Evangelism Illuminations Articles

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BY PASTOR DWIGHT DUBOIS

Center for Renewal Director

The cover story in the August 2003 issue of The Lutheran magazine asked, “Do Lutherans hate evangelism?” I’m not sure that hate is the right word, though I have been known to say that evangelism is one of the two dirty words in the church (stewardship being the other). John Bowen, author of Evangelism for “Normal” People, notes that some denominations make evangelism their number one priority, while others (yes, this includes us), shy away from it as from a skunk that wanders into a garden party.

There was part of me that secretly felt evangelism was something you shouldn’t do to your dog, let alone your friend.

Rebecca Manley Pippert, Out of the Saltshaker

Our qualms about evangelism come from several sources, among which misunderstanding and lack of knowledge rank very high. If evangelism is to be restored to the heart of our ministry in Lutheran congregations and among our members, as the ELCA Evangelism Strategy calls us to do, then we need to explore and discuss this sensitive subject. In the months to come we will take a look at what evangelism is (and equally important, what it is not) and what evangelism might look like among Lutherans, both gathered and sent.

It is my contention that, if we simply make evangelism something else that our members “ought” to be doing, we run the risk of increasing our reluctance to be witnesses. If, however, we allow room for the Spirit to be at work, and attend first to the vitality of our worship, the quality of our life together in community and the spiritual formation of our people, we will not lack for witness or for witnesses to the amazing love and the redemptive work of God in Christ.

What evangelism is not

First let’s deal with some common notions about evangelism, notions that we often use to excuse ourselves from this vital Christian faith practice. Let me tell a story.

A few years ago, our congregation was looking for a pastor who would offer leadership in evangelism. While we had a surprisingly difficult time finding candidates who were comfortable with that role, the real wake-up call came about halfway through the process when our call committee staged a mini-revolt. One member of the committee summed up, “We don’t want a pastor who will make us stand on street corners or go from house to house ringing doorbells!”

Evangelism is not confrontation. Bowen quotes a short story out of the book Bluebeard’s Egg, by Margaret Atwood, in which a woman has an encounter with a former missionary. Atwood relates that, for this character, “religious people of any serious kind made her nervous: they were like men in raincoats who might or might not be flashers.” Bowen concludes, “This is how one of Canada’s most articulate and sensitive writers views evangelism: it is dehumanizing, violent, and inappropriate.” Bowen uses this image of “flasher evangelism” frequently, and not surprisingly, as an indictment against what has, too often, been perceived as the standard M.O. for evangelism.

I remember once encountering a zealous Christian. His brow was furrowed, he seemed anxious and impatient, and he sounded angry. Then he told me God loved me.

Rebecca Manley Pippert, Out of the Saltshaker

Evangelism is not something that we “ought to” or even “need to” do. All the talk we hear these days of “reclaiming the Great Commission” is based, at least in part, on the assumption that evangelism is a task that we can “work ourselves up to,” if only we have enough faith. Bowen writes, “For Christians to talk about the gospel is a sign of health; to talk about evangelism is a sign that something is wrong. David Watson says something similar: ‘Having to stress the Great Commission, and having to urge people to witness, is not a sign of spiritual life, but a sign of spiritual decadence.’ ”

Evangelists are not Lone Rangers who have in their hands the power to set the world right. Evangelism is not an announcement of judgment and condemnation designed to scare people into avoiding judgment and condemnation. Evangelism is not simply a matter of saving individual souls, of keeping individuals out of hell or even guaranteeing their entry into heaven. Evangelism is not the pronouncement of a surefire way to find happiness, self-fulfillment, self-realization or prosperity.

Evangelism is not a matter of delivering memorized speeches, nor is evangelism dependent upon knowing the “proper technique.” Bowen writes, “The hunger for ‘how-to’ books (not to mention how-to lectures, seminars, conferences, videos and tapes) is the fruit of a particular modernist culture, one that says things such as these:

• You can do it.

