Evangelism: Do you Want to be Saved?

There's a story about a little fish out exploring his world one day. Or perhaps exploring her world. She swims very fast from the bottom of the river upward, breaks the surface of the water, and is astounded at the world she glimpses before splashing back into the river. She swims home to tell her mother that outside of the water there is a wonderful world. Her mother replies, "Water? What's water?" Often, the context in which we live is invisible. Finding new and wonderful worlds means becoming aware of our limits. In Richard Rohr's devotion on Wednesday, he talked about the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis, a common practice of the Eastern church, but one ignored or even denied here in the West. Rohr says: The Eastern fathers of the Church believed we could experience real and transformative union with God. This is in fact the supreme goal of human life and the very meaning of salvation... I buy it. That's the message I hear Jesus try and get through our heads. I hear that far better than I hear "believe in Jesus and be baptized so you won't go to hell." (I know...I'm probably going to hell for that!) "Follow me" and be changed is what I hear. It's what I see in the stories of the gospels and the early church. Rohr says: Salvation isn't about replacing our human nature with a fully divine nature, but growing within our very earthiness and embodiedness to live more and more in the ways of love and grace, so that it comes "naturally" to us and is our deepest nature. This does not mean we are humanly or perfectly whole or psychologically unwounded, but it has to do with an objective identity in God that we can always call upon and return to without fail... Full salvation is finally universal belonging and universal connecting. Our word for that is "heaven." Perhaps the most significant change here is salvation being communal, not what I do to ensure my well-being or future fate. Universal belonging and universal connecting draw me into community and compel me to action. As I grow into my belonging (God doesn't move away from that...I do), I must do so with all other people, otherwise I'm still not connected fully in the ways of love and grace. That's the invitation. I don't need you to come into the church to fix you or to fix the church. I need you to come into the church, because you have something to teach me, and I have something to teach you. I need you to belong to me, and I need to belong to you. That can happen because of our identity as children of God that is not dependent on us in the least. If you won't cross the threshold of my church, you are still connected to me as family...and I, to you. Back to context. The water in which we swim is water that assumes individuality is supreme, that independence is the ultimate goal, and that those who are "other" are to be feared, avoided, or defeated. God came incarnate in Jesus to encourage us to check out the world beyond the water that keeps us from universal belonging and universal connecting. We couldn't manage to follow then, but God didn't quit. The reality of the universal-belonging-and-connecting-God is the constant. Do we need to be saved? Do we need universal belonging and connecting? Let's call that the evangelism pool. Heated. Open all year round. Come be immersed in belonging and connecting.

Evangelism Strategy?

News out of Pew Research has folks in a tizzy. The number of "Christians" in America continues to decline and the number of "nones"--people who are willing to publicly claim no religion--continues to rise. Each succeeding generation shows less connection to the church.

Those of us who work in churches already know this.

"Evangelism requires a strategy" we hear. And I suppose it does. The definition of strategy, "a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim" makes one think that if we could just come up with a plan we could all follow it, and we could be done with this decline.

Problem one: WE. The work of salvation is God's work. It is work in which we are invited to participate. But there is really little we can say or do to "save" someone. That becomes increasing clear as we:

• give our "threat speech" which invites people to burn in hell if they are not "saved," 
• give our "good citizen" speech, 
• stutter incoherently because we really can't articulate why anyone should follow Jesus.
• stand confused when people don't respond to our invitation
• or cringe if they come and visit church with us and aren't greeted, are judged and condemned by the preacher, or are completely lost and confused by the worship ritual (which, of course, we cannot explain to them).

Problem two: PLAN. Remember when contemporary worship was a plan? Remember "seeker services"--services that didn't mention Jesus or God and didn't have prayer, confession or creeds? Remember "worshipping communities?" Remember the five steps to salvation? Starting classes with contemporary social concerns and bringing scripture in at the end? 

IMHO the only thing a "plan" does is depress the people when it doesn't work. Then more people leave the church because clearly God is either absent or doesn't care if the plan is not working.

So what do we do?: Pray. Witness.

