Ways to Witness in Suburbia

Here are selected quotations from a thoughtful and helpful post from Illinois pastor Joe Thorn, who has a burden to evangelize and wisdom by which to discharge this burden (and to help the rest of us do so as well). (HT: Steve McCoy)

"I do not have the gift of evangelism, though I do share the gospel. Once a person decides the evangescript is not the best way to approach evangelism in their community the question then becomes, “How can I take a natural conversation about common things and connect it to the gospel without it coming off like an abrupt topic change?”
Any time we take the initiative to share the gospel with someone there is always a leap that has to be made to the gospel. Sometimes the leap is short and easy. Suppose you’re discussing the difference between Catholics and Protestants — getting to the gospel is easy. Sometimes the leap is long - very long, like when you try to move from your favorite Starbucks drink (Grande Americano) to the cross of Christ. The longer the jump, the more unnatural the transition, and the more awkward the conversation. So the key is having natural conversations that transition more smoothly to the gospel (smaller leaps).

To state it simply, the better you understand the gospel the easier the transitions become. If you are trying to share the gospel you will still sometimes make huge leaps that do not work. Sometimes the conversation will only connect to the Christian faith in part, without getting directly to the gospel. Sometimes it will all come together the way you imagine. The more you know the gospel (its essence and effects) and the more you practice this discipline the easier making comfortable transitions to the gospel will become. I have been asked a few times what this would look like practically, so here are 8 examples of topics that make for shorter leaps to the gospel or Christian faith.

1. Corruption, evil and sin. Conversations about corruption and evil are pretty common in my experience. Murderer’s go unpunished, children are exploited, racism continues on in more polite forms, mayors are busted smoking crack, etc. These conversations can naturally connect to the biblical issues of justice, judgment, forgiveness and redemption.

Transitions examples: “Even when the unrighteous escape justice in the courts, God says he will not let sin go unpunished…”
“My personal desire for vengeance is often quited by God’s assurance of justice…”
“In the end, I find that though I am guilty of different sins, I am just as guilty as…”

2. Community. This is a great conversation to have in the suburbs. Everyone wants it, but many are at a loss how to build it. Zoning laws have essentially destroyed the development of real, workable, walkable, communities. Conversations about community naturally lend themselves to the reality that we are made for community, that God himself dwells in eternal community (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and that a central component of God’s saving work is the establishment of a community, a family, made up of every tribe, tongue and nation.

Transition example: “Part of why I am so passionate about the development of authentic community is because of how the Bible portrays the need for it. We are created by God to live in real community…”

Great post to read and reflect on. It's hard to share the gospel, which Joe acknowledges, but it hugely helps to have an approach to use in initially engaging people.

Does Politics Have Something to Teach Us About Evangelism?

I found this quote from the New Yorker piece on Obama very interesting from an evangelistic standpoint:

"Gradually, Chicago caught up with the rest of the country and media-driven politics eclipsed machine-driven politics. “It became increasingly difficult to get into homes and apartments to talk about candidates,” Rose said. “High-rises were tough if not impossible to crack, and other parts of the city had become too dangerous to walk around in for hours at a time. And people didn’t want to answer their doors. Thus the increasing dependence on TV, radio, direct mail, phone-banking, robocalls, et cetera—all things that cost a hell of a lot more money than patronage workers, who were themselves in decline, anyway, because of anti-patronage court rulings.” Instead of a large army of ward heelers dragging people to the polls, candidates needed a small army of donors to pay for commercials. Money replaced bodies as the currency of Chicago politics. This new system became known as “pinstripe patronage,” because the key to winning was not rewarding voters with jobs but rewarding donors with government contracts."

I'm not concerned with the broader point of this article. I'm interested in what this brief quotation on the public dynamics of inner-city Chicago might suggest about the currents of American society. People, it seems, don't want to be bothered when at home. They want to be left alone. They don't want strangers coming around, knocking on their doors, interrupting their daily routine (or lack of it). They want to be anonymous.