• You don’t need help (apart from this book).

• You are competent (once you watch this video).

• What matters is to get the job done.

• You get more achieved if you think of life as a series of projects.

• Get the results you want.”

And he concludes, “I believe that kind of attitude has hampered the life of the church, and not least the activity we call evangelism.”

One of the best biblical examples of evangelism can be found in the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. It would be difficult to support any of the above assumptions about evangelism on the basis of this story. Indeed, if the above expectations were at work in the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, we could rightly expect Jesus to greet the woman with the words, “Good day, Madam. I am the Messiah and you are a sinner. The time has come for you to repent and believe in me.”

To put this into a modern parable, consider what would happen if someone walked up to a person on the street and asked, “Are you ready to marry me today?” If we can identify what is missing in such a proposal, then we are well on our way to identifying what is missing from our most frequently held ideas about evangelism.

Evangelism is God’s idea, not ours

Perhaps the largest problem that Lutherans face in restoring evangelism to the heart of our ministry and among our members is that we have used our objection to the above evangelism techniques and assumptions as an excuse to avoid evangelism, like a skunk at a garden party. Instead we prefer, Douglas John Hall notes, “to create for ourselves spaces apart, havens of withdrawal… We are apt to find more appeal in a religion that provides sanctuary from the world, or at least a reliable insulation against the world insidious taunts, temptations, and revenges.” But, Hall goes on to note, “Discipleship of the crucified Christ is characterized by a faith that drives its adherents into the world with a relentlessness and a daring they could not manage on the basis of human volition alone.”

In short, evangelism is not something that we choose to do or not to do. In baptism we receive the Holy Spirit and God sends us into the world, as the opening chapter of Acts says, as witnesses. The only question that remains is what our witness looks like.

Bowen provides the most radical, most Lutheran, and most helpful and encouraging definition of evangelism that I have ever seen. Put simply, he says, Evangelism at its core is God coming after us, even at our worst, to invite us to come home. Later he sums up, “Evangelism is God’s idea, not ours.”

At first glance, Bowen’s definition seems to let us off the hook. Like one spouse telling another, “You deal with the kids’ mess; this was your idea, not mine!” Bowen’s definition might free us to respond to God, “OK, you take care of it, then, if you think it’s such a great idea.” That’s a nice try, but it doesn’t fly.

Earlier I noted Hall’s insistence that “faith…drives its adherents into the world.” As the baptized, called and sent people of God, we are driven into the world because of God’s determination to be in the world, restoring all of creation to what God intended it to be in the first place. To paraphrase Hall’s central thesis, the theology of the cross is first of all a statement about God, and what it says about God is not that God thinks humankind so wretched that it deserves death and hell, but that God thinks humankind and the whole creation so good, so beautiful, so precious that it is worth dying for.

When we think of God, particularly when we contemplate sharing God’s love with others, we first need to consider who or what God is for us. Hall asks, “Is our foundational assumption [about God] that of power or of love? In homely terms, when we think ‘God,’ do we think the last word in sheer might, authority, supremacy, potency? Or do we think compassion, mercy, identification, grace, benevolence—agape?” Indeed, whether we view God in terms of power or of love will greatly affect the way we approach evangelism! If it’s power, we will seek to dominate, control, or fix others; if it’s love, then we will model our lives and our witness after that of Jesus, who willingly gave up power and control so that he could identify with us, show us mercy, in short, love us.

Evangelism at its core is God coming after us, even at our worst, to invite us to come home. The Gospel of John tells us that “God so loved the world” that God sent the Son into the world, not “to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Bowen continues, “Evangelism is God coming with outstretched hands to seek reconciliation with those who have set themselves up as his enemies. And those outstretched hands are the driving force of the Bible story until humankind cannot stand them any more, and they are nailed down to stop them coming any closer.”

