Community Evangelism?

I want your reaction to the following:

Many believers experience anxiety when the topic of evangelism is mentioned. Why do we feel such anxiety? I think there are only a select few people who have the gift of evangelist who do not experience this anxiety. Could it be that we have placed too much emphasis on the individual in evangelism? Sure there are fine examples of individuals in the book of Acts – like Phillip – where evangelism is a one to one activity. But is this the norm? Should we consider these isolated evangelistic moments as our primary model for how to do evangelism? Tell me what you think of the following.

The normal mode of evangelism should be conducted within the community of believers rather than being conducted by individual believers. The reason people feel such anxiety about evangelism is because the task is larger than one person. If I may, I would submit to you that we should cease looking to the model of one to one evangelism as our primary tool. The community of believers (as Mark Driscoll puts it, the city within a city) should demonstrate a love and life to the world which displays the power of Christ. That’s evangelism, community style. The one to one encounters would occur much more naturally and anxiety-free as people see the power of Christ in the larger community of believers and quite naturally become inquisitive.

Why community? First of all, the major emphasis of the most of the New Testament letters deals with issues of community within the church. Somewhere along the way, we began preaching and teaching sermons which instructed us to take these community principles and apply them to the individual; which in and of itself is not bad. However, in our self-absorbed, self-made 20th and 21st century individualism, much of the church began focusing on the personal application of Biblical principles at the expense of the community application. We became a church full of individuals. This is not the Biblical model. The Biblical model is that the church is a community, a city within the city in which you live. The personal instructions you find within the New Testament letters are mostly concerned with how you should live within the rest of the community. Since we are supposed to be a community, activities like evangelism, ministry, worship, they all occur primarily within the community. So evangelism, from the birth of the church, was meant to be a community effort.

Do you agree?

A Message to Men

I’m not sure that anything I say will prepare you for the power and blunt honesty of this message. If you are a man, married, single or divorced, and you claim to be born again, you must view this video all the way to the end. It is a little over an hour in length, so I encourage you to make time for this. If you have to get up an hour early or stay up an hour late, make it happen. A warning: this message is for men, about men, and to men, and therefore it is in a tone which men need to hear. If this message was for women, it would take on a much gentler tone.

Truth

Just a quick note. I’ve been dwelling upon a few scattered verses over the last month or so. One of them is John 18:37:

Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

Now, many people rush past this verse and camp out on Pilate’s famous question, “What is truth?” While that is an important question, Jesus says something here that is far more important. I was listening a few weeks ago to Ravi Zacharias, one of my favorite itinerant Christian speakers, and he happened to bring up this very verse. He verbalized what I had been trying to say, but had been unable to work out in my mind. The question is not, “What is Truth?” It isn’t even, “Where is Truth?” And here’s where Ravi eloquently states what I couldn’t seem to verbalize: “Jesus says the problem isn’t with the availability of truth; the problem is the hypocrisy of our search.” Jesus plainly tells Pilate that everyone who is of the truth listens to his voice. Truth is available, and abundant in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the Word, according to John. Availability is not the problem. The problem is people are searching for truth that is subjective and satisfies their own needs, rather than searching for truth which is objective and found only in Christ. People profoundly underestimate their own selfishness and because of that, their search for truth will never be on target, unless the Holy Spirit intervenes.

Holy Spirit, lead us all into Your Truth. Amen.

Woes and Hypocrites

I seldom come across videos which made me think and feel the way this one did. Mark Driscoll’s ministry continues to deliver messages to my soul directly from the Holy Spirit which lay my heart bare. My heart wrenched as I listened to these words. And the truth he speaks at the very end about dealing with sheep and wolves needs heeding.

Coffee with Jesus

I wanted to share with you all the biggest discovery of this year for me. This needs to begin with a confession. My life has been marked by inconsistency in regard to “quiet times” or whatever you want to call them (Personally, I eschew the use of that phrase, but that’s typically what everyone calls it, so I’ll call it a “quiet time” in this post.). That is until this year. 2008 is the first year – EVER – that I have had an eight month run of nearly perfect consistency. My best efforts in the past had been 2 maybe 3 months of consistent quiet times. The rest of the time was marked by a quiet time here, then skip 4-5 days and have another one, then have 2 or 3 days, then miss a week, ad nauseum.

There never was a lack of desire. I constantly desired to spend time with Jesus, but I was blowing it on a regular basis. This year, I resolved to do things differently and do something for which I never had much enthusiasm. I began keeping a journal of my quiet times. It did not take long, and I began to love it. I cannot tell you how much my spiritual walk has been enriched because I began taking notes about what I was reading, what the Lord was teaching me, and my thoughts on particular passages. Keeping a journal does a few specific things:

• It makes you deal with the passage at hand. In doing so, it prevents you from always defaulting to your favorite topics or pet passages.
• It helps you remember with more clarity what you have been learning. And if you forget, you can always refer back to your notes.
• If you teach a Bible study, your notes can come in handy as a supplement to your study materials.

Most importantly, my love for the Word, my love for Jesus has grown during this time. I can hardly stand missing a single morning. I always try to make it up on my lunch hour (it’s not the same, but I still enjoy it). My coffee with Jesus every morning has changed my life for the better.

I hope this offers you some encouragement if you are struggling like I was.