Why am I bothering to work through this? Because it might shed light on how to do evangelism in the current day. I am not one to say that evangelism must be done in a particular way in order to evangelize a particular group of people. While I do acknowledge that wisdom and strategy are a part of witness (see Paul in Mars Hill in Acts 17), I would also say that God's gospel can penetrate human hearts in a variety of ways. People get saved in predictable and unpredictable ways. Street preachers, tracts, door-to-door witnessing, music, friendship--in these and many other ways, the gospel goes out, the Spirit of God moves, and people get saved.

So I would not consign door-to-door evangelism to the woodpile. I think it can be useful and good. However, I think that this quotation instructs we who are the church to reach out in creative ways in a closed-off society. In many places, people don't sit on their front porches (they don't have front porches to sit on), they don't engage with strangers in their homes, they put up signs to discourage solicitors, and they generally want to be left alone when at home. Many of these same people, though, do go to coffee shops and other "third places" to relax in a social environment.

It is my suggestion, then, that we not necessarily jettison door-to-door witnessing, but that we refine our model of evangelism, and try to reach people in natural settings in which they are comfortable being approached by strangers. Joining leagues, playing sports, attending book discussions, going to coffee shops--these are the kinds of things that I think Christians should do, and do evangelistically. Though people like anonymity and privacy at home, they also crave community, particularly because many of them have lost ties to traditional institutions like the church. Men's and women's clubs, mainline denominations, political organizations--all have seen numerical decline in recent decades (see Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone for more on this). And yet as people migrate away from established socializing, they migrate toward unstructured interaction in places like Starbucks. We should see this cultural shift and move into it.

I'm not seeking an evangelistic revolution here (good thing!), but am rather trying to pick up cultural cues for the purpose of effective witness in our age. I wouldn't jettison older methods of evangelism, but I would seek to add newer methods, all for the purpose of glorifying God through the salvation of lost, lonely, isolated, unhappy sinners just like I once was.

If Jesus Spent Lots of Time with Unbelievers, Why Do Most of Us Hang Out Only with Christians?

Surfing Vitamin Z's excellent blog, I came across a thoughtful post on evangelism by Joe Carter this morning that prompted some thinking on my part. Entitled rather provocatively "How Do You Love a Porn Star?", the piece tackles the following simple but tough question: why don't many Christians regularly interact with the lost people who make up 99% of the surrounding populace?

In asking this question, Carter offers a story of a Marine friend who was nice, fatherly, and happened to be involved in pornography. The piece chronicles Carter's struggle to handle his friendship with a man for whom he felt both revulsion and love. This section nicely encapsulates the central theme and problem of the post:

"Because of his peculiar vocation, Dave Connors may seem like an unrepresentative example. But we all have people like him in our lives--acquaintances, coworkers, family members--who have no intention of giving up their sinful ways. How do we make a friend of someone who chooses to remain an enemy of God?

Normally this would be the point in the post where I would insert a homiletic bromide that would point the way toward a resolution. On this one, though, I not only don't have an answer; I don't have a clue. Somehow I've managed to spend thirty years as a Christian without learning something so basic as how to truly love an impenitent sinner."

I first Joe Carter for his candor. The simplicity and honesty of that last sentence blew over me like a spring breeze when I first read it. I've been a Christian for three decades, Carter says, and have heard countless sermons about Christ's love for fallen mankind. Reading between the lines, he's telling fellow Christians that, like them, he has heard Sunday School lessons, read Christian books, and attended countless church gatherings that have instructed him (theoretically) in approaching lost people with the gospel. Yet with all of this teaching, he struggles mightily to take even the shortest gospel step: to get to know lost people and befriend them for the sake of Christian love and witness.

