Evangelism - a four letter word?

I've grown up--for better or worse--in what is commonly called the "Evangelical World."

Evangelicals are thusly named because we are evangelistic--that is, we want to tell people about Jesus and see people follow Jesus.

Enter irony.

For a number of valid reasons, evangelism has now become a dirty word to those of us in the younger evangelical set. Our skin crawls when we hear it and fear and anxiety grips our hearts. So with a tip of the hat to Stuff Christians Like, here's why that happens for me, maybe you can identify.

1-It's been about guilt. The way I heard it preached sounded an awful lot like religious cold-calling on an unsuspecting, uninterested soul who was just trying to get a new DVD player at Best Buy. "Sir, I can see you are looking for a new DVD player...can I tell you about the DVD player that never dies?" And to motivate us, our willingness to walk up to complete strangers was used as the measure of the fervency of our devotion to Jesus. I'd put the tenor of the pitch at roughly the same level as those guilt email forwards that tell you that you really love/aren't ashamed of Jesus only if you forward this immediately to 10 friends. And to underscore that this was possible (and to underscore how I was failing) there was always that one special speaker who'd led about 3,000 people to Lord in DVD section of Best Buy in the last year.

2-It's sounded an awful lot like sacred one night stands. Since the ultimate goal was souls in a disembodied heaven, all that mattered was that you got people to pray "the prayer." And if you got a lot of people to pray the prayer, then you were a successful Christian. Who cares if you knew or loved the person (or even liked them), if they prayed the prayer, then you and Jesus and the person's eternal destiny (hey, no pressure) were good . You love 'em, leave 'em and move on. There was even a thing that could serve as a prophylaxis against actual interaction with heathen: A tract. It earned us a reputation of ironically not actually caring about the people we were supposed to love.

3-It wasn't natural. Honestly, the messages were mixed. "Friendship with the world is enmity against God." "Separate yourself from among them." "Now go love them in Jesus' name." Holy whiplash Batman! I vividly remember walking down my High School hallway carrying my Bible completely torn up about the eternal destinies of my classmates, but not wanting to contaminate myself by actually being friends with them.

4-It's been about what to avoid. The pitch was most often centered around avoiding hell, not loving Jesus. Jesus, in contrast, talked most about what it meant to follow him and embrace God's kingdom, reserving his talk about hell mainly for the religious people who felt so smugly in the right.

To add irony to irony, the word evangelist is now hot. Apple even recently had a Chief Mac Evangelist. The business world routinely talks about being an evangelist for this or that product or service. What they mean is actually the original intent of the word: you love and believe in something so much that you can't help but share it.

We need to rescue the word and the practice. We're sent by God (the root meaning of the word evangelistic) and so need to reclaim our mission of announcing God's kingdom. Here are three ways I'm working toward doing that.

The person of peace. Jesus--and can anyone actually argue he isn't the greatest evangelist of all time?--has a strategy we've basically ignored. In Luke 9 & 10 he sends out the 12 and the 72 with the instruction that when they go somewhere, they are to look for the man (or woman) of peace. "You enter a house and announce peace to it," Jesus says. "If a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on them. Stay, build relationships, announce God's reign over all things. If not, move on."

Here's what Jesus was saying. "As you go about your life and find someone you like and who likes you, start there. Build a relationship with them, and in the context of that relationship, tell them about God's love and care for them. If you don't find someone who likes you, move on." Heaven came down and glory filled my soul when I realized how simple and natural Jesus was making it. Focused intention, zero pressure. I am now always on the look-out for a person of peace.

Increase my powers of observation. In John 4, Jesus meets the woman from Samaria at a well. He observes several things (1) She's alone. Women didn't go places like that alone in that culture. (2) It's the middle of the day in the heat. Women went together in the morning when it was cool. (3) Based on 1 & 2, he notices that she is an outcast of some sort. When his disciples come back from the store and he unpacks with them the secret of having profound spiritual conversations, he says "open your eyes and look at the fields!" In other words, notice the things going on around you. It's there that an encouraging word, a smile, a kind conversation can open the door of someone's heart.

Serve people while being normal. When I serve people, I change their perception, change my perception and break down barriers. And I serve because I love, not because I hope we'll talk about Jesus (though I do hope that happens). A great interview on ABC News about the new face of American Evangelicalism underscores this.

