The Missing Field Guide For Evangelism, Part 1

As I finished the book, They Like Jesus But Not The Church, by a pretty hip pastor named Dan Kimball, I realized I might have found the cause of a problem that's been occurring in the church for years. Let me start with the problem: we live in a post-Christian culture where there is a substantial dropout rate of younger people in churches and also a lack of people from emerging generations coming in. So now that we've identified the problem, why does it occur?

I believe this problem occurs because we have no field guide telling us how to share our beliefs. There's no bible instructing us how to teach the Bible. There's no official manual for evangelism. While there are plenty of books out there to help us with these things, who's methods are right? Everybody's got their own opinion and many have the validity of a chatroom posting. 'Just do what Jesus did' is a cop-out. We don't have the faith to move mountains or multiply bread and fish. Also, there are so many points in Scripture that 'good Christians' feel are necessary to bestow, finding an effective way to share one's faith has become much like a high-school science experiment.

Does it have to be this complicated?

Because most Christians have their own interpretation of what the Bible means when it says something controversial, we need to examine how to sludge past the divisive issues to show the heart of God. Dan Merchant is one guy who found a unique way to do this. In his book and documentary, Lord, Save Us From Your Followers -- Why Is The Gospel Of Love Dividing America?, the author and film-maker followed an idea birthed from Don Miller and Tony Kriz (of Blue Like Jazz fame). Dan set up a confessional booth at the Gay Pride Northwest festivities in Portland. Here's the catch – Dan was the one doing the confessing. After inviting a festival attendee to enter his booth, he would confess his mistakes as a Christian. Dan apologized for the way he and other Christians have treated homosexuals in the past. He tried to heal deep wounds between homosexuals and the church. Dan explained his motivation like this:

I desperately wanted to undo the perception of Christians and of God that many of the people I was about to meet undoubtedly would hold. I wanted to beg people to listen to me: "We've been showing it wrong. Don't judge Jesus on my lame-o example. You've heard that part of the Bible where Jesus said, 'he who is without sin cast the first stone'? I think that part is important."

Dan Merchant's words resonate deeply with me. My motivation for this blog series is summed up in the quote above. I desperately want people to know that Christians aren't all hypocrites who think they're better than everybody else. More importantly, I want people to know that Jesus wasn't like that, either.

This three-part blog series will attempt to further the ever-evolving discussion of evangelism in a post-Christian culture. This is not meant to simply be one man's opinion. It's meant to be a discussion. And like any good discussion, it will involve talking and listening.