I don't have anything particularly profound to add to this comment. It seems to me to encapsulate the central struggle of many--most, maybe--Christians regarding evangelism. The new man inside of us loves the things of God, and detests naturally the things that are not of God. This is a biblical disposition and reality--see Colossians 3:9-11, for example. Yet though this is a God-given disposition, we acquire a simultaneous impulse when regenerated and renewed by the Spirit. We acquire the impulse to spread and share the gospel with fellow sinners (Rom 10:9-17). So revulsion with sin sits alongside love for sinners as expressed in evangelism. We have these twin instincts, then. Knowing this, we note a third key biblical teaching. This one is a teaching handed down by way of example. Christ, who had no sin nature, did have the gospel imperative within Him, and He went to the lost--five incredibly important words--and hung out with them for the purpose of love-driven gospel witness. Here's what Mark 2:15-17 tells us about Christ and His example:

While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Christ's example is to be emulated by His disciples, a number that includes all born-again believers today. The above instance was not a strange evangelistic strategy, a guerilla campaign carried out by the spiritual Rambo in the enemy's lair. It was fundamentally what Christians are to do in carrying out the Great Commission.

Sometimes we get into evangelical catfights about tracts, door-knocking, and gospel proclamation. Paul taught that wherever the gospel was proclaimed, he rejoiced: "In every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice." (Phil. 1:17) While we may find wisdom in pursuing certain evangelistic strategies over others, we should not--definitively--debase preaching of the gospel, no matter how much it conflicts with our cultural sensibilities. We may not adopt a certain method, but the preaching of the gospel is a strange and mysterious thing, and God uses all kinds of methods to bring people to Himself. With this all said, one model of evangelism that we can clearly derive from Scripture is that we are to go to unbelievers, befriend them, spend time with them, and witness to them. We are not only to go to them and witness to them. Jesus spent time with them. He got to know them. He talked with them. We should do the same. The Scripture is clear.

We should not do so without carefulness, though. Christians who shrink from contact with unbelievers are getting something right. We are influenced by those we spend time with. If we are to hang out with lost people, then, we've got to be very careful. We've all seen Christians who hang out with lost people for the purpose of evangelism and end up drifting away from the faith and adopting the lifestyle of those around them. It is not silly or foolish to seek in a studious manner to avoid this result. Nothing less than our souls are at stake, after all! However, with care and principle and accountability and connection to our local church, we must venture forth from the community of faith to the community of unbelief. We've got to get to know those around us, and that means joining bowling leagues, hanging out at the local coffee shop, inviting neighbors over for dinner, going to a library reading group, attending neighborhood association meetings, and so on. As we join in these activities, we do so looking to build up friendships, to listen and help others, and above all, to witness to the reality of Christ's death and resurrection to those who reject this life-saving work.

I do not hold myself as an exemplar of the model of evangelism laid out by Christ in Mark 2. I don't have it all figured out. I would struggle just like Joe Carter to be a friend and witness to someone who is desperately lost. I have similar feelings to most Christians in my approach to sexual profligates, oft-drunk coeds, loopy hippys, materialistic bankers, narcissistic teens, snobby old people, homeless street-walkers, arrogant athletes, ideological demagogues, and hostile ruralites. Put simply, I don't really want to be around these people. I don't want to be in bad places where these type of people congregate. I don't want to go through the messy work of friendship. I want to be around nice Christian people in nice Christian environments where people encourage me, don't swear, don't have premarital sex, and don't look down on me. This means on a practical, day-to-day level that I spend most of my time around Christians in expressly Christian environments doing explicitly Christian things.

This way of life is so far from Christ's example that one could almost say that it is an unChristian life. This lifestyle gets right, as mentioned above, the need to pursue holiness, and that is commendable. That's a big deal in the Bible! But it gets hugely wrong the need to take one's faith to the lost. The Christians of the Bible do anything but lock their faith in evangelical ghettos--they crash the gates of the secular city. They make themselves unavoidable presences in the lives of unbelievers. They come together for rich, sweet, God-drenched fellowship and then they scatter to the winds to evangelize like crazy anyone they can (I'll just refer you to the entire book of Acts here). What do many of us do, though? The opposite. We take a look at the world, analyze its thought through rigorous analysis (a great thing to do, and a focus of this blog), identify its proponents and cultural effect, and then run the opposite direction, seeking out Christians as we go to join up with us and avoid the lost around us, save for scattered forays in which we briefly ambush the lost and then scamper away.