So what about you? What comes to mind when you think of evangelism? How do we reclaim it without all the baggage?

Why we grieve when an icon dies

The media storm over the King of Pop's death is still raging.

Who was responsible?

Was there foul play?

Where is his body?

Just watch the news. A news cycle doesn't pass without him making the news (and boosting record sales).

Some people have taken it hard. They had a personal attachment to Michael and feel a genuine sense of loss. I didn't have that connection--though I'll admit to trying to moonwalk more than once, no dice--but I've known the feeling. I felt palpable grief when Mother Theresa and Princess Diana died in the same short time frame. My connection: Mother Theresa--one my heroes, Princess Di--long before 24 hour TV, I stayed up until 3am as a 7 or 8 year old and watched her wedding.

So why do we feel this way? We don't know these people. We have no one-on-one connection with them, and still we mourn.

Here's my stab at it
When an icon dies, we mourn because that person's art/life created something in us. Their art created beauty for us, and beauty indelibly becomes part of our soul. This is, I think, how God intended it. We live and die by beauty. So when the person who brought us beauty dies, we go through a small identity crisis. Who am I without this person who gave me so much? I'm pretty sure there's a thick layer of sentiment tied to that, but generally speaking, that rings true.

So where is Michael now?

Aside from my own conspiracy theory that this is a ploy to get Michael out of the limelight and boost record sales to generate income, the question remains for many Christians: is Michael Jackson in heaven? To many, Michael is suffering the due recompense for his (according to them) wanton and flagrantly immoral life. He is burning in H-E-double hockey stick.

He was certainly insecure (why else the numerous face changes?).
He was immature--but I also don't know what forces shape the soul when you have a driven father pushing you onto an international stage from your earliest memory.

Michael is responsible for the person he became, to be sure. But God alone knows what a person must overcome to be who they were meant to be. And what's more, the Gospel means that we are all finally judged in light of Jesus, not our accomplishments and/or dysfunction.

As Dallas Willard says it (and I paraphrase):

God will let everyone into his heaven everyone who, in his considered opinion, can stand it.

What do you think?

Everyone Runs

I learn best by teaching and doing. If I teach it or do it, I learn about it.

Our SportsCamp is a wrap. Great week of fun, frivolity and friends with over 120 kids from our community. Each night we talked about running the race of life using the advice the Apostle Paul gave to a group of Christians in the ancient city of Corinth. Corinth was home to the Isthmian Games, an Olympic styled athletic event held there every few years. They were a city of over-achievers and partiers, so they knew a bit about running.

Here's what I learned by teaching it to a bunch of kids.

Everyone runs. Everyone is in the race of life. If you don't want to run, too bad, the race has already started. The choice isn't about whether you'll run, it's about how you'll run.

One wins. Run to win. God doesn't see things the way we see things. He doesn't compare your race to someone else's race. He has given you your own race and wants you to win it. Fall down? Get back up. Distracted? Refocus. Ready to give up? Don't quit. God has given you occasions to fight that you might win. His resurrection power is in you. Don't give up any ground that's been given to you.

All good athletes train hard. If you are going to win the race God has given you, it will require your very best effort, your highest potential and your deepest devotion. You won't win it by being half-hearted, half-in, or half-way committed. Be all in.

They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. The race often has spectators who offer distractions, cheap knock-off prizes that look real, and detours to alternate destinations. Don't be fooled. Don't be tricked. Don't be deceived. Don't confuse good things for ultimate things. Have good things, but don't let them have you.

You're after one that's gold eternally. What God offers is ultimate and unending. It never spoils, rots or fades. It won't rip, tear or fall apart. It won't take up space on a shelf somewhere, mean nothing and be forgotten by everyone but you. And he gives it to you now. It's salvation; being caught up fully in the life of God.

The highlight video from Camp.

Weirded Out

While waiting for some friends to meet us the other night, my wife and I stopped in at C28. They bill themselves as a Christian store. Every item has a Scripture verse or some positively themed thing on it. Not bad.

To boot, they're located at the Short Pump Town Center, the hippest mall in Richmond, so they are keeping good company. Not bad either.

And at first glance, the designs are on par with what you'd see at a place like Express or Old Navy. Not bad at all...but then that's part of their strategy. They reel you in with design and then hit you over the head with their message.

