Tag: Evangelism

A local Four Square Gospel pastor was a recent guest columnist in our local Sunday paper. He posed a challenging question: Where do you want to spend eternity? And gave the options: heaven or hell. And gave the answer: only by accepting Jesus as your personal savior certified by your baptism in the Spirit can you qualify for heaven. That can be a very compelling argument for some people.

As an Episcopalian deeply rooted in our Anglican tradition, it’s not an argument I am much interested in. It’s been said that we have a tendency toward an incarnational theology, which means, at least in part, that we don’t worry much about where we will spend eternity. As followers of Jesus Christ we take that as a given. What concerns us more is a question such as: What does it mean to be a follower of Christ in this world and during our lifetime? The question itself implies that we are also not much interested in worrying about the Second Coming, the Rapture or Armageddon. For most of us, the end of time as we understand time coincides with the time of our own death, and there is not much point in worrying about what may, but probably won’t, come before then.

What is very important is to recognize that each of us who claims the name of Christ is a part of the continuing Body of Christ, the Church, commissioned to go on with the work of Christ healing, making whole, reconciling, and proclaiming the good news that the kingdom of God is near.

In the parable of The Good Shepherd, the sheep that was lost was searched for, found and restored to the flock from which it had strayed. However powerful that story is, it is about a sheep that was already a member of the shepherd’s flock and not a stranger to him or the other sheep. But when Jesus claimed the title of the Good Shepherd for himself, he also announced that he would gather other flocks of whom we know nothing, who are strangers to us, but who are known and loved by him. Both are important. The flock we know must be tended, but the flocks we do not know, the flocks that Jesus is off gathering by his own authority and power, the flocks Jesus never asked our permission to save, those flocks we cannot cast into the outer darkness or consign to hell. In the first place, we are utterly ignorant about the matter. In the second place, it is God and not us who has the authority to gather them in whatever way God chooses.

That forces a major change in the way we, or at least I, approach evangelism. It is no longer a matter of confronting someone with the challenge that if you want to avoid going to hell here is what you have to do. It is a matter of proclaiming that you are already saved by the power of God through the love of Jesus Christ, here, now, in this life and for all eternity. Accept this gift and join with us as disciples of Christ continuing in his work of bringing the light of the kingdom of God into our own time and place. Good grief, that sounds like work.

The problem, as I see it, is that the Four Square approach has more sales appeal through a really good and very simple scare message. It fits in better with contemporary political propaganda techniques and plays more effectively into anxieties about life sensationalized by talk radio, television and movies. It avoids all the difficulty of apprehending the central place and meaning of the Eucharist. It sidesteps the Greek gobbledygook of the Nicene Creed. It does not have to explain the role of tradition, especially the messy parts around the Reformation. It doesn’t care what makes an Anglican different from a Catholic or Lutheran (Garrison Keillor claims we are all Lutherans, just in different clothing). It’s more culturally relative even though that idea would be anathema to them. Either you’re in or you’re out, and here are the rules for getting in. It just makes a hell of a lot more sense to a great many people.

I think that means that we Episcopalians will always be a rather small denomination whose primary mission is the formation of disciples out of people who have no particular interest in becoming disciples but who stick with it anyway.

Recent polls have revealed a continued pattern of decline in the so-called mainline churches. Their aging congregations are being replaced by younger, more energetic Evangelicals and Pentecostals, and they are doomed to become mere remnants in the Protestant fold. Fortunately, trend is not destiny.

My Episcopal Church is indeed aging and our average Sunday attendance is falling. But that isn’t all bad. At a recent clergy conference, one of our young priests acknowledged that we were being pushed toward the edge, and the sooner the better he thought. What do you suppose he meant by that? I think of two things.

One is that recent national church conventions have been so consumed by big global issues that local worshipers felt left out and ignored. Successive resolutions proclaiming decades of evangelism, commitment to youth or the abolition of world poverty were great ideas but had no impact at the local level and did nothing to help local congregations with local issues of their own. I know that the homosexual question has raised the most headlines, but for most congregations in most dioceses it quickly became a fringe issue of limited local import. The main thing it did was illuminate how out of touch the national church was in the eyes of ordinary pew sitting church goers.

The second is that too many of our aging congregants and clergy have became complacent and defensive. Complacency has sapped the vitality of a faith that claims to follow in the way of a Jewish carpenter who was unafraid to proclaim God’s grace and love anywhere, at any time, to anyone. Defensiveness has become the response to an ethos of scarcity. We may talk a lot about a theology of abundance, but far too many congregations set that aside in favor of an ethos of scarcity, and they are very defensive about it.

Being pushed out to the edge means opportunity for rebirth and reenergization with new clergy and new leadership who will work from the bottom up, and not the top down. It does not mean that Episcopalians will become ersatz Evangelicals. I does mean that we will become more bold about proclaiming who we are as followers of Jesus Christ according to our traditions.

