and Islam will control the entire world. Happy now?
Chris,
That’s a good point. If we’re totally convinced about the value of our salvation, we can’t help but share it. That’s what people do naturally.
Grace and peace,
Tim
Great thoughts Tim,
Sometimes I wonder if several among us are realizing some of these things—–that maybe what we are doing and have done—–is not working. But because we don’t really know the solution or an alternative, we feel obligated to dig our claws into the old way and cling on to it with everything we have.
Tim, it just seems to me that you are blaming the deficiency of the church on the younger generation, without accepting the blame for them being the way they are.
That is what I meant by referring, to the church being taken over by the Christian schools, and Christian universities. Think about this, why do people send their children to these schools, is it for a better education, I don’t think so! most don’t even come close. Is it because the home and the church have failed to teach christian values, I hope not! No it is because people feel their children are safer isolated from the sinners in the world. After we teach them to isolate them selves from the sorrows of the world, we expect them to go out and cure them. Ain’t going to happen. we teach our children to avoid these corrupt sinners, then we say they should evangelize them. How does that work?
I know there is all kinds of excuses why we send our children into exclusion, such as better understanding of the bible, but that recalls to mind the deficiency, of the Church, and the home life.
No the reason the coc is failing is not the children, it is the child’s parents. I know “Christians” who send their children to christian schools and universities, think they are doing them a favor, but they are not. You can’t raise a child in a septic environment until grown, then place them in an environment filled with germs, and expect them to survive. They won’t.
Thanks for your blog Tim. I appreciate the comments too.
I agree that our convictions in salvation should be all we need to go into the world and share the Gospel and hope that is in us. But how do we do this in a meek and kind way? I think this is what is important when sharing the Good News.
Our children are not coming to Church as statistics show. Furthermore, I have personally seen where believers children are turning away from the Church. I believe that we must be more aggressive in our outreach to our young-uns. Not to necessarily force them to be obedient to the Gospel, but persuaded to. Jesus never forced people to believe. He only taught them with the sincere hope out of compassion mainly, that they would believe on their own. To give them hope in eternity with God. I think if we follow this, and teach with more compassion, God will add to his church like he has since Antioch. Reaching out to people will do a lot more than waiting for them to come to the Church Building. Especially our young people.
Good post! The good news of the kingdom of God (the good news that Jesus proclaimed). This good news cannot be heard and accepted by others without them declaration that Jesus of Nazzareth was crucified unto death, raised by God and now reigns as the Lord and Messiah. This means we are called to repentance and baptism. That is the essential message Peter preached on that famous Pentecost day and it must be the message that must be proclaimed now if we are to engage in evangelism, mission, ministry, etc…
Grace and peace,
Rex
I think that the reflex towards service has been in a response to a gospel that has only been fire insurance. Our message has been GREAT news for the next life, but our lives have not been good news for this one or the next.
We live fear-filled lives, desperate for the security of a 401k or an M16 or a government that will force others to live by our moral standards.
We live selfish lives, devouring resources and tacitly endorsing social Darwinism while ranting and raving against biological Darwinism.
We live hypocritical lives, professing our dedication to Scripture, while twisting it to make ourselves look better than the denominations. Too many of our converts become “twice the sons of hell” that we are.
As we begin to live the self-sacrificial and honest lives that disciples of the way of Jesus are free to live, we will not have to be aggressive, except in trying to out-do one another in love. They will know that we are Christians by our love.
in HIS love,
nick
PS – Above, I intentionally wrote in generalizations for the sake of emphasis. I believe that a faithful, self-sacrificial remnant is always operating behind the scenes and out on the fringes of the kingdom. I just don’t believe such lives have characterized the Churches of Christ (or any other sect of Christianity) in recent generations.
I’m not so sure. While that may be true in some areas, I was surrounded by “lifestyle evangelism” back in the 1980s, with a heavy push on service as part of outreach. 25 years later, the same people are now saying “Service for service’s sake,” wanting to use the “lifestyle” and not the “evangelism.” These people did their reacting several decades ago; this is something different.
In my never humble opinion, of course.
I believe that some of the deeply liberal end of Emergent is also affecting us in the way that you describe — we don’t want to be offensive to Jews or Buddhists or Wiccans by suggesting that what they believe to be true is, at least in part, dangerously false.
Since we can’t perfectly know our own discipline, how can we suggest that we know reality better than they do?
So while “Everything Must Change” — we certainly don’t want to change anyone’s comfort level with their own beliefs.
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