Joe Carter's piece is great, because it calls us to realize that most of us are very far away from the biblical model of evangelism. We love the lost, but only in our prayers; we don't want to be around lost people, unlike our Savior; we allow a combination of fear and apathy to drive our lives, not a sense of God's magnificent love and transcendent power. We should change this situation. We should emerge from our ghettos. We should emulate the Savior. We should talk to fellow members of our local churches, strategize about evangelistic friendships, and then go out. We should construct churches by God's Spirit that are richly biblical and God-glorifying, but that do not make it intensely difficult for good Christian people to free up their calendar to evangelize the lost. We should train our people in biblical evangelism, saturate them in a sense of God's power, and fill them with love and concern that takes shape not in separation, but in witness--clear, compassionate, gospel-driven, friend-making, witness.

What's More Valuable: Putting in Time or Preaching the Truth? Kingdom Considerations

The answer to the above question must be carefully qualified, in my humble opinion.

Both pursuits, offered out of a redeemed heart, are honoring to God. God has given His creation and His people the opportunity to labor for His glory (1 Co. 10:31). As with all things that we do, we have the opportunity to present our works and deeds to God as gifts. How do we do so? By performing them out of a heart of love. Though it is easy to get a bit over-heated about the nature of work--some theologians have oversold its value, as I see it--and see every task as ushering in the kingdom, it is clear from the Bible that work possesses inherent dignity when done to maximize God's glory. Though the actual tasks we perform may not in themselves advance the kingdom (the kingdom is advanced primarily by proclamation and inherently spiritual activity, I would contend), yet our attitudes, our dispositions, and our constant devotion to God can well bless the Lord.

We see, then, that while making a shoe may not inherently advance the kingdom (the shoe possesses no spiritual value, after all), the attitude of the shoemaker (his worshipful heart expressing itself even as he sows the shoe together) and the good he accomplishes with the shoe (passing it on to a needy child in the name of Christ, for example) may well contribute to the forward movement of God's kingdom. Not everything we do contributes to this forward progress, I would argue, but this is not to say that we cannot bring God glory in our daily goings-on and, perhaps often by means of our heart and our spiritually minded acts, claim some kingdom ground. We see, then, that the matter of work--indeed, all of our daily acts--becomes a matter of theological consideration, and requires us to carefully define the kingdom on biblical grounds.

With all of this said, the preaching of the gospel is the fundamental means of kingdom advancement. See Matthew's first notation of kingdom-oriented preaching in 3:2--it is explicitly connected with the preaching of the gospel. Therefore, we should seek to preach the gospel to advance the kingdom, understanding that this is the primary--though not the only--means of pushing it forward. This means for those of us who work that we should indeed seek to preach the gospel in our workplaces. We should do so, however, shrewdly (Mt. 10:16). I don't think it wise for a Christian to consider their primary on-the-job responsibility to be evangelism. That's not honest. Your employer has hired you to be an accountant; be an accountant. Account. (Sorry, that's a bad joke.)

However, be a shrewdly Christian accountant. Season your conversation with the gospel. Look for opportunities to talk about your church, your faith, your conversion. Ask co-workers if they would like to hang out, and then engage them in honest, normal, but spiritually oriented conversation. Read the Bible in your lunch hour, and keep it on your desk. Let people see that the Bible is an organic part of your life. But do all this while being an excellent accountant (or forester or truck-driver or librarian or politician or athlete or stay-at-home mom). Know accountant laws. Put in a hard, full work day. Be one of the best employees in your office. Be nice, polite, helpful, and kind. Do your work with excellence. In summary, be a worker whose Christianity is apparent, whose goodness is evident, and whose work is excellent. Honor your Lord, but do so while honoring your boss.

Many Christians, of course, work in environments hostile or at least unfriendly to Christianity. In this case, simply turn up the "shrewdness" factor. People are still desperately lost; they are still looking for light, to some extent; they will still be unable to avoid noticing an attractive Christian witness when it presents itself. Over time, they'll ask questions and want to know what makes you tick, a situation helped, of course, by a Christian directing conversation well and living a life that looks and smells differently from others. Above all, Christians in these situations must look to share the gospel just as much as other Christians, though as noted they will need to do so with greater shrewdness than others. On the question of what to do when sharing faith involves the loss of a job, there is no black-and-white answer that I know of. One will have to balance faithful boldness with careful wisdom. One will have to do so, though, with Christ's warning about being an unfaithful or fearful witness in mind. No reward is promised to the timid; much reward is promised to the courageous (see the beatitudes of Matthew 5).