My Conviction for this Week

In my sermon preparations for this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about humility. I’ve come to the stark conclusion that I think too highly of myself more often than I’d like to admit. I’m sure if I told you exactly what my “high” thoughts were you’d think I’m making much ado about nothing. But seriously, the poor in spirit are those who think highly of Christ and lowly of themselves. This doesn’t mean we completely have no confidence. On the contrary, we have great confidence. But that confidence is rooted in Christ and His abilities, not our abilities. Christ’s abilities make me powerful. My abilities make me powerless. And if we’re all honest with each other, we would all admit that we need to see more of Christ’s power in our lives. And if the power of God is not evident it is because I’ve trusted in my abilities to accomplish things and not in Christ’s. Which means I’ve thought a little higher of my own abilities than of Christ’s.

I pray that you will repent with me from this. Christ’s power through the Holy Spirit and it’s public display is what draws people to God. Not my wits or what I think is a cool new approach to things. This doesn’t mean that new things are unnecessary, it just means they need to be Christ-led, and not me-led.

Hunger for the Word

In my quiet times for the past few weeks, I’ve began alternating between the Gospel of Mark and 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians is a challenging book. I don’t know if you’ve ever taken the time to study it, but 1 Corinthians is as informative to the living of our Faith as Romans is to the doctrines of the our Faith. I like that they are right beside each other in how the New Testament has been ordered. You get great theology from Romans, and then just keep reading and you get great teaching on living from Corinthians. Not that 1 Corinthians doesn’t have great theology and doctrinal teaching, it does, but Paul’s focus here is much heavier toward relational problems between believers, than doctrines.

I say all that to say this. 1 Corinthians 2:1-10 says this:

1 And I, when I came to you, brothers,did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written, What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,nor the heart of man imagined,what God has prepared for those who love him?€? 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

I hope you are not afraid of the depths of God. Because here we are clearly told that we are to impart wisdom to the mature. In other words, mature believers are to go deep. You might wonder why I bring this up. Well, here’s why. Look at Matthew 28:18-20:

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them inthe name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

I added emphasis to the pertinent phrase. The disciples were not to teach only the basics. Ligon Duncan, who was one of the speakers at the T4G conference, aptly brought this to our attention. Jesus commanded us to teach ALL of the things he has taught us through the Word. It’s part of the Great Commission. Giving people only the basics of the Gospel is a violation of the Great Commission.

Now I’m not saying that the people we share Christ with need to immediately be informed of the depths of the doctrine of the Atonement. What I’m saying is that as believers, the job of understanding theology is not just the job of pastors. It is incumbent upon all of us to be informed about theology so that we can fulfill the Great Commission. And if we are teaching that the Great Commission is a commandment for everyone, then everyone needs an understanding of theology.

Practically, this means that each believer should struggle with the Scriptures. Wrestle with it until the Holy Spirit reveals Truth. Read books that challenge our minds. Read the classics like Pilgrim’s Progress and Mere Christianity. Try to understand what Calvin was saying, even if ultimately you do not agree with him. It is only in the stretching of our understanding that we will be able to fulfill what Jesus and Paul have taught us to do. You don’t have to be seminary trained to understand these deeper things; all that is needed is willingness to dive in and be challenged.

Home Groups?

There is a hot topic that keeps rearing its head among us and that is home groups. In the months past, I’ve had several people inform me of their desire to be a part of a home group. So among church leadership we’ve had discussions about home groups. Several questions arise:

• Who will open their homes?
• Who will lead them? (Assuming that the leader doesn’t necessarily have to be the person who opens their home.)
• How would a leader find people to attend their home group?
• When would these home groups occur? On one particular day and time or at various times throughout the week?
• Will there be childcare? If so, where will it be?

All of these questions need answers before we dive in and begin forming these groups. But there is a “chicken or the egg” issue we must deal with first: Who are the home group leaders? We must find people who desire to lead these groups before we can even begin to plan. So it is my prayer that God will call some of you to lead a home group. I don’t believe this topic would keep coming back to our attention if God were not trying to tell us something.

Some of your questions might be:

• If I go to a home group, will I still be expected to attend Sunday School?

First of all, there isn’t a Sunday School gestapo that knocks on your door when you stop attending Sunday School. We are most concerned with your spiritual growth, so if you learn better in a home group, then go to a home group. Sunday School and home groups will be considered equivalent discipleship environments. Home groups will take roll just like Sunday School classes and will be counted in with weekly Bible study attendance numbers.

• Will home groups be Bible studies or fellowships?

Hopefully both. Fellowship is essential in any small group of people if trust and accountability is going to happen. The purpose of home groups is for discipleship and accountability, and fellowship must be in that mix.

• How often would these groups meet?

Home groups would meet weekly, just like Sunday School. This is where it gets sticky. When you meet in a Sunday School class, it is in a classroom which is made for having a class. There aren’t any toys or strewn clothing which need picking up before everyone arrives. So the families or individuals who wish to volunteer their homes would do so with the understanding that there will be extra work each week preparing their house for the home group. In other words, it is a commitment.

I know there are many unanswered questions, but we have a BIG God who has those answers. Prayerfully consider your participation in this effort to start home groups. If you feel so led, please contact me or Pastor Sean and make us aware of your willingness to teach or to volunteer your home, or both.