Here are a couple of comments that led me to a small rant:
Help me understand says:
“If we simply preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified, that He died and was buried and was RAISED from the dead (which by way is what separates Christianity from all the world religions) and that we need to follow after Him. I bet people would get saved…maybe?”
Fred Flinstone replies:
<blockquote>All we have to do to see people get saved is talk about Christ and Him crucified. Now that’s just crazy talk. </blockquote>
I tend to agree…to a certain extent (I think HMU was making a slightly different point but never the less)…
People know Jesus. And people know that He died on the cross for our sins. I am yet to run into one person who said "Now, who is this Jesus guy?". The problem is that the majority of people out there talking about Jesus are doing nothing to SHOW Jesus.
If you really want to see people saved, stop talking about what Jesus did and start SHOWING people what He did…which is sacrifice His life for you.
Please people, Can we all make a pact to STOP TALKING ABOUT WHO JESUS WAS AND WHAT HE ACCOMPLISHED UNTIL WE CAN START SHOWING IT. Simply serve others, expecting nothing in return, and let Christ work in their hearts.
Serve others without preaching at them (they've heard it all before).
Serve others without inviting them to church (they've been there and found it to be a waste of time).
Serve others without saying "Well sir, Jesus is my Lord and Savior" 100 times (the more you say it, the less convincing it sounds).
Serve others even when they take advantage of you (don't stop at the poor and needy.)
Give Jesus something non-hypocritical to work with and see if He doesn't bring that elusive "revival" so many are seeking.
I'm done.
“Serve others without preaching at them (they’ve heard it all before).
Serve others without inviting them to church (they’ve been there and found it to be a waste of time).
Serve others without saying “Well sir, Jesus is my Lord and Savior” 100 times (the more you say it, the less convincing it sounds).
Serve others even when they take advantage of you (don’t stop at the poor and needy.)”
Overall I ahve to agree with you on this points. Well said. Couple of things I would like to add.
I have started to encounter a number of people who have no idea about Jesus, christianity, the church for that matter. I have been running into scores of young people and ########## have never been to a church and have no real opinion on christianity. This all started with me when I started doing in many aways what you just wrote. For the first time that I can remember in my 13 years as a christian I met someone out in the “world” just started being there friend and now there who family have been born again, water baptisied and added to the church. It all started when I started to pray “Lord show me those that you are working on” and He said “Get out amoung the people”….now I am praying for the next and so are they.
R.P. I 100% agree with your rant.
As Van Morrison says on my favorite CD…
RAVE ON JOHN DUNN… RAVE ON! RAVE ON! RAVE ON!!!
Good ranting, RP! Challenging, convicting.
Now for my ranting:
Now the gospel message is primarily about God’s holiness, our rebellious sinfulness, Jesus’ perfect life of obedience and then dying in place of us for our sin and giving us His righteousness. We are called to respond in repentance and faith–turning from our sin and turning to God in the assurance that Christ makes us clean. And that can only be done through the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
All that said, it’s not a message I’ve heard alot in my decades in MFI churches, and I’m not sure how many church kids can articulate the gospel (not to put down many faithful teachers and youth pastors out there). My husband and I have been personally gripped with the content of the Gospel for the last couple of years and, however incompletely, have started living a daily walk of repentance of sin and of depending on Jesus and not ourselves to be “good enough” to approach God. Our hearts are freed up from the condemnation of works righteousness and superspirituality and humbled to see Jesus, not ourselves, as the hero of our story (to quote Negrodamus’ recent post).
So how does this have to do with your ranting?
What I have been struggling with is how to accomplish my responsibility in sharing the gospel. I totally agree that our lives better line up with Jesus’ commands to serve others and love others before we have any credibility. But how do I also call people to repentance of sin before God? Because I don’t want to just be thought of as a nice person. Maybe my own experiences of conviction and repentance and trust make me more fit to reach out to others wholeheartedly and mercifully, knowing the grace of God to me.
Anybody else?
I left my quote from the other post ambiguous on purpose. Funny.
This is an over simplification, partially because I am doing this on my phone as I wait for my son.
One problem that we have is that we split our daily lives from sharing the gospel. Here is how I try to live it. I serve people for their benefit with no strings attached as best I can. At the same time, I let them know what I am about in a normal, casual way. If you are into sports, certain kinds of movies, scrapbooking or whatever, people will figure that out without you being obnoxious. The same is true with Christ. If I can express a natural faith, devotion and appreciation for Christ’s work in my life, I will get the opportunity to share with some folks. When I do ask them to church or something else it is out of relationship. if they say they are not interested it has no effect on how I treat our relationship. We are going to continue to play bball, meet for coffee, carpool our kids to sports or whatever our connection is because or relationship is built on more than me trying to convimce them of the gospel.
Here comes my boy. Gotta go.
FF wrote:
“When I do ask them to church or something else it is out of relationship. if they say they are not interested it has no effect on how I treat our relationship. We are going to continue to play bball, meet for coffee, carpool our kids to sports or whatever our connection is because or relationship is built on more than me trying to convimce them of ##########.”
AWESOME!
