My seminary prof. for the week, Dr. Greg Perry, just asked us a convicting question. He told us to open up our calendars (most of us have laptops) and to tell him (rhetorically) how many appointments with non-Christians are on the schedule.Uh...
Awkward silence.
How would you answer this question?
This leads me to something some friends and I were talking about last night:
In the past 10-15 years we have seen the restructuring of our basic ecclesiology in most churches and this predominantly came in the form of our musical expression. This is no longer the case. My kids are not going to be impressed with the music in church in the same way that I was when things changed when I was a kid. Attractional church is dead these days (I know this is an overstatement) or will be in the next 10-15 years.
We are going to have to get back actual gospel conversion (who would have thunk it) and not just "hey come and check out my cool church!" Evangelism is going to have to take a primary place in our churches through actual people doing real life with actual non-Christians. If we don't the church is going to dry up and look more and more like Europe in the next few decades. I think it is already happening. Church attendance is down all over the country.
That's my prophetic rant for the day. Nothing new, but you can listen in as I remind myself.
So, again, do you (do I) have any friends that don't know Jesus? When do you ( do I) hang out with them? Where does the gospel of the reign of God over all of life (Kingdom) intersect?
Real people, real relationships, real death, real life, real truth, real hope.
4 comments:
z,
I hear you loud and clear brother. Greg and I had lunch today and this came up... kind of.
I would argue (and I would probably HAVE to argue a bit;) that one of the biggest reasons those who do have lost friends don't 'evangelize' is that they were never trained to do so.
If it is a simple issue of not hanging with lost peeps, then of course, engage. But even after engaging, what do you say? Where do you start?
I was trained in evangelism on my college campus by a man with a burden for the lost. Since then I have realized there were some gaps, but all's well that reforms well, or whatever. The gospel message and methods can be clearer, more biblical, always reforming, but I think it must be practiced.
And it must be emphasized that there is evangelism "training/practice" (randomly with strangers through a concise presentation that is always reforming under close oversight), and then there is evangelism (that which you do, much more naturally now, with the lost peeps you have engaged.)
And finally, there is discipleship within the local church...
Sorry, I couldn't help myself... :)
- Clint
Clint,
You are a madman. But I love you.
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