In summary, the Christian must thus see himself as part of a cosmic movement of God's Spirit that is orchestrated by the Father's will and proceeds forth from the Son's redemptive work. The Christian who goes off to work each morning should not simply think that he is putting in time and punching a clock; neither should he think that he is in some vague sense honoring God by working. No, he should realize that he is part of a kingdom movement, and he is able throughout the day to advance that kingdom by a godly attitude and disposition and by acts and deeds of gospel-oriented grace, justice, beauty, and goodness. We might restrain ourselves from saying that every task he performs directly contributes to this kingdom progress, but in doing so we would not make the mistake of thinking that only preachers accomplish spiritually meaningful things. No, all of us have the opportunity to participate by disposition and deed and word in this cosmic movement.

This perspective threatens to transform our daily rites, doesn't it? However you've considered work, you need not see it in stark terms, either as an evangelistic endeavor alone or a clock-punching exercise. No, work is a beautiful blend of these things, an opportunity to, as I said earlier, send God little gifts of glory by the things we do and the words we say. As you head into the forest, or wheel into your desk, or walk customers around the car showroom, you are not cut off from the kingdom. You are right in the center of it. As you live with integrity, and model Christ's grace and kindness, and speak gospel-saturated words, yes, you are right in the center of it. You may not know it, and no one may see it, but heaven is smiling on you in these times. And somehow, in ways imperceptible to human eyes and ears, a reign is being extended, a light is being lifted, and the earth and hills and stars are being readied to celebrate and surrender to the coming King.

The Week-est Link, January 18, 2008

1. Some quick thoughts from yesterday's post: There will certainly be times when Christians are forced to work very shrewdly in order to share the gospel with unbelievers. For example, I know that public school teachers have to be very careful about evangelizing while on the job. Terry had some good words on this matter in yesterday's comments. Readers should not take my post to mean that being a Christian means constantly sharing the gospel regardless of consequences. No, the matter is more complex than that. My point was a different one--I was saying that Christians who are able to share the gospel without some immediate penalty or something like that should ideally have the mindset that they should share the gospel as soon and fully as possible, rather than waiting for a relationship to build.

So often, we forget a very basic biblical idea: we are not cursed if we incur hate or condemnation from unbelievers because of the gospel--we are actually blessed, according to Matthew 5! Can you believe that? Well, I don't think many of us do believe this teaching in practice. I think that we completely forget it and so tailor our witnessing to the reaction of the world around us, in the process stifling our witness and failing to give God glory. Relational evangelism can (not always) be a way of hiding our light under a bushel, so to speak, of being cowardly, of thinking gospel-induced hatred is a curse, not a blessing from God.

2. Thanks to all who left their blog info. Please remember to link to me. I will have my links updated over the course of the weekend. Again, as I've linked to you, please link to me.

3. Presbyterian historian Sean Lucas and Baptist historian Michael Haykin post their top nine biographies. An odd number (literally, right?), but the lists are interesting. (HT: Justin Taylor)

4. Get some great lectures on the Gospel of John here. The lectures are by Dr. Jonathan Pennington, a rising scholar of the Gospels. He teaches at Southern Seminary, did his PhD at St. Andrews, and is an engaging, understandable communicator who has much to teach you if you will take a bit of time to listen. (HT: Said at Southern)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Re-Thinking Relational Evangelism: Getting the Gospel Out in Front

To get right to the point, I wonder if many of us haven't gone too far in the direction of "relational evangelism." We've seen contact evangelism done poorly in certain circumstances, we realize that many of our peers are hostile to the gospel, and we ourselves have grown up going to school with and working with unsaved people, and therefore we're accustomed to fitting in pretty well with them, and consequently we don't make it a point to make sharing the gospel the most important thing in our friendships with lost people. There is some good to this, particularly in certain instances, but in considering the biblical testimony, it's hard to make the case that the model of biblical evangelism is relational. No, the apostles and disciples are pretty up-front with their truth claims. Where we worry about stepping on toes, and saying just the right thing, the apostles spoke the truth, and worried about pleasing God rather than man.

