Community: The Missing Link in Evangelism

Christians in Context reports on an essential concept for evangelism that is worth considering:

In Total Church, Timmis and Chester conceive of evangelism as a rope with three strands; building relationships, sharing the gospel, and introducing people to the community of believers (p. 61). Prima facie this doesn't sound all that profound, yet I'm amazed how often I neglect the third strand. I try to build relationships, I share the story of Christ, but then I assume that non-Christians don't need to be exposed to the community of Christ. The problems with this view are legion. For instance...

1. It doesn't take Jesus' words to the disciples seriously (Jn 13:34-35; 17:20-23).

2. It assumes that the gospel can be separated from the community it creates. However, if - in the words of Newbigin - the local congregation is the hermeneutic of the gospel, this is a grievous mistake (see The Gospel in a Pluralist Society [London: SPCK, 198]; 222-223).

3. It creates unnecessary hindrances to new believers becoming involved in the community.

4. And there are plenty more...

It's exciting to think of evangelism as the task of the whole community. As we live together on mission, people experience the church not simply as a meeting or a program, but as a network of relationships (p. 59). This, in turn, creates a context in which gospel words will be heard.

Preaching - Does It Have To Be A Monologue?

Interesting discussion going on over at the 9Marks blog between Michael Mckinley and Steve Timmis, one of the co-authors of Total Church. Most of you who read this blog know that I was a huge fan of Total Church after reading it recently. Their discussion revolves around style of preaching. Is there a place for preaching that is not simply a monologue?

As I have been thinking about my personal style of learning and how I best retain and grow from information received, I think the Total Church guys might be on to something here. On the other hand, it seems that the majority of Biblical examples of preaching are found to be in a monologue style. To be fair, Steve Timmis is clear to note that he preaches in an authoritative monologue style every week, but what is allowed to happen around this event is different than most churches. More questions and give and take surrounding the point of the text.

My sense is that both camps (if we can call them camps) have very similar goals (faithfulness to the text, good communication, passion for discipleship, gospel centered, etc), yet have different ways to achieve these goals that are probably within the bounds of our church freedom.

I don't think this is an issue we should get all up in a bunch over, but I think it is helpful for church leaders to think through why they do what they do and what is most effective for discipleship.

What do you think?

Review of Total Church

T-Wax reviews Total Church. His conclusion:

Overall, Total Church is an important book. When I first began reading, I was not expecting their vision of church to be so comprehensive. It is indeed total church - in that this book addresses a wide variety of important issues facing the church. This book will lead to fruitful discussion about the church and the gospel. Total Church deserves to be read, pondered, discussed, and practiced.

Read the whole review.

Total Church - Chapter 5 Quotes

"To be a Christian is, by definition, to be part of the community of God’s people. To be united with Christ is to be part of his body. The assumption of the New Testament is that this always finds expression in commitment to a local church. The centrality of the church means the centrality of the congregation or it means nothing. Commitment to the church is easy while the church is an abstract, universal reality. But the New Testament assumes commitment to real people in real local churches with all their faults and foibles."

"The household model in some way defines church. The church is the “household” of God (Ephesians 2:19–22; 1 Timothy 3:15; Hebrews 3:6; 1 Peter 4:17). The ability of a potential leader to manage his household reflects his ability to care for God’s church (1 Timothy 3:4–5). For New Testament Christians the idea of church was synonymous with household and home. The false teachers on Crete at Ephesus “must be silenced, because they
are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach” (Titus 1:11; cf. 1 Timothy 5:13). And if a false teacher comes, John says, “do not take him into your house or welcome him” (2 John 10). In both Titus and 2 John the most natural reading of the text is as a reference to local household churches. Our point is not a slavish adherence to homes as the location for church gatherings or a denial of the value that purpose-built buildings can bring. The point is that as they grew, the apostolic churches became networks of small communities rather than one large group, to safeguard apostolic principles of church life. It matters little whether these small groups are called churches, home groups, or cells, as long as they are the focus for the life and mission of the church. Small communities determine a size in which mutual discipleship and care can realistically take place. They create a simplicity that militates against a maintenance mentality: there are no expensive buildings to maintain or complex programs to run. They determine a style that is participatory and inclusive, mirroring the discipleship model and table fellowship of Jesus himself. One of the key expressions of New Testament ecclesiology is “one another” (sometimes translated “each other”). This is often missed, perhaps unsurprisingly, by academic theology. It is simply the practical expression of
the priesthood of all believers. Whatever flexibility there might be about the structure of church, these principles are binding. We are to disciple and exhort one another, to love and care for one another."

