For years growing up in the church, I thought my mission in life was to “convert” others to the Christian faith. This perspective was drilled into my psyche through messages, mission trips, outreach events, and skits. Some (not all) of the leadership I served under equated the level of one’s spirituality on how many people one had “led to Christ”. To be honest, for years, I bought into this perspective of “reaching” those poor souls in the world who had no life direction without Christ and were bound to end up in eternal damnation.
This perspective led me to engage several conversations with people for the sole purpose of leading them to faith in Christ. It would be not too uncommon for people in our church to be given X amount of hours during a missions trip or outreach event to “share Christ with someone”. I found myself using everything from guilt to manipulative conversations to sheer fear (E.g., death being immanent and around the corner) in hopes of someone buying in to my pitch. Whenever someone was persuaded by my presentation, I was overjoyed (in part because I knew I now had a “trophy” of victory). On the other hand, when people did not respond positively, we just labeled them as those “in darkness”, without “ears to hear”, and enemies of God.
My point???
I still believe that Christ is the ultimate source of meaning and life for humanity. Nevertheless, I am deeply repentive of how I have introduced him (if at all) to the rest of my fellow human beings. Regardless of how much good may have be produced through my previous methodology, I do wonder as to how much harm I also created in his name.
I think friendship should be the goal of any human interaction. When friendship genuinely develops, the deep sharing of personal passions (including Jesus) eventually do come to the surface. I think conversion is a great by-product of friendship, but a horrible goal. For me, whenever conversion has been my goal, it has led to artificial development of relationship.
Whenever I read the stories of Christ in the Gospels, I get a sense that he really loved people without strings attached. His focus was to live out the Kingdom, a Kingdom that was fully sufficient to draw people to God.
Just some thoughts…
This post is tagged Conversion, Evangelism, Friendship, Sales
9 Comments
Very well put. I completely agree. I have grown up in the same way. The church never taught me to be friends with someone I wanted to share christ with. It was just go and share christ.
It was all in how well the sales pitch was. If you were able to sell christianity to them than you won. If not, like you said, they were simply still in the darkness.
Even here at Life I noticed that the mentality is the same. I took evangelism and discipleship, and the main assignments were to share christ with a certain amount of people and write about it.
I also agree with what you said at the end about living out the kingdom. If we live the kingdom, people will notice, and theyll want to be part of it.
Great thoughts
Thanks Ben for the the note. I’m glad to hear that you are taking notice early on is life and ministry. Do you have any examples of how people have noticed the kingdom in you?
Here are my thoughts on this issue. I agree to a certain extent but I also disagree to a certain extent (I’m lukewarm..). For the longest time I’ve felt that way about evangelism. I felt the pressure about needing to “WIN SOULS” for Jesus. I felt the pressure in all my interactions with my non-Christians friends that each time I interacted with them I felt guilty because I was not trying to “CLOSE THE DEAL.” But where does this pressure come from?
I honestly think it comes from Modern American Evangelicalism and a wrong thinking about God (bad theology). I’m coming from a reformed vineyard view (WEIRD? Yes I know.. I’m the only one as far as I know). But I hold the view that a person is saved (or the deal is closed) only by the grace of God. I think there the flaw with modern evangelicalism is that there is an underlying thought that some how MAN can change the hearts of the lost. If we’re passionate enough, if we pray enough, if we know our arguments, if we play nice music when an altar call is given… THEN people will respond.. I think this is dangerous and it falls into the place of psychological games and manipulation. The reformed view is that God regenerates the heart. I’m not a reformed evangelist trying to spread reformed theology.. But I am saying that this view holds a better understanding of the sovereignty of God.
Ok with that said.. I’m not trying to win people over to reformed theology. But I am trying to make a point that I think that Modern Evangelicalism is wrong in that thinking. I think God works in the hearts of man and God changes the hearts of men. So the pressure is off of us to seal the deal.. BUT does that mean we should stop preaching the gospel? and get lazy in evangelism..I think Calvinist who live this way aren’t true to their understanding of salvation.
I think the responsibility of Christians is to proclaim the Gospel. I don’t think (I could be wrong) the gospel is up for discussion. I think Jesus meant for us to proclaim it and not just talk about it. Here’s where I disagree with you.. I don’t think friendship is the goal of every human interaction.. I think proclamation of the gospel of the Kingdom is. I think God moves on the hearts of men mainly (but not necessarily primarily) through the proclamation of the Gospel. The goal is not friendship but the proclamation whether people listen or not… become our friends or not..
But with that said let me say that I don’t believe proclamation is only limited to the spoke words or confrontation of a person.. I believe that it is a means of proclamation.. i believe friendship is a means of proclamation. I believe justice is a means of proclamation.. these are means of proclaiming the kingdom of God. Friendship can never been the primary means..The goal is not to close the deal but to proclaim the gospel.. The goal is to communicate the gospel..