Don't hear me wrongly. I'm not saying that there is no place for relational evangelism. There are times when a person makes very clear that they do not want to talk about Christ and salvation. I have had this happen on a number of occasions. We're always going to have use discernment in our evangelism and attempt to determine what exactly to say and how best to say it. I also am not making an explicit argument here for the kind of public "contact evangelism" model that some use (I'm actually not addressing it here). However, I think that many of us have reversed the biblical paradigm for evangelism, which is this: declare one's faith, call others to this faith, and then allow them to observe your life in order to show that the gospel is transformative and powerful. The order many of us have adopted in the current day seems to be something like this: demonstrate a transformed life, get to know the person we're seeking to evangelize, and then, at some late and very comfortable point, share the gospel. This order does make people feel comfortable, and it is less confrontational than the first paradigm, but I'm wondering if it does not reflect an overly culture-conscious Christianity and a fear of man.

As Christians, whether postmen or waitresses or moms or pastors, our duty is to honor God by sharing the gospel of salvation by faith in the atoning death and resurrection of the God-man, Jesus Christ. We seek to graft lost people into the story of the kingdom, to show people that there is a great reign and rule that they need to be a part of in order to be saved and to participate in everlasting worship of the coming King. All of us do this, and all of us should do this. We'll do it in different ways and at different times and some of us will do it more than others, but if you are a Christian, this is what your life is about: knowing Jesus and making Him known. In the current day, I think that many of us have grown far too culturally aware of our status and perceived image. We don't want to be identified with "fundamentalists," we don't want to be ostracized, and we just want to live in our little corner of things and not be bothered by others. But here's the thing: the point of being a Christian is to get the gospel out there. We need to get the gospel out in front of people so that they can consider it, so that the Spirit can work, and then we need to demonstrate its power by living distinctively transformed lives.

I'm not saying that I'll never use "relational evangelism." To be honest, I'm sure that I will, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of fear. But with that said, it is my goal to work against the prevailing paradigm and to get the gospel out in front of people, in order that they can consider it and also observe the difference it makes in a person's life. In God's infinite wisdom, the gospel has the power to save immediately. Evangelism does not always bear such quick fruit, and we may well sometimes need to build a friendship over time with a particularly wary or hostile person, but we must remember that the gospel is powerful. It's not your people skills that save people, it's not your perfectly crafted relationships that save people, it's not introducing exactly the right conversational topic at exactly the right time that saves people--it's sharing the gospel, period. The Holy Spirit magically and miraculously uses the incredible simple device of verbal communication of a clear and concise message to save sinners from hell. So let's do "relational evangelism"--yeah, let's boldly and clearly declaim the privileges of being the children of God. That's an evangelistic program that cannot be topped, a strategy that will never be supplanted.

The Supposed Evangelical Crackup, and New Areas of Focus and Ministry

A recent New York Times article explores the changing public face of the evangelical political and social movement. I don't agree with all of the article's points, and I'm not sure evangelicalism is quite as divided and defeated as the author claims, especially because there is yet a good deal of time for Christians to sift out which presidential candidate they like and will support. (Good grief, we're still a year away!) With the unnecessarily alarmist (and celebratory?) tone of the article pointed out, it does show how some evangelicals are turning to different social causes than those of previous generations. This shift in interest draws my attention because it reveals that Christians are devoting time to less traditional causes, and pouring effort and energy into climate change and the defeat of global poverty.

I have no personal ax to grind on either of these issues--they're complex, they take time to sort out, and I am quite happy for Christians who know more than me to do so and to inform me as to a suggested course of action. However, I do have an ax to grind when it comes to the shape of the family. A recent book by Voddie Baucham, Family Driven Faith, published in June 2007 by the Southern Baptist pastor and speaker, re-started a whole line of thinking in my mind about the absolute necessity of evangelizing and discipling our children. Now here is an area that every evangelical can recognize that they need to address. A staggering number of people who profess to believe evangelical Christianity do so because they were raised in a Christian home. The Christian home that holds out the gospel and that does not subcontract with a youth pastor, a Christian summer camp, and an FCA group to lead their children to the Lord is doing the right thing. Baucham, a reformed author, an excellent speaker, and a good writer, makes this case quite convincingly in his book, which I encourage everyone interested in this subject (or not interested) to buy. The Christian faith is meant to be driven by families, not by the parachurch, not by "experts," and not by strangers.

