I got myself in trouble with an experienced pastor the other day. Oops, I should probably learn to keep my mouth shut more often! Anyway, we got into a short discussion about my evangelism style, and I told him I don't really have one. After his initial shock, he asked me what I meant, so I told him a story.When I was in my first year of seminary, I had heard much about the evangelism professor, who was something of a legend in that school and across the denomination... so I immediately enrolled in his Personal Evangelism class. But there was a problem. The more I went to class that semester, the more I became troubled by the whole "evangelism" thing. Great guy... I love the (now retired) professor as a person... but frankly, his methods literally made me ill. His full-court press style of gospel salesmanship was modeled after "Evangelism Explosion, " a massively popular formula for "training disciples" developed by D. James Kennedy in the early 60's. Essentially, this method of sharing the gospel centers around asking two important questions, roughly as follows:
#1 - If you were to die tonight, do you know for sure that you would go to be with God in heaven?
#2 - (if they say yes)... If God were to ask you, "Why should I allow you into My heaven," what would you say?
Then, after managing to get his or her attention (hopefully by scaring the "hell" out of them), you would lead them through a series of pre-selected Bible passages (accompanied by profound illustrations)... all purposefully designed to lead the person through a rational, yet emotionally appealing monologue about God's plan of salvation with humankind. Question, question, Scripture, illustration, Scripture, illustration... etc.
Anyone can do it, my professor insisted, as long as they commit themselves to memorizing the questions, the Bible passages, and the illustrations. That, and an evangelist must diligently maintain the attitude of prayer and "seeing" the lost with Jesus' eyes. If we don't see everyone in desperate need of Christ, then we'll quickly become desensitized, and stop being concerned about people going to hell. Now, tell me, how exactly does a person argue with that?
In those days, I didn't have the words to articulate my building sense of anxiety each time I went to class and had to report on how many times I had shared the gospel with unbelievers the previous week... but with each passing Tuesday night, I came to dread the two and a half hour class more and more. Over and over, the class schedule followed the same basic formula for success: Listen to the professor's highly-charged lecture, take copious notes (or pretend to), watch a home video or two in which he demonstrates every phase of the monologue with unbelievable ease, take a short quiz, turn in a written report, practice our pitch with a partner or small group... and of course, give the class our personal "hit list" of how many people we had gotten to the point of saying the infamous "sinner's prayer" and therefore getting them eternally "saved." We even tracked our overall class hit list per local church throughout the semester with hash marks on a blackboard representing each person won into the kingdom of God! What an impact we were making... and what a migraine I was getting!
Years later, I went to a Brian McLaren conference in Kansas City, and he helped me understand why I had difficulty relating to my legendary professor. For one thing, the two questions were not appropriate for this day and age... (Hmmm, what might a better question be for a postmodern age?)
Anyway, there is good news about the class - I finally got through the semester. The bad news, however? I later realized that the class was a two-semester course. In order to get any credit, I had to take "advanced" evangelism the following semester as well! Oh boy!... More money down the toilet!... More hash marks on the chalkboard!... More sinners saved!... More migraines!
Needless to say, I hated it. Perhaps next time I'll try to explain what my style of evangelism is (yes, I do have one, but it's not nearly as scientific or a "sure-fire" in its ability to bring sinners to their knees)... rather than what it is not. In the meantime, I'd love to learn your take on the whole subject. How you go about sharing your faith in Jesus Christ? What does evangelism mean to you?
2 comments:
I found this quote from Donald Miller:
"Millions, perhaps, have come to know Jesus through these efficient presentations of the gospel. But I did begin to wonder if there were better ways of explaining it than these pamphlets. After all, the pamphlets have been around for only the last fifty years or so (along with our formulaic presentation of the gospel), and the church has shrunk, not grown, in Western countries in which these tools have been used. But the greater trouble with these reduced ideas is that modern evangelical culture is so accustomed to this summation that it is difficult for us to see the gospel as anything other than a list of true statements with which a person must agree."
Another "gift" from the puritans, who placed a premium on what we think about God, rather than how we live our lives as a reflection of His grace. Could you see Jesus handing out tracts and leading people in the magic of the "sinner's prayer?" He never saw people merely as logical objects with merely psychological needs, rather He lived among and touched living, breathing, complex, messy, paradoxical human beings, understanding they had needs that transcended their thought process.
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