making the word of Jesus stick

When I was in Junior High, I participated in a youth group that held random activities directed toward non-believers. These activities were attractive to the non-Christian community because they were non-traditional by incorporating secular music and activity. Lip syncing was a dominant theme for several of the outreach attempts for my youth group. It served as an annual activity that aimed at accommodating non-Christian attendees. This activity was always a success. It appealed to my non-Christian friends that had no previous connection to the church nor had any inclination to attend in the future. Ultimately, it served as an evangelical’s dream pool for instantaneous conversion after years of positive feedback. When the performances were completed, and the final votes were tallied for who would be crowned the first place lip syncing participant, a five minute speech was conducted before the victors were announced. Our youth group pastor would provide a 2 minute synopsis of the gospel and then continue to ask that everyone put their heads down in prayer and that those “willing” to accept the word of Jesus raise their hands in humility so that the pastor could identify and tally his overall conversion statistics for the evening. Of course I’m being both cynical and sarcastic yet in hindsight this is in fact what this 5 minute presentation of the gospel and subsequent offering of salvation half translated into. What is wrong with this form of evangelization you might ask? Well, I think that it lies in the interesting dichotomy of sharing the gospel through serving with or without the vocalization of the message of Jesus, and which method is beneficiary in gaining committed followers of Christ.

A couple years ago my wife and I attended a church in Pasadena that was fairly young. This church possessed many hopeful objectives. Some included reaching out to the community, identifying major problems within the community, and participation in the reformation of the community as a whole. One weekend they held an activity in the parking lot of one of our local supermarkets. They decided to stand outside and hand out fliers to departing customers, hoping to spawn conversation that would lead to an invitation to Sunday worship. I believe that this kind of service is a step in the right direction but I question its proficiency in bringing people to Christ.

Both examples mentioned above are what I call typical, traditional means of sharing the gospel that lack originality and long-term objectives for the new believer. In my opinion, I view our present church as fearing true communal or secular intervention and therefore avoiding consistent influence amongst the community. Instead of choosing subtle, consistent service amongst non-believers the church elects to incorporate a rare, sporadic activity that aims at bringing people to Christ immediately without a relational emphasis.

In my example concerning the lip syncing activity, there is something very empty in this attempt to bring young kids to Christ. Most of my non-Christian friends that would attend this event had never even been to church before, let alone heard the true message of Christ. Now keep in my that kids are very easily persuaded, especially in Junior High, so it would not appear unusual for many of the kids to be extremely responsive to a message concerning the gospel following a remarkable evening. Now I don’t want to take anything away from the saving power of the Holy Spirit by criticizing this five-minutes and labeling it as non-beneficiary to the salvation of others. I still believe that this sort of sharing the Gospel can produce salvation. I just question its ability to maintain people within the body of Christ and provide a correct framework of radical transformation. Can someone’s heart be truly changed by simply acknowledging Christ after a five minute message? Of course this brings about a separate issue. Is the church attempting to simply offer salvation, or is it searching to assist a new believer in understanding his or her salvation and making it applicable to his or her life? If the church elects not to choose the latter is it safe to say that the church is overlooking the significance of the word that Jesus preached. I believe that the present church may be making a grave mistake in placing too much emphasis in faith alone when seeking to bring others to Christ.

Faith is not simply a cognitive decision to acknowledge Jesus as God and to believe in his death for propitiation. True faith produces fruit. And although I believe that this acknowledgement of Christ is enough to reward salvation I don’t think it is enough to transform one’s spirit and truly set a person free from their sinful bondage. I don’t think it is enough to remove an individual from his or her lifestyle and allow this person to benefit the body of Christ and live like Jesus intended us to live.

Now what if my youth group had taken a different approach to secular outreach? Let’s say my youth group pastor’s prerogative lie in the plan to build relationships with non-Christian students through relational outreach as opposed to sudden, vocalization of the gospel with no relational basis with the kid whatsoever. Let’s say instead of inviting these lip syncing attendees to accept Jesus immediately, his focus instead exists in encouraging the children to be avid youth group attendees. He uses the five minutes after the lip-sync contest to emphasize love, community, brotherhood and other things that appeal to a spiritually ignorant, worldly immature individual that is seeking to belong to something. He begins to lay the foundation on which the Lord Jesus begins to work upon. Instead of immediately focusing on salvation solely (which is the obvious overall goal of any person in the ministry), this youth group pastor takes a different approach, inviting everyone to join the body of Christ in order for salvation to reach this individual according to God’s will, not the “out of the blue”, immediate call for everyone to repent and receive salvation.

