Sep/Oct 2004
ONE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
Programs Don’t Do It
It’s interesting how carefully calculated, step-by-step programs for evangelism seem to come and go, much like the latest fads in business and management. Maybe one reason is that programs, by nature, are contrivances. They might work well for business endeavors, where advertising and manipulation of emotions is crucial to selling a product.
But the gospel is not a product; it is a declaration of God’s love.
Love doesn’t come by programs. It comes in its own way in its own time. It is strengthened and proven in the crucible of self-sacrifice, patience and forbearance. It cannot be explained; it can only be lived. It’s not something you evaluate on a scale of measurable outcomes. It’s messy, not predictable. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it thrills. It’s never static. It doesn’t play by the rules; the rules can’t keep up.
The main reason most people come to church and keep coming to church and become believers is the same today as it was 2,000 years ago— they meet people who like them and accept them and become their friends. Programs don’t do it— love does it.
New Command
Jesus gave a new command to his disciples: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).
That’s a novel thought in our highly organized, programmatic society. Suppose Christians were well-known for being the kind of people anybody would enjoy having for a friend. Suppose they weren’t known for being pushy and judgmental. Suppose they weren’t known for well-rehearsed emotional spiels designed to press people into a so-called “decision for Christ.”
Suppose they were genuine, caring and harmless people, who in the love of Christ loved others for who they are. Suppose they didn’t make friends with people as part of some new evangelism program, but simply because faithful friendship is what Jesus Christ is all about.
Peter said we should always be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within us (see 1 Peter 3:15). Paul said we should let our conversation always be full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that we may know how to answer everyone (see Colossians 4:6).
It is the Holy Spirit who moves people to ask and who works in us to give an answer that is “seasoned with salt” and full of “grace.”
Some people call this kind of living “whole-life evangelism” or “relational evangelism” or “life-style evangelism,” in contrast to what some call “confrontational evangelism.”
Imagine a young man walking up to a young woman outside Lakeside Ice Cream Parlor and saying: “Excuse me. Do you know me? Well, I know you, and I know you’re miserable and pathetic and need a husband. I can fix all that. If you’ll just repeat these words after me, ‘I will marry you, and we’ll live happily ever after.’” She’d slap his face, of course, or call 911, or jab him someplace with her keys.
That’s not how good relationships start. Yet, something akin to that is how some Christians have been taught that a good relationship with Jesus Christ should begin.
Root of Evangelism
Programs may have their place, but the driving force of evangelism is the love of Christ at work in the hearts of believers.
Jesus’ work of reconciliation doesn’t depend on us— and it doesn’t
depend on the unbeliever we want to become a believer. If it did, no
one would
ever be reconciled, for our faith and our behavior, even our response
to the gospel, are always substandard at best. God did what he did in
Christ because
he loved us, not because we loved him first (1 John 4:19).
—J. Michael Feazell