We are a part of the greater Body of Christ that treasures an expression of liturgical tradition anchored deep in the earliest practices of the Church. We treasure our tradition of a continuing conversation with centuries of theologians and spiritual guides in a fearless engagement with scripture that is not hemmed in by a literalist fence. We treasure the apostolic succession of ministry, but above all, we treasure the sacraments and none more than the Eucharist, the very presence of God in Christ in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. Without that we cease to be Episcopalians. We may always be a relatively small American denomination. That’s not the point. By casting off old habits, complacency and defensiveness we can more richly feed the spiritually hungry in our own unique way.

Here’s a Holy Week thought.

When a congregation has become a social club and begins to think of its pastor as its chief master of ceremonies as well as its primary recruiter for new (and acceptable) members of the club, has it ceased being a Christian church regardless of the sign on the door?

When they fondly remember the wonderful pastor who did just that and brought so many new comers into the church that it was always full, do they wonder where all those people went and why they left?

When some smart-ass church consultant tells them that it is their job, and not the pastor’s, to become seekers of seekers, fishers of men and women, and the only kind of evangelism they can think of is a Jehovah’s Witness door knock, have they ever been taught how to be disciples?

When inviting someone to Rotary or the Country Club is natural, expected and enthusiastically accomplished, but not a word will ever be spoken about St. Swithen’s Church, have we, who are called and ordained to be teachers of the faith, simply failed for lack of trying even a little bit?

My guess is that, if congregations and pastors were included in the national No Christian Left Behind program of evaluation, most of us would receive failing grades and few of us would be entitled to any merit pay. We were called to be shepherds. Have we ended up as hirelings?

Last night we had dinner at a small restaurant where the tables are a bit close but the food is so good that it’s worth it. Next to us was a young couple on a first date, maybe even a blind date. They were into rehearsing the kinds of families they grew up in, and it took no more than a few sentences for each of them to talk about church and religion. It seemed important for them to get that out of the way as soon as possible. Each was raised in a religious family. Each claimed that that God, in some sense, was important to them. Each claimed that since they are now their own adults they could lay aside the idea of church as something they don’t really need any more. Each told the embarrassing story of their friend(s) who keeps asking them to go to church with them, and the variety of excuses they have for not going.

A friend has been struggling with his faith. He grew up as a solid Christian in the Assembly of God tradition, but something went awry as he matured. He tried a number of other denominations but none seemed to fit. He even tried to start his own house church. The other day he made his confession; he is studying to become a Roman Catholic. Why? It’s pretty simple. His most trusted friends and colleagues have been richly nourished by God’s word in their local parish, and they have invited him to be nourished as they have been in companionship with them. That’s what evangelism is about. It’s as simple as that. There ain’t no more!

The family that owns my local dry cleaner also farms a couple of thousand acres of wheat and beans. You can’t be a farmer without having gone through hard times. Today, while in picking up a few things, one of them started talking about what it takes to get through today’s hard times. “Faith,” he said. “That’s how you get through hard times. What else is there?”

What faith was he talking about? You can have faith in a lot of things, and the sort of generic unfocused faith in God that some people express doesn’t carry much weight. I have a feeling that the faith some people cling to is more like a wishful expectation that sooner or later the dice will roll in their favor, and hopefully that will happen before there is nothing left.

I think my wheat farming, dry cleaning friends have something else in mind. I know a little about them, and when they say faith, they mean a deep and abiding trust in God, even if they don’t understand much about God’s ways or whether God much cares how the dice roll.

They probably could not cite the verse, but they are among those who know “…that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8.28) I doubt they would be so naïve as to think that means that all things turn out just peachy. No farmer would. But they live in the day-to-day knowledge that however bad things might get, and they do get bad, God is always present to provide some opportunity for good to happen. If we spend our time in miserable despair we probably will not see that opportunity come and never take advantage of it. They are fortunate to belong to a parish (R.C.) led by a vigorous young priest where the gospel is proclaimed in a responsible and joy filled way, and where the 2,000-year-old tradition of the church is applied flexibly. I think this is doubly important for them, and many like them in our valley, who are “rock ribbed Republicans” who have eaten nothing but right-wing drivel for twenty years and are very suspect of the incoming administration. It makes a difference that their parish has not aided and abetted that, but has remained steadfast in Jesus’ teachings and life. The same cannot be said for all the congregations in our valley. In fact, I think that is a large part of what has made Christian evangelism so difficult. But that is a subject for a real rant at a later time. I need to get the curmudgeon to write about that.

In the meantime, get up each morning. Give thanks to God for the beauty of the day. Go out and do the needful work of the day. Give thanks to God for the blessings, however small, that salted it. Prepare for the next day and sing Alleluia.

Obviously this is an unfinished essay, and I invite you to complete it in your own way.

The emergent church is the current phenomena in the church world these days. It is not exactly the sort of thing that can be easily pinned down but it seems to involve the creation of new communities of worship and the revitalization of existing ones with a combination of four things:

1. Bring into worship the Spirit filled enthusiasm of the evangelical and Pentecostal traditions.

2. Develop a profound respect for the sacraments through liturgical practices from the Anglican tradition.

3. Emphasize the importance of individual commitment to contemplative practices exemplified by many religious orders, especially the Benedictines.