Too many times have I experienced friends that would attend these types of youth group events, only to accept Jesus as their Lord and savior (possibly prematurely) without ever again attending youth group or Church. A year or two later these friends couldn’t recollect a single thing about their coming to Christ if you waved a twenty dollar bill in front of their eyes. An attempt by my youth group pastor to bring my friends to Christ through this brief synopsis of the Gospel and “answer” of salvation is comparable to a teacher providing the answer to an exam to all her students (an exam that consists of content they’ve never heard of) and sending them out the door, expecting them to make sense of it all “somewhere down the road”. And how much more important is it to supply a tutorial when preparing someone to understand the reality of mankind and the universe, and his or her place within nature and humanity?

The word of God isn’t simply about a man named Jesus that died so that we can go to “heaven”. It is so much deeper than this: the word is the creative force behind the entire universe. If the only objective of any church is to bring an individual to a comprehension or conceptualization of someone that died for their sins 2000 years ago and is therefore deemed worthy of their self-sacrifice then this sort of evangelizing is right on track. But if the church’s goal is to introduce someone to a relationship with Jesus that will last a lifetime, this sort of “vocalization” of the gospel may allow someone to believe in Jesus for an hour, day, or month. But when evil comes and tempts this person’s newly formulated faith by presenting adversity I don’t think I am being negative in assuming this person will suffer heavy spiritual casualty. And who will be there for this person? Do we expect this person to take initiative and come to youth group, especially if he is in junior high and does not have a spiritually encouraging family?

Of course I don’t know where the line is drawn when it comes to believing in Christ. This is something that I still question. All throughout the bible, faith without deeds is viewed as dead and unreal. Faith in Jesus can easily be rendered into a simple cognitive acknowledgement of a divine man a couple thousand years ago that taught great things and then was murdered for our benefit. Many people hold this worldview yet lack any form of self-discipline or alteration of their previous lifestyle. Is this sort of faith enough to reap eternal benefit?

Now take the act of handing out fliers at a local supermarket parking lot into consideration. (Once again I am not attempting to criticize this act of service. I would be a hypocrite if I were to do so. I congratulate the efforts of anyone, anywhere that attempts by any activity to share the message of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am simply critiquing the efficiency of this method of evangelizing). What if instead of standing in the parking lot of a supermarket and handing out fliers these people decide to dedicate an entire day cleaning up their city? Let’s say they decide to walk down the streets of Los Angeles picking up trash, with no direct objective to vocally share the gospel with anyone. Instead their objective lies in the attempt to set a standard, to be an example, to stir conversation and thought amongst non-believers that view a bunch of normal people simply volunteering their time to the community. What if these people used this service as a gateway for God to intercede and allow his spirit to summon people to them? What if the humbleness of this sort of passive activity glorified God, and enabled him to work even more? What if the message of Christ wasn’t shoved in someone’s face and started with the portrayal of a true Christian foundation?

We live in an individualistic society that is easily persuaded yet is rarely transformed. It is easy for our church to share the gospel and get an occasional repentance and acknowledgement of Christ but it difficult for a church to gain an avid, committed member of their congregation. Why is this? What sort of things need to be evaluated? People want to feel the power of Christ working in their lives now. Sure salvation gives someone something to look forward to, but what about now? What good is salvation now if the gift we receive is only redeemable after we die? Christ came to earth to liberate our hearts, to set us free. Christ came to give us salvation that begins immediately. “I come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). So few Christians emphasize this; so few non-believers see this amongst Christians. People need to witness the transformation of the heart by building relationships with Christians that have received this miraculous alteration from the Holy Spirit. Non-believers need to see actions instead of simply hearing words. They’ve heard words all their lives. We live in a culture that is all talk and rarely walk. We need to sell the message of Christ by living the truth instead of merely articulating the word.

By living the word not only will we produce life long brothers and sisters in Christ, we will also re-institutionalize the modern day church by portraying it as a body as opposed to a physical place. People will look forward to going to church for fellowship with other believers in Christ and will no longer simply view church as dutiful. Nor will their experience at church produce a feeling of insignificance and unimportance when they sit in the pew on Sunday morning. Instead they will feel part of something greater than they, something divine and certainly real. Their conditioned bias toward church will transform not only them, but others in their lives. This change in the church will spawn networking amongst non-believers and will produce positive ramifications for the Church as a whole.

Christians need to emphasize the body of Christ and seek to create an institution that transcends Sunday morning service. They need to develop a way that will not impose “salvation” nor reinforce the church as a physical place. We need to emphasize the mysticism of Christianity by withholding the ultimate offering of Salvation by first offering a foundation for our Lord to work off of. Let us be patience, and truly seek to make radical change in order for the glory of God to touch all mankind. Let us allow God to articulate the gospel according to his own will. Our job is to mimic the life of Christ as best as possible. Let us prepare our non-believing friend for the final exam that can only be offered by God.