The cheeriest store associate you've ever met asks if you've been in before. "No?", they ask, "well, it comes from Colossians 2:8, it's a verse in the Bible." And that's where the weirdness begins. You can feel them searching your face for any hint that you might not be "one of us."

Let me be clear. I have no problem with good art or design (love it), Scripture printed on a shirt (like John Wesley, I am a man of One Book), or talking about Jesus (to quote St. Paul, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ"), but I am not a fan of the "hit you over the head" method of evangelism. Just not.

After I bought a hoodie and pair of jeans, the very cheery associate asked me if there was anything he could pray with me about.

I'm sorry, come again??

Let me be clear again, I am all for praying with people (do it all the time as a pastor), but in a store, after I bought a pair of jeans and a hoodie? Just culturally weird.

But they are unabashed about it. Their website says they sell "bold Christian apparel." The sign out front says they are a "christian store." The sign behind the register says they exist to evangelize and make a profit so they can fund the spread of the gospel. Again, not bad in and of itself.

But I have a few questions:

• Does this sort of approach reinforce pushy stereotypes about Christians as people who shove God down your throat?
• Does it send a subtle message that Christians are only interested in getting people to think like them and not actually interested in making the world a better place?
• Does this put a mark on Jesus' reputation in the broader community, leveraging short term results for long term damage?
• Does it actually end up reinforcing the Christian bubble? Our own music, our own bookstores, our own fastfood (best chicken sandwich ever, btw), and now our own t-shirts, jeans and hoodies. As in, isn't it exciting that now we don't even have to interact with those heathens in the world?
• Does this form of evangelism mistake words and ideas about Jesus for real trust in Jesus that results in a group of people living a new way of life that radically transforms the community?
• Does this kind of approach actually confine Jesus to a little world of our own making, saying that there are some places he won't go because they are too dark or impure?
• Does it misunderstand that "Christian" is a noun (who I am) and not an an adjective? The very store itself is Christian? How does that work exactly? Was Jesus' carpentry shop a "christian" carpentry shop that advertised in the Shepherd's Guide, or did I miss that part of the New Testament?

If you are a Christian, you might be thinking, 'yeah, but their website says 12,000+ people have been saved.' I would remind you that God loves people so much he'll even use our mixed up efforts to do it. He even used a donkey to deliver his message. I would counter the people saved are more about God's kindness, not necessarily C28's brilliant evangelism strategy.

I think the band Delirious gets it right. They refuse to be labeled a "Christian band" because they say their mission is not "to a market of believers," but to the whole world because that is the mission of Jesus.

What might that look like?

• If you are a great retail sales associate who follows Jesus, go work at J. Crew or A&F (for example) where people generally don't care about Jesus live dark lives. Bring your radiance and kindness to bear on that situation.
• If you do good design, do good design that the whole world will buy and enjoy. Bring beauty into the lives of people everywhere--not just Christians who already know Beauty.
• If you want to evangelize, get to know your neighbor and care about them and their life. Go to all your work parties and become a real friend.
• If you think the fashion industry is over-sexualized and impure, get into it and make killer design that isn't. Become friends with the people who do the opposite in the process.
• And if you want to wear cool apparel with a message, try Jedidiah or Tom's Shoes or Bead for Life. Wear their products, then when someone asks you about it, tell their compelling story of righting the wrongs in the world and see where it goes from there. Jesus righted wrongs, right? And his actions to make people's lives better were the bigger part of his message and attraction, weren't they? In fact, it's why people crowded to hear what he had to say in the first place. His actions were so compelling, they had to know what he thought.

I'm just saying.

Thoughts While Falling Asleep

This was our interchange tonight as Hudson was going to sleep.

Hudson: Daddy, I don't want you to leave, I'm scared. I'll be alone.
Me: Hudson, you aren't alone. Mommy and Daddy are right here in the house and Jesus is always with you.
Hudson: But I don't want Jesus with me, I want you with me.

We want someone with skin on, don't we? Jesus is an idea to most people, especially people who are far away from his influence. And in the beauty and genius of Jesus' message and strategy, we are now his hands and feet, his presence to people falling asleep in the dark.

People don't want Jesus with them, they want someone that matters to them with them. To whom do I matter?