Evangelism at its core is God coming after us, even at our worst, to invite us to come home. And because God is determined to keep coming after us, even after the rejection of the cross, God continues to move toward us—and all people—by forming a mission community whose purpose is to continue the work and the proclamation of Jesus. God’s purpose is not to “grow the church,” as many church leaders today insist. The church, David Bosch writes, “is not the ultimate aim of mission. The life and work of the Christian community are intimately bound up with God’s cosmic-historical plan for the redemption of the world.”

The church’s call is to move out to the ends of the earth to make the inbreaking kingdom of God visible for all people to see. Our God-driven task is to invite all people to begin a new life as members of Christ’s earthly community. Darrell Guder, in The Continuing Conversion of the Church, defines the church’s role in terms of incarnational mission: “Christ’s formation and sending of God’s mission community…to be the demonstration of, the invitation to, and the initiation into the kingdom of God.”

What evangelism is

Beginning then, with the idea that evangelism is God’s idea, not ours, that evangelism is rooted in God’s continual movement toward the world and based on God’s desire to restore all creation, we can move on to look at what evangelism is, or at least what it might be, in our congregations and among our members, for the sake of the world.

Evangelism is a result of vibrant faith communities

Contrary to the expectation that evangelists are Lone Rangers (or worse yet, spiritual flashers), evangelism begins in the faith community’s life together, and evangelism finds expression through the faith community. “God is concerned in the first place,” Bowen writes, “to create a community committed to twin foci: love of God and love of neighbor—a community that will be intriguing and attractive to outsiders. As God’s people live in God’s world in God’s way, their life will be a powerful magnet for everyone searching for truth and compassion, for justice and dignity, for meaning and hope. The outstretched hands cannot achieve much unless they are attached to a healthy body.”

Evangelism does not begin, nor does it end, in individuals verbalizing their faith to other individuals. “God’s rescue mission,” Bowen says, “has never happened through words alone.” Instead, God has always called a community, from the people of Abraham and Sarah to the people of St. John’s By The Gas Station, to demonstrate what life in God’s reconciled and reconciling kingdom looks like.

Bowen summarizes, “How revolutionary it would be if churches, instead of asking themselves, ‘How can we evangelize?’ would ask, ‘What is the quality of our community life? Is it such that outsiders to the faith might be attracted by it?’ ”

That’s how it is with God’s love,

once you’ve experienced it,

you want to sing, it’s fresh like spring,

you want to pass it on.

Evangelism is a result of vibrant faith communities, not a burden imposed on insecure believers. There are churches whose members are witnessing to friends, family members and coworkers; in most cases, this witness comes from health, vitality, and excitement over what is happening in the congregation. It’s like finding a great new restaurant; we invite others to join us there so they can share our excitement. Conversely, if people are not excited about what is happening in their congregation, or if they participate only for their own individual benefit, then they are not going to go and tell others what they have seen and heard (Luke 7:22).

A personal confession: From time to time I stop at fast food restaurants for a bite to eat. Most of the time I am by myself, and I stop only for something to keep me going between appointments or activities. I generally don’t invite others to join me at such places. When I want to combine a meal with social interaction, I go to places with better food and an appealing environment, places that are conducive to spending time together and enjoying one another’s company.

If our congregations are nothing more than spiritual Burger Kings, where we fill up our spiritual tanks (and “have it our way” at that), then we are not going to tell others what we’ve found or invite others to join us. Why should we? If “church” is only “for me,” why would we invite someone? But if our congregations are vibrant communities of faith where people are finding truth and compassion, justice and dignity, meaning and hope in one another’s company, why would we not invite others to come and see for themselves?

Evangelism is built on trusting relationships, and it takes time

A few years ago, in an interview with some church leaders, somehow we wound up talking about my trip that day, and about the fact that I had stopped in a fast food restaurant for lunch. One of the leaders asked me, “Did you share Jesus with the cashier at the restaurant?” I was dumfounded; I didn’t know what to say, other than mumbling a confused, “No.”