I seed it as a two part process. The first part involves loving people unconitionally and once a real conection is made (which may take years) then the dialoge is bound to turn towards your beliefs. At that point, once you’ve shaken the image of “typical hypocritical Christain”, you can begin to share your views.
At the same time there should be a whole other group that you may serve randomly or only occationally that never get to know you well enough…but we still have to believe that by serving them we are laying the groundwork for God to use someone else to reach them.
It’s always important to remember that we can NOT save anyone. All this talk you hear about “Pastor Johnson lead X number of people to Christ” is nonsense. Pastor Johnson is merely a vessle that Christ has used to reach people.
I say follow Christ’s example of loving others and let God take care of their conversion.
Of course until we get out an actually do something…its all just empty words.
I’m not sure there is a formula for evangelism. I did the typical “2 question Test, Roman Road, Friendship Evangelism, Conspiracy of Kindness, Hell’s Best Kept Secret, Operation Portland and how about ‘S.T.O.R.M’ (Short Term Outreach Mission)?” LOL!!!
Do you remember the movie “The Big Kahuna” staring Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and Peter Facinelli. Essentially, the movie’s about two veteran salesman (Kevin Spacey & Danny Devito) who spend most of their time at this business convention trying to train their new protege (Peter Facinelli) on how to sell their product to a high net worth client (The Big Kahuna). Spacey’s character is highly irreligious and Facinelli’s character is a highly religious which makes for some very tense moments between them. Spacey is excessively immoral, Facinelli is exceedingly moral. Spacey the cynic, Facinelli notably the idealist. To the untrained eye they were polar opposite, literally two guys at extreme ends of the moral pendulum. Ironically, Devito plays the mediator and cuts through all the bulls*#t seeing both guys for who they really are—the same person! At the end of the movie Divito kickin’ that ole grandma’s wisdom says to the young upstart Facinelli, and I paraphrase him to the best of my abilities, “Don’t you see??? Don’t you see that whenever you put your hands on the steering wheel of a relationship and try to steer it in any one direction you become a salesman…” That line hit me like a ton of bricks!!! That is how I was trained in evangelism, to stick my hands on the steering wheel conversationally and relationally all in an effort to steer it to Jesus. Unbeknownst to me I had become what Nietzsche foresaw, I used religion as a “power grabâ€. I had become a salesman selling a product even though I convince myself that the product was Jesus. I cloaked it in this quasi-pseudo spirituality where I talked myself into believing that I was doing it for Jesus. But really, I was Spacey and Facinelli, I wasn’t doing it for Jesus, I was doing for myself. I wasn’t serving them, I was self-serving because in the end, if they didn’t give their life to Jesus, I shook the dust off my feet and went on to the next victim OR if they had come to Christ they were consigned to my trophyvcase.
Simple and yet effective!
I may send you my tithe afterall!
Hello Negrodamus,
You’re “salesman” comparison is one of the best articulated, insightful, and honest self-examinations concerning the evangelical mindset I’ve read. It just echoes in me why I stopped going to church over twenty years ago. Too many well meaning people misdirected. Thanks for sharing.
Negrodamus,
Don’t be to hard on yourself. The gospel was preached. That is the bottom line!! Whether there was a selfish element or not Christ was preached.
Paul in Phil 1:15-18 , didn’t seem to have a problem with “pretenser” and “selfish-ambitioners” who preached the gospel with wrong motives. I’m sure it was not his preferred method. Nonetheless,Christ IS being preached. The motive may not be right within their hearts , but that doesn’t matter. Paul said, “To me I am thrilled that the work of God is spreading in this community”. Some of them have wrong motives, contentions, really trying to add to Paul’s afflictions.
You were not preaching the gospel to get them to follow YOU! Were you “Jim Jones-ing” them into your kingdom? Did you have plans to head off to Africa with your followers and construct “damustown”? You preached Jesus, so what if you grabbed their steering wheel … if they didn’t know Jesus they were headed off a cliff anyway … at 110mph! I believe Christ is all for steering wheel grabbers, He will deal with motives. Christ got preached!
What happens to all those people you lead to Christ? Is their salvation nullified because you thought you were power-grabbing? Nd, Christ was preached
When those people you lead to Christ die and stand before the Lord in heaven how does that scene go ……
GOD: (to Nd convert) What are you doing here?
Nd Convert: (eyes spring wide open like half-dollars) w..w..w..what?
GOD: Remember back when your life was circling the drain there was a man I personally sent to preach the gospel to you and turn you from darkness to light?
Nd Convert: Yes Lord, it was THE changing point in my life … my life …
GOD: Bad News…. your salvations was nullified because of ‘Tainted Motives”
Nd Convert: WHAT?!?!? TAINTED MOTIVES?
GOD: Yeah, I know, When he was sharing the gospel with you he was brimming with to much self-love. It was all about him. He was sharing the gospel with to much pride that day. I cannot accept salvations tainted by gospel preachers with selfish motivations! I’m sorry you got “belt-notched”
Nd Convert: But Lord, my life was a wreck … things changed when I repented and believed and …
GOD: Hey, hey, hey, calm down … I said I’m deeply sorry. There are just to many people getting in here who have had the gospel preached to them by people with tainted motives. I had to tighten things up, you understand.