"All too often home groups become inward-looking because they lack a missionary mandate. Yet home groups have great potential to be a context in which Christians can do mission together as a community. If, as seems evident from the New Testament, churches grew by continually dividing, this has profound implications for our view of church growth. A vision for church growth must be a vision for church planting."

- Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church, p. 87,88 and 93,94

Total Church - Chapter 4 Quotes

"This means it is never enough to address people’s felt needs. Felt needs can be a good point to start because the gospel addresses the human condition in all its complexity. But people do not as a rule express God’s judgment as a felt need. People are blind to their true plight. They do not see their greatest need, which is to be reconciled to God through the gospel. If we do not keep people’s eternal plight in mind, then immediate needs will force their way to the top of our agenda, and we will betray the gospel and the people we profess to love. The most loving thing we can do for the poor is to proclaim the good news of eternal salvation through Christ. It is by no means the only loving thing we can do for them, but it is the most loving thing we can do. It would be a crime of monumental proportions knowingly to withhold such good news."

"The big question is, why is the church in the West failing to reach the poor and marginalized in our society? If our churches do not reflect the reality Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 1, then we have to ask ourselves, concerning the message we have proclaimed, the way we have proclaimed it, the church cultures we have created, the expectation we have of church members, whether in some or all of these ways we have been untrue to the message of the cross. We have left room for boasting. Instead of nullifying status, intellect, and wealth, we have valued these things too highly and so nullified the message of “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
Conservative Christians are right to oppose any downgrade in the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.6 But we must examine our-selves to see whether we too are robbing the cross of its power."

- Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church, p. 78 and 84

Evangelism Without Proclamation?

There is a tendency in some quarters today to promote a kind of evangelism without proclamation. Acts of service are done or people are invited to experience Christian worship. But without words of explanation these are like signposts pointing nowhere or, worse still, signposts pointing to our good works. The gospel is good news - a message to be proclaimed, a truth to be taught, a word to be spoken, and a story to be told.

- Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church, p. 54

Total Church - Chapter 1 Quotes

A woman once told me about the difficulties she faced as a Brit fitting into American culture. One of her struggles was with people who said, "Let's do lunch." She expected them to phone and arrange a date. They never did. "Let's do lunch" was just an idiomatic way of saying farewell. We all say, "Let's do mission, " but does it carry any more intent than "Let's do lunch"?

The authors provide these very helpful quotes from Dr. Christopher Wright:

We ask, "Where does God fit into the story of my life?," when the real question is "Where doe my little life fit into this great story of God's mission?"

We want to be driven by a purpose that has been tailored just right for our own individual lives, when we should be seeing the purpose of all life, including our own, wrapped up in the great mission of God for the whole of creation.

We talk about "applying the Bible to our lives." What would it mean to apply our lives to the Bible instead, assuming the Bible to be the reality - the real story - to which we are called to conform ourselves?

We wrestle with "making the gospel relevant to the world." But in this story, God is about the business of transforming the world to fit the shape of the gospel.

We argue about what can legitimately be included in the mission that God expects from the church, when we should ask what kind of church God wants for the whole range of his mission.

I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me, when I should be asking what kind of me God wants for his mission.

- Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church, p. 33, 35