I know now what bothered me about that question, and I know better how to answer it. Evangelism is built on trusting relationships, not on ill-timed encounters in inappropriate settings.

Bowen tells the story of an old friend, Deb, who was once “assaulted” by a flasher evangelist in a university cafeteria. Deb admits that she did need help at the time, but not the kind that was being offered by this stranger. “Her [help] felt deeply uncaring. She didn’t give a damn about me: all she cared about was her little project.”

Those to whom we are called to bear witness are not projects in need of fixing; they are people, loved by God, who need understanding, compassion, and someone to show them the way. Evangelism built on trusting relationships takes time, and prayer, and extended conversation.

In contrast to flasher evangelism, Bowen tells the story of Nicky Laxton Ward, a friend who had not always been Christian. The story begins with Nicky’s first year at university. She met her roommate, Sarah, and hit it off very well with her.

Then Sunday came. Sarah got up early and told me she was going to church. I could not believe it! Why on earth would she want to go to church? She was so cool, I could not imagine why she could possibly want to do such an uncool thing. However, I went with her. Surprisingly enough, I kept going. In fact, I went to lots of Christian events with Sarah, including her Christian fellowship group on the campus every week, simply because I respected her and was interested to find out what she believed. Besides, she kept inviting me.

As I spent more and more time with these Christians, and as I learned more and more about what they believed, I became more and more intrigued…

Before long I realized what was missing in my life, that I had a yearning inside me, an emptiness that needed filling, a hole that no amount of good marks or achievements would fill. I later heard this described as a God-shaped vacuum, a yearning that only the love of God could satisfy.

Bowen concludes, “Several things struck me about this story. First, the kind of evangelism Nicky experienced was very relational… Then I noticed that Nicky’s conversion took place gradually over the course of a year.”

Evangelism, if it’s not done in the context of trusting relationships—like a spiritual flasher—can be dehumanizing. But it can also be wonderful, as it was in Nicky’s story. If Nicky’s story points more to the way evangelism should be done, Christians would no longer fear evangelism, and people outside the church would have no reason to fear us!

Evangelism calls us to listen

Since evangelism is built on trusting relationships, one often-overlooked skill is critical to the process: listening. While many leaders, like the one I encountered years ago, attempt to motivate us—like salespeople at an Amway meeting—to “share Jesus” with others, Jesus’ own model suggests a different way.

In discussing the story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the Samaritan well, Bowen observes, “we find no trace of the spiritual flasher here. Instead, we find relationship, good conversation, openness about spiritual matters. Certainly there is a challenge, but it seems appropriate to the context… I was struck by Jesus’ God-driven humanity. Here, finally is an evangelist worth imitating.”

Later Bowen continues, “Jesus wants to engage the woman in conversation, not preach her a sermon. There are contexts where sermons are appropriate and expected, and situations where they are inappropriate and offensive. … [Jesus] wants to give the woman freedom to express her interest in spiritual questions, but not force such a conversation on her. It’s a delicate balance. He longs for her to respond to his message, but also respect her dignity as well.”

Evangelism is not a matter of delivering canned speeches; if we want to bear Christ’s image for the world to see, we cannot begin by memorizing religious speeches so that we’re ready for the first suitable victim that comes our way.

Evangelism is based on prayer

Evangelism that is built on trusting relationships also requires that we be attentive to the discipline of prayer. We can begin by praying, “God make me aware of the people around me who are searching and want to hear about your love.” Bowen writes, “Whenever I get to know individual non-Christians…I am completely convinced that I find God already at work in their lives.” Since evangelism is based on God’s passion to “seek reconciliation with those who have set themselves up as his enemies,” our role can only be seen as God’s instrument for reaching and inviting people to come home. Prayer is the place we begin as we seek to discover who it is in our lives that God wants to invite home.