I had to re-work eternity entrance policy last year. We decided only those who had the gospel preached to them with a pure heart and godly motives who get in. This place is limited out with belt-notchers. Sorry.
Nd Convert: Then he lied to me … it was all a LIE!
GOD: No, no, no, What he told you is absolute truth. There is no other way but Jesus. You just had the misfortune of standing in front of him when he did it with tainted motives. I don’t know how to say it any more plainly … YOU GOT BELT-NOTCHED. They guy was all amped-up on himself that day, he was quasi-pseudo spiritually tripp’n , he was caught up in a tornado of self-glorification …. I can’t believe you didn’t see it….
Nd Convert: But Lord, he seemed so kind … he was so nice…..
Hey Nd, I personally think when the Lord has a little “visitation” with you (even with a line from a secular movie) it is for maturing purposes. Somehow we get to thinking that we as humans retain some kind of glory in our fallenness. There is nothing good in us. Maturity is the daily death self. “HE MUST INCREASE, I must decrease”
Keep Preaching Nd … God has gifted and talented you for HIS purposes.
I believe God smiles when we finally get “it” …. IT IS ALL ABOUT HIM
later
ICE
IC Emancipated, dude I love you, thanks for being my self-appointed therapist. But really, I’m okay, no no, really I am. Trust me, I don’t have a gun to my head, I was just “ranting” or better yet hitting the real issue underneath people’s issues with evangelism, let’s call it for good measures “the real sin underneath the sin”. I’m not saying we should never evangelize until our motives are pure because at what point can you say “Okay…I think I’m pure now to share Christ!” to think this would be the height of arrogance. In fact, God can use evangelism in any form to transform our heart and motives. But my broader point is this, the danger behind “power grabs” is this subtle transformation that happens in our hearts when evangelizing others and it works like this:
Step 1: We have the truth and they don’t.
Step 2: Since they don’t have the truth and we do, we are superior, meaning we are good and they are bad.
Step 3: Since they are bad & we good, we feel a need to evangelize them.
Step 4: We try our evangelism kit on them and they reject it, they sniff it out, they see it for what it really is and therefore we get mad and create a caricature of them.
Step 5: Because of this caricaturing or cartooning idea (like gay people, liberals, minorities, majorities, Islamics, tree huggers, etc…) we have of them, we distance ourselves from them.
Step 6: All of this shows forth what they already know and think of us Christians, another religious group making “power grabs” for moral or political power.
Step 7: The last and decisive step, let’s call it “active or passive” oppression which has happen through history. If they don’t play ball on our terms we (best case) legislate against them or (worse case) enslave them or kill’em. All religions have done this on some level. Shouldn’t Christians armed with the gospel bring something radically different to the table?
I forget which church father said this and I can’t quote him verbatim, but he said something to this effect “Share Christ with everyone and when possible use words”. Basically he is saying love people, befriend people, do life with people, cook meals for people, babysit their children, go to their clubs, pub’s and taverns, live for others instead of yourself, hire people then fire them and then rehire them, also, when an employee makes a crucial mistake at work, you as the manager absorb their blame…This is counterintuitive to the world and sadly to most of the church. But if you lived this way I’m positive your conversations with people will evolve into to deeper spiritual conversations. Now, can you do all this and it still be a “power grab”? Of course, that’s why preaching the gospel to yourself and living before Cross sanctifies your service to others by making it less and less about you and more and more about others.
St Francis of Assissi said that. Awesome quote. And so true.
I love what ICE said about grabbing the wheel. They’re already headed off in the wrong direction, the REALLY wrong direction. Like eternal damnation wrong. So the love and compassion Christ births within us should motivate us to “grab the wheel” in a sense. To steer the conversation towards Christ or maybe even outright preach. But in order to really let Christ shine through in that, you have to embody the gospel as well.
Jesus just had this way about Him. He knew people. He knew how to speak to them and to touch just the right nerve where God could heal and deliver them. But I think this is because he made His life about people, about evangelism in a sense. He embodied it. This is probably why St. Francis said that quote. He knew Christianity needed to be who you were, not something you just did and said. Christ is within us, birthed in us by the Holy Spirit, not only to give grace for sin but to give us grace to embody Christ-likeness. So through servanthood, compassion, and love, among many other things, we began to model Christ, and our witness will become more powerful. Motives will align with God’s, and “grabbing the wheel” becomes less of a chore and more a response of love.
dang..
I thought we were supposed to start off with.. “Do you know where you are going when you die?”
Negrodamus,
I know you’re fine. You have more God-given talent and ministerial gifting in your baby fingernail than most PBC’ers do in their whole bodies!
I never got into “power-grabbing”. Back in the day I just combined steps 3 thru 7 and went straight for the spiritual headlock … or some other submission hold that I was sure would “convince” them to come on over to my side. The run-of-the-mill spiritually walking dead were pretty easy … Jw’s and Mormons, not so much.
May God grant us all more of a spirit of evangelism. I need it!
Later
ICE