But I have an even stronger burden than this. I would re-suggest a model of evangelization that is itself focused on the family. I would encourage Christians to befriend young, inner-city boys and girls and evangelize and disciple them. I would encourage whole churches to target troubled areas and to "adopt" children who come from broken homes. There is little hope of reaching troubled youth (who teem in our nation's cities) without a strong, family-based model. I would in particular suggest that men should target boys and teach them how to be the cornerstone for a family. I was reminded of this need this morning as I spoke to an inner-city FCA group. As I walked through the halls of the school in search of the classroom where I would speak (I do this on a regular basis in the Louisville area--I speak and briefly rap in order to connect with students and share the gospel), I was surrounded by testosterone-filled boys, many of whom have no dad in their home, and many of whom will grow up to vacate the home just like dad did. I'm not sure we grasp the magnitude of this problem. If we do not teach boys to be responsible, godly dads and fathers, the cycle of suffering and death will only continue in the American inner-city. So long as many inner-city children have no evangelistic family structure, they will reject the gospel, and produce more children who will only do the same. If we want to evangelize these youths, then, and if we want to see their children saved, we must reach them through the Bible's primary evangelistic model, the family. This is a social emphasis that could use great attention from evangelicals.

When the Bell Fell Silent: The Church, the Parachurch, and Christian Witness to the American University, Pt. 2

The body of secularist water that washed over the American academy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was no mere wave. It was a tsunami. At one point there were many schools that educated students from a unapologetically Christian perspective; at another those same schools had utterly abandoned all commitments to Christianity and Christian education. For more on the rapidity and scope of this trend, see George Marsden's excellent text The Soul of the American University.

As I noted yesterday, the American church was, relative to this trend, at a particularly weak point. The heritage of at least the northeast part of the country was Christian commitment of the stoutest brand, reformational puritanism. This tradition, as was true with, among other regional flavors of Christianity, southern Presbyterianism and certain strands of Southern Baptists, was staunchly biblical and credibly intellectual. In all of these traditions, men of strong faith and strong mind had dominated their local culture. Christians in such regions were not afraid of unbelieving thought, for their pastors could engage the thinkers of their day and were in the lifelong process of training the congregants to do the same. Yet the church weakened over time in all regions of the country as pragmatic thought, showy religion, increasingly taxed clergy, and the rapid growth of America all conspired to dilute the intellectual nature of Christianity in America. As the twentieth century dawned, many Christians had retreated from culture and now shied away from intellectual engagement. As I noted yesterday, the college campus was left to itself.

Here's where we pick up. The parachurch saw this situation and sought to address it. Movements like InterVarsity, Campus Crusade, the Navigators, Baptist Campus Ministry, and others moved onto the college campus in an effort to engage lost students and to disciple saved students. Though these groups had some ties to the local church, they often emphasized more the importance of Christian fellowship on campus than of fellowship off campus in the local church. Christians on colleges formed their own little communities. These were often vibrant and passionately evangelistic, and discipleship was strongly emphasized by many of these groups. Where many (not all) local churches had turned their backs on the colleges, or simply stood by helplessly, unsure of how to reach out to students, the aforementioned parachurch groups sent in zealous young workers to minister to students, often with encouraging results. Students came to trust these ministries and to find their Christian identity in them. The parachurch had moved onto the campus, and a strong witness for Christ once again existed at many American universities.