Prayer is also the place where we give up on our own desires and yield to God’s desires; prayer is the place were we open ourselves to hear—from God—what it is that the people in our lives are asking, and what it is they need to hear. A prayer such as, “Give me courage to engage in conversation and to answer questions, without preaching,” is a good place to start.

Evangelism is a matter of helping people move toward Christ

The doorbell rings; we open the door and a stranger demands of us, “If you die tonight, do you know if you will go to heaven or hell?” This kind of approach, while being a form of flasher evangelism and running contrary to everything we’re saying about good evangelism, is also based on the assumption that people are either “in” or they are “out.” Other forms of evangelism, such as asking people to “make a decision for Christ,” are also based on this kind of either/or thinking.

Is Christian faith a matter of either being “in” or being “out?” Or is there another way, a more helpful way to approach this? The answer to these questions will have a large impact on how we view evangelism and fulfill our call as witnesses.

John P. Bowen, author of Evangelism for “Normal” People, suggests that a more helpful approach is to assume that everyone, believers and non-believers alike (to use “in” and “out” language), is on a continuum of 1 to 100 in terms of their relationship with God. He says that if we use 50 as the point when a person realizes that Jesus is the key to knowing God, then much of evangelism focuses on getting people to cross the line from 49 to 50. “It is clear,” Bowen observes, “that there is little point in talking to someone as if they are at 49 when they are only at 17. What a person really needs is an invitation to move to 18.”

Acknowledging that growth in faith is not a linear process, Bowen insists, “coming to faith is a gradual process, and Christ-like evangelism will respect that.”

In Matthew 12, a scribe asks Jesus which commandment is most important. When the scribe answers his own question by reciting the two great commandments (love God and love your neighbor), Jesus makes an interesting reply: He doesn’t say, “You’ve got it—you’re in!” Instead, seeing that the scribe answered wisely, Jesus says, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

“What is most important,” Bowen says, “is not the ‘number’ a person is at but the direction they are facing, and the focus of evangelism should be encouraging people in a Christ-ward direction rather than looking for a crossing-the-line experience.”

Growth in faith, which is what evangelism is about in this perspective, involves a series of small steps in a Christ-ward direction. Usually a wide variety of different Christians across a span of time are involved, each contributing—under the Spirit’s guidance—a different piece to the process. Once again, it’s clear that evangelism is the work of the whole Christian community.

Evangelism is also personal

Not to completely contradict the understanding that evangelism is the work of the whole Christian community, evangelism also relies on each individual Christian doing her or his part. Viewing evangelism as the work of “the whole Christian community” can lead individuals to the conclusion that evangelism is somebody else’s job and not mine.

While evangelism begins in the faith community’s life together, and even finds expression through the faith community, the community’s task is to help individuals see and fulfill their calling to be witnesses to all that God has done in Christ. The most important task of the church is to be a community capable of forming people with the ability to witness to God’s love.

This is not to say that we should train people how to “share Jesus” over the cash register at Wendy’s; it is saying that, as we grow in our relationship with Christ, one of the things that we need help with is in being able to recognize where God has been involved in our lives, and being able to tell that story to others. We do this, not to tell other people how to “find Jesus,” or even how “to be saved,” but to “bear witness” to all that God has done in our lives and throughout history, and to issue the invitation to “come and see for yourself.”

As was said earlier, evangelism is not something that individual Christians choose to do or not to do. We receive the Holy Spirit in our baptism and we are sent into the world, as the opening chapter of Acts says, as witnesses. The only question that remains is what our witness will look like.

Evangelism is a matter of words and deeds

Telling others what God has done is as central to our calling as it was to Jesus’ mission. Certainly we cannot avoid the fact that evangelism means speaking words of faith. But Jesus not only told others about God, he also demonstrated God’s love.