I’m Reformed Vineyard… Hahah.. So the goal is to proclaim.. Live out.. Communicate the Gospel.. It’s not “SEALING the DEAL” and I would even say it’s not “friendship.” We can not limit the means of the proclamation of the gospel.. I think there are times we need to confront other with the gospel (in love) and times we can just live the gospel (in love).
I don’t know if this made sense… This is what I think..
Sorry I made my last response so long.. You can tell that this was a form of procrastination.. I should be studying for finals.. But they’re next week.. Have a good one Charles..
Thanks Jonathan for the notes. I think John Piper would be proud…:) Reformed Vineyard??? I might have to report you… j/k (I’m sure some Vineyard leader is reading this…haha.
I think my view of God’s “sovereignty” may differ from yours…(a different discussion – especially about various kinds of free will and determinism).
I think I was writing this entry from the vantage point of the shortfalls of posture and methodology in modern-day evangelism (specifically 20th century). I am not trying to diminish the proclamation of the Gospel. I am just stressing that timing (under my view of sovereignty) and motive are significant.
I remember Phil Jackson (coach of the Lakers) talking about Kobe years ago on how Kobe needed to “let the game come to him”. This didn’t mean that Kobe should not work hard on his game, but rather that he should not force things to happen artificially or prematurely during competition.
Since we live in a pluralistic society, I think it is important for us to shift the method from “we have the answer and here it is” to “here is a possible (or even reasonable) answer given the reality of our global problems”. I say this not to dilute the message, but rather to prevent premature severing of relationship. A person who has pluralistic leanings today may not even consider the message if the messenger comes to the table with an attitude of superiority or exclusivity. I would even venture to say that many are not even offended by our message of Christ (primarily because they may not have an accurate perception to begin with), but rather, by our methodology for sharing that message.
For me, focusing on friendship allows me to think more relationally… I want “the game” to come to me. In fact, I have had more meaningful conversations about God and Christ since taking this posture than all of my previous years combined.
Although it is very difficult at times to remember, I never want to be guilty of using any other human being as a means of getting to an end, even if it is consider godly by some.
I like what you have to say here, Charles.
It seems like some people treat evangelism like a game of spiritual Pokemon – you gotta catch them all! There’s more to it than that, as you have pointed out.
Your statement about friendship being “the goal of any human interaction” is challenging. Being that most of us participate in myriad interactions with humans every day, how might one genuinely carry this out?
Hey Jackson…thanks for the note.
In regards to your question, I think it has a lot to do with treating people more humanely and not as a “target”, “outreach” or project. Check out my post on hospitality…it may address your question.
Hope all is well Jackson…I’m actually headed up to Oregon (Eugene) right now for a couple of days.
Nice! I hope that Oregon treats you well during your visit. We had some strange weather last month; everything from snow to summer-like temperatures. I think that the weather will be more mild during your visit.
I think I have a better understanding about what you mean by friendship now. Jesus is often referred to as a friend of sinners, which paints a great portrait of the example should follow.
I’ll be sure to read your post on hospitality in the near future.
Charles, I always appreciate your unique perspectives on faith, life and relationships. I agree that we need to not treat people as targets. I think part of the problem is that we move so fast the idea of building relationships with people who offer us, from our perspective, nothing (sounds selfish but I am saying that this is a tendency) seems like a daunting task. So we speed up a process that shouldn’t have been sped up in the first place. I do think however, that a case can be made for cold call evangelism. The evangelists and preachers of the early church did this in a world much more hostile towards Christianity than the current US culture. I also contend that Jesus was not as unconditional in his friendship as you have made it seem. This is the man who sent thousands away when he said you must drink of my blood and eat of my body to have part in what I am doing. How much more polarizing can a statement like, “To follow me you must take up your cross daily.” be. Jesus loved all people, but I also think that he did marginalize people. He didn’t seem to hesitate to draw the line, and he didn’t always do this in the context of relationship with the person. Now, I don’t know that that is neccesarily perscriptive to our methodology of evangelism. I will say however, I have non-Christian friends, who are deep friends with me, because I confronted them at one point in their life, and told them they needed Jesus. In fact, one of my very best friends, still isn’t a Christian but still comes to me for advice frequently, and he has told me that it is because I loved him enough to shoot him straight the first time I met him. I still remeber the conversation too and all I had said was, “Drew, you need to know about spiritual things, and you’ll know that through Jesus.” So anyway, the point I am making is that yes, people should not be targets. True friendship however, is when the truth is spoken plainly in love and in concern for that person. Experience has shown me that people aren’t as offended as you’d think. The power lies in making that confrontation about Jesus but not requiring that person to convert in order for them to be a close friend. Anyway, you’re amazing and thanks for teaching me about youth ministry.
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