But though this system accomplished much good, it possessed a significant weakness. The local church was marginalized by the work of these groups. The local church, the only institution founded by Christ, and the only institution perpetuated by His apostles and disciples, was also the only thing missing from the lives of many Christian college students. As health returned to many churches in the latter half of the twentieth century, as reformed theology trickled back into various ecclesiastical traditions, as men like Schaeffer and Henry called Christians back to cultural engagement and witness, the local church gained confidence and courage. Pastors rose up who were ready to speak to the culture and witness for Christ. Christians sought degrees and founded fellowships and programs to minister to college students. Yet many local churches found that it was very difficult to reassert themselves on campus in the face of established parachurch ministries. This is where we are today.

We have strong parachurch ministries who have done very faithful work in the past. These groups ensured that the torch did not go out, that a Christian witness was present on the campus of the American university. And yet many of these groups do not realize that, to put it plainly, the local church is back. In many places, it is healthy and vibrant, and it desires to reach students for Christ. The parachurch needs now to step back, to concentrate, perhaps, on evangelism, and to let churches be responsible for discipleship. The parachurch should, in my humble opinion, exist as an evangelistic supplement to the local church that funnels students to the local church. It should not exist as its own stand-alone organization that feeds students a rich diet and then spits them out at graduation without connection to a local church. I realize that these are strong words, but I believe strongly in two things: one, that the parachurch filled a need in the twentieth century with excellence and faithfulness, and two, that it must now recognize that it must give ground to the local church, and let the local church lead in discipling and evangelizing college students wherever strong local churches are found.

When the Bell Fell Silent: The Church, the Parachurch, and Christian Witness to the American University

The twentieth century was hard on evangelicals in many ways, despite our rise to some level of cultural prominence as the century wore on. Ecclesiastically, on matters of the local church, we ran up against some rocks. In short, we ceded much ground to the parachurch. Possessing too narrow a vision of church life, many of our local churches retracted from many areas of national life and gave that territory to fledgling organizations and ministries. Many of these entities did (and do) excellent work, and we can thank God for them and their faithful witness in an age when the local church dropped the ball. In the current day, however, when health spreads amongst the local churches of America, we are poised to reexamine the role of the parachurch in evangelical life, and to ask where it is overextending itself, and where the local church must claim back territory that it is responsible for.

In taking on this topic, which I will explore over the next several days, I am not suggesting that the parachurch has no role in evangelical life. Far from it. Parachurch organizations accomplish too much good to chart here. They are a part, and a necessary one, of Christian life. And yet we may say that in their attempt to address the deficiencies of the local church, some organizations have overextended themselves. This is not to say that they have no usefulness or role. That must be understood. But it is to say that in one area of evangelical life, campus ministry, the parachurch often dominates to such an extent that the local church must work around the parachurch. This is not an ideal situation, and it has harmful effects for many students and for the churches who lack any meaningful connection with them.

If you read carefully above, though, you read that the primary blame for this situation rests with the local church. It is fundamentally responsible for this situation. Where did this all begin? To start, many Christians altogether retreated from college campuses in the twentieth century. In the face of a rising tide of secularist thought and pagan practice, many evangelicals simply put out to sea, becoming isolated, lonely communities much like the drifting atolls found in Kevin Costner's film "Waterworld" (an underrated film, but this is entirely off the point). Possessing an over-realized sense of cultural separation--an instinct we all must have--these Christians and their local churches largely abandoned the college campus. Bewildered at the shocking practices of the younger generation, the rebelliousness of the Woodstock set, the immorality of the rock culture, and the anti-Christian philosophies of the academy, many Christians retreated from the paganism spreading all around them. It is no shock that they did so. Many had little intellectual training by which to engage secular thought and little familiarity with pagan practice. When confronted with these dual evils, believers failed to engage them, or failed to do so with sophistication, winsomeness, wisdom, and a bold, clear and logical apologetic. The result? As colleges turned from their Christian roots (which happened en masse between, roughly, the 1860s and the 1950s), abolishing chapel, embracing humanism, appointing unbelieving chaplains, and distancing themselves from their Christian roots, the American university was, in a Christian sense, all but lost. Where there once existed a vibrant and widespread Christian influence, symbolized by a busy and frequently occupied chapel characterized by a pleasantly resounding bell, now there was only spiritual wasteland. The local church and the university had separated. The divorce was complete.

The bell had fallen silent.