Seeking the Lost and the Gospel Mission, 3

In the wisdom of God, late that first year in Seminary a number of crossroads came to my life.  They would determine my convictions about evangelism and give me first hand experience with how evangelism takes place in a local church.

First, I had been reading extensively in Reformed works on evangelism.  Spurgeon's The Soul Winner is still unsurpassed.  Packer's Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God answered objections and fueled passion.  What was most significant to me was the integrity I saw in what I read -- the Gospel is to be presented clearly -- without deception -- no bait and switch. I was being shaped by careful application of truth to evangelistic practice.  I was seeing the role of the Holy Spirit in conversion.

Second, that spring there was a major evangelistic campaign in Portland and our church was to participate.  By then I was taking a class that trained people in evangelism.  There was a great deal of push in the church for us to participate in the campaign, especially those in the class -- but the whole thing seemed phony to me.  It was classic manipulation and deception.  So I refused to join up and told the Minister of Evangelism that I would not participate.  As a result, he asked me to be his intern!

For the next four years I spent hours with this man (who would become a dear friend), 25 years my senior, as we discussed theology and evangelism.  We continued to teach the class but also began to measure what was going on. 

First, the fruit of the big media crusade was that 1 in 10,000 who "prayed a prayer" ended up in church. It was appalling. 

Second, while the class was considered a success for its fruit, especially in new members, the details revealed something quite different.  Most of the people we visited were already Christians.  90% of the new members who came to the church in those years were believers who wanted to change to our church.  In those years we took in over 800 members too.  Then we did an evaluation of the effect of the class on our graduates.  99% of them had no consistent practice of evangelism after they graduated.  The fruit was not evident. 

Finally, our church had brought in a major church evangelist.  Lots of "push" had happened for this to be successful.  Indeed, there were over 100 "decisions" in that week -- but, strange to say, the man never preached the death of Christ for sinners.  And of the One hundred who prayed with a counselor, about 5 stuck.  The message was defective, as was the method.

When we sought to address these concerns we were told we were being "theoretical" -- after all, people were praying to receive Christ and that is all that mattered.  But it was clear to me that they may not have known who Christ was or why he had come. We were so concerned for results that we compromised the message to make it more palatable.

As I worked with training people, I was seeing that there was a whole lot of preaching to the choir in the name of evangelism -- that Christians seemed to live in a "bubble" -- had their own bookstores, own yellow pages, own music, own radio, own newspaper and TV and movies.  Our people lived and worked shoulder to shoulder with lost people but had little personal time with them -- did not know their needs, their kids names, or their life circumstances very well.  They referred to non-believers as "them" -- they were abstractions, not people with names.  They read books to find out what non-Christians thought -- but they did not know any personally. Sadly, this separation, a violation of 1 Corinthians 5:9-13, was encouraged.  They also spent a great deal of time pronouncing woes upon the secular people around them -- how they were ruining the culture.  That was the time when the moral majority was strong and many of our people wanted to bring back a moral America.  They confused morality with the Gospel.

Comments

[Denise]

So much for 'programs.' This event puts much credence behind the notion of what is commonly called 'lifestyle evangelism;' getting to know people as individuals while you are all 'doing life' together. A clear presentation of the Gospel makes more sense in context. It is more real than phoney. It is more believable.

When I accepted Christ as Savior, it was because of people in my life that took the time to build a relationship with me and cared for me as a person. In that context, God's love and Jesus' sacrifice was more real and made sense.

Jesus set this example for us; yes there were people He met once and that was enough, and then there were others He spent time with. Ought not we do the same?

Thanks for the reminder that evangelism is not something we do, but something we live as part of our normal daily lives.

[Aaron Mayfield]

Mark, this has been outstanding so far. I can identify well with your stories of frustration; I have yet to come to a place of satisfaction (in my practice). I am looking forward to see where you go with this.

[Amy]

Keep writing! In this series you are addressing many of my concerns about my life and the church today and I am anxiously waiting to see where you take this.

thanks for sharing your passion for the gospel!