4. Recommit to the gospel as primary with a special emphasis on socio/economic issues.

As usual, I may be wrong about that, but it will not keep me from plunging ahead.

What happens with really worthwhile movements such as this one is that clergy, and other church leaders, eagerly adopt the language and attend all kinds of workshops, but seldom do he hard work of implementation. They just slather the new words over the same old way of doing things. In the end, the whole thing can come to nothing more than anti-clerical complaining, a rejection of the institutional church, an excuse to be unfocused, and a sort of know-nothing suspicion of serious, informed theology and well educated clergy theologians.

What the emergent church movement is really about is evangelism, pure and simple, and evangelism is what we are supposed to be about. But evangelism takes courage, daring, risk taking and all the other things we would rather avoid. It’s so much easier to talk about it than do it. And that, my brothers and sisters, is the failure of the main-line church. To use the oft-cited words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy and it is us.”

I really thought that a post on N.T. Wright might generate some interesting conversation that would take my mind off of the presidential election for awhile, but I see that didn’t work. I suppose I could join in the fun of wallowing around in the angst of Anglican politics, but that always seems to me to be too much of a distraction from God, Christ, the gospel and the mission of the church. True, it’s one way of enticing a lot of commentary, most of it indignant self-righteous b.s.. But it’s almost a form of idolatry; No, not almost, it is! For a little arm’s length entertainment there is always the Canadian election, which, unlike how Canadians are supposed to behave, seems to be as adept at slinging mud as Americans. Washington football is no better considering the performance of the Seahawks, U. of WA and WA State. What I’m actually exploring in my own mind right now is the nature of stewardship. After all, we are also in the midst of stewardship season, and I’ve always felt that it should be more of an expression of worship and evangelism than a thing by itself. But as far as I can tell, nothing in the last century or so has worked to make it so.

Mainline churches have struggled with the slow downturn of membership for many years, and it was often believed that they had somehow lost out to the more conservative Evangelical denominations. So it is not surprising that there have been subtle tones of gloating from them over recent news that Evangelical churches are also in decline and none more so than the Southern Baptist Convention. Before that gloating gets too out of hand, I want to suggest that there is something else at work here. For lack of a better word I’ll call it the cult of individualism.

Oddly enough, the cult of individualism is a shared value between the most conservative and most liberal of the population. We see it very clearly here in the Inland Northwest where our politics and the popular mythology of our style of life are loudly, proudly and frequently proclaimed to be the result of our treasured individualism. Conservatives desiring the most limited government possible and the absolute rights of individuals also favor the strict interpretation of laws, hardheaded enforcement, and every conceivable government program that is touted to be helpful to agriculture and business. Liberals favoring expansive governmental action to provide for the needs of the poor, better healthcare and the environment declare their resentment of governmental interference with their individual rights to live in any way they like and claim they have no need for anything other than whatever temporary association of persons might be of interest at the moment.

The political danger, it seems to me, of the cult of individualism is that it exposes the individual to coercive manipulation by well organized elites who know how to exploit it. I think we have seen that in action throughout the Reagan-Bush era where right wing elites have highjacked traditional conservative ideology under the noses of conservative individualist who cheered them on not suspecting that the result would be the antithesis of everything they believed in. The same autocratic, authoritarian tactics would work just as well from the liberal side of things.

It is also the mythology that is used to explain the decline in all denominations of the Christian Church. The Church as the body of Christ is, by definition, an organism in which each part lends itself to the making of the whole and no individual part can exist by itself and remain a part of the body. Moreover, it is a body under the authority of God through Jesus Christ. That is not acceptable in the cult of individualism. In that cult each person has the right to be his or her own “church” with his or her own “religion,” and the truth of each individual church with its individual religion is claimed to be at least as true and valid as any other. It is precisely that characteristic that makes its adherents susceptible to manipulation by unscrupulous others.

While I believe that this explains something of our current condition, I’m also not sure what to do about it. On the political side I might suggest reenergizing education, in its broadest sense, about the value and importance of community, society and politics. On the religious side I might suggest a reorientation of evangelism toward congregational community as the most sure and certain means to achieving satisfaction for the God driven hunger that exists in each one of us. Within the Church I might suggest a much more assertive effort to form disciples who are not only taught what it means to be a Christian but also how to think critically as Christians. But I also suspect that we have to find a way to replace the fear of authority over us with an ability to discern and trust in the legitimacy of appropriate authority – on the one hand, a governmental authority that can be trusted to work for the good of society; on the other hand the authority of God who so loved us that he has redeemed the entire world through his Son Jesus Christ. I suppose another possibility could be that the American Age is ending, and so, picking up the pen of Jeremiah, we must simply get on with the business of being faithful Christians while “Jerusalem” crumbles about us and wait patiently to see what happens next.

In any case, this is a line of thought that I’m only just starting on and it might be a dead end.