By prayer, I don't mean the individual think-about-God-and-wish-people-would-come-so-the-church-would-have-enough-money-and-members-to-look-good-and-function-well. I mean a people of God called together in community who join together to converse with God about this issue. It's uncomfortable for many of us to even think about it. It's not in our control. We cannot measure the outcome of any given prayer event. But prayer changes us into the people God intends us to be. And that, perhaps, is the best starting place to invite other in...if we are moving toward who we are supposed to be. 

Witness. A relationship with the Triune God who creates, rules, sustains, and transforms all things and all people gives purpose and meaning to our lives. Significant purpose and meaning. If we can't articulate that purpose and meaning, we need to listen more carefully to God and to our fellow travelers on the Way. I think it is the purpose and meaning, the living love of God and neighbor that is compelling. And we cannot "prove" the benefit; we cannot "convince" the masses. We can only witness to the transformation it has brought in our lives and our communities.

Is that a plan? a strategy? Don't know. I'm not clear about the "aim." Church membership is often the stated goal...but we had great church membership in the middle part of the 20th century and that only got us where we are today--the decline of Christianity in America. I have no idea where this choice will take me, no idea who will be touched, no clue if it will happen in my lifetime or happen at all. But I know God's church will not cease to exist. God's people will not cease to exist. God's transformative work will not cease to exist.

I will pray and witness. 

And trust.

And God will accomplish God's purposes.

Evangelism: What's Messy and Slow and Can't be Measured?

Diana Butler Bass challenged my hospitality thinking with a comment she makes in her book, A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story. It's a great read...the history of Christianity for those of us who find it challenging to stay engaged in historical conversations. My favorite aspect of the book is she finds the positive contribution of every era in history.

Anyway, she talks about the time of the desert fathers and mothers, people who left the cities, after Christianity had been made law-of-the-land, and went into the wilderness for solitude and reflection...attempting to find and nurture closer and more authentic connection with God. She describes their connection to prayer.

[Jesus invitation to] 'Come follow me' was intimately bound up with the practice of prayer. For prayer connects us with God and others, 'part of this enterprise of learning to love.' Prayer is much more than a technique, and early Christians left us no definitive how-to manual on prayer. Rather, the desert fathers and mothers believed that prayer was a disposition of wholeness, so that 'prayer and our life must be all of a piece.' They approached prayer, as early church scholar Roberta Bondi notes, as a practical twofold process: first, of 'thinking and reflecting,' or 'pondering' what it means to love others; and second, as the 'development and practice of loving ways of being.' In other words, these ancients taught that prayer was participation in God's love, the activity that takes us out of ourselves, away from the familiar, and conforms us to the path of Christ."

Contrast this with the "evangelism" I was taught as a child...and taught to avoid as an adult in the Presbyterian tradition. The first step was judgment...deciding who was or wasn't living as a "Christian." The next step was condemnation. The next, sharing that condemnation of both you and God with the targeted person. Then, sharing a process that required asking for forgiveness and "believing" in Jesus. The end. Mark your Sunday school envelope that you saved someone and look for the next poor schmuck that needs salvation.

I find an invitation to wholeness far more compelling as the invitee and the participant than the responsibility of judgment and condemnation. I also find it interesting to approach prayer as an invitation to think and reflect on what it means to love others, then develop and practice "loving ways of being." (and oh...oh how I wish our politics was founded on this way of being...)

Being loved inspires the best in us. Being judged simply inspires the worst.

So I think there's no "program" or "steps" or "procedure" that works for evangelism. I think its an investment in prayer and trusting God.  But I also know that investing in prayer is not doing nothing. It is, in the words of our desert fathers and mothers, "developing and practicing loving ways of being."

That may be the hardest job we undertake. Developing and practicing loving ways of being requires giving up the understanding that there is one way of being in the world, one way of worshipping, one way of relating. It requires radical acceptance of even the most troubled and difficult. It requires setting aside my preferences and listening to God and to others to discern the road ahead.

It's messy and slow and can't be measured effectively.

Which, ultimately, is God's way, is it not?