In John 5 we find the story of Jesus being criticized for healing a paralytic on the Sabbath. In response Jesus answers, “My father is still working, and I also am working… Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing’ for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.” “Jesus’ mission then,” Bowen concludes, “is not only a mission of words but also a mission of works… Jesus says God is love, and he lives the love of God. He cares for people in practical ways, and he tells them in words that he does it because God cares for them. The words and the deeds are mirror images of one another.”

I once participated in a mission trip with 30 other people to work with an orphanage in Romania. The workers in the orphanage were amazed that so many people would travel so far, just to work with the children in their care. “Do you not have children in your country?” they asked, puzzled. “No, we have children,” we told them, “we came here to work with your children because God loves them, and God calls us to help those whom we can.” We were witnesses, in words and in works.

We don’t need to travel halfway around the world to do works of love that become a means of evangelism. In who we are, how we live together in community, how we treat people, and how we respond in difficult situations, we can bear witness to God’s love.

Again John P. Bowen’s story of Nicky from Evangelism for “Normal” People is instructive:

As time went by, I started to notice that Sarah and the other Christians in the residence seemed to live by some kind of code that was different from everyone else…They were all so kind and friendly, quite the opposite of what I expected from religious people…I discovered that actually they failed from time to time, but I was more impressed by their readiness to own up to failure and to start again with new enthusiasm.

In Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth defines our God-given purpose in these words: “With their whole being, action, inaction and conduct, and then by word and deed, [Christians] have an announcement to make to other people, a definite declaration to communicate. The essence of their vocation is that God makes them His witnesses.”

Bowen puts this in terms of Jesus’ commission to his followers in John 20:21: “When [Jesus] said, ‘As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you,’ in effect he is saying, ‘I’ve imitated the Father’s words in the things I’ve said, I’ve imitated the Father’s works by the things I’ve done. Now you imitate me just as I’ve imitated the Father.’ ”

Evangelism is inevitably linked with risk

John P. Bowen, author of Evangelism for “Normal” People, notes that, as he rediscovered the stories of the first witnesses to Christ’s life, death and resurrection in the book of Acts, he realized that evangelism is inevitably linked with risk:

The risk of leaving the nest

The risk of going to people who are different

The risk of being different

The risk of physical danger

The risk of breaking the rules

Deep down inside we know this, and it is perhaps one of the primary reasons why we steer clear of evangelism. It’s risky to share a story, it’s risky to reach out and help someone, it’s risky to admit that we don’t know all the answers. But still, Bowen says, “The fact seems to be quite simply that the kingdom of God does not progress unless Jesus’ people are prepared to take risks.”

When we pray earnestly for others and for openness to see those people in whom God is already at work, when we listen carefully to the deepest needs and longings of other people, when people see “something different” at work in us and ask what it is, we will find ourselves facing a risk: Do I open up and let the Spirit work in and through me, or do I simply ignore the opportunity?

God calls us to take the risk. And the best part is, God promises that the Spirit will be with us to give us the words that are needed.

Called and sent for the sake of the world

We started with the promise, the comfort, and the challenge that evangelism is God’s idea, not ours, that evangelism at its core is God coming after us, even at our worst, to seek reconciliation with those who have set themselves up as God’s enemies. We’ve heard that evangelism is not something that we choose to do or not do; rather it is at the center of our baptismal calling. We’ve heard that evangelism is not simply one individual “saving” another individual, but that it is rooted in, radiates from and is an invitation into a community where justice and love prevail over selfishness and individualism. We’ve heard that evangelism is best understood as a process, based on trusting relationships, that takes time and involves the Spirit working through many people. These are insights that can profoundly change our understanding of evangelism and our reluctance to respond to this God-given call.

Yet two questions remain: What does this mean for individual Christians? How can I, as a follower of Jesus, become more like Jesus in the way that I show and tell God’s love to others? And second: What does this mean for our congregations? What can we do to create and nurture faith communities where love of God and love of neighbor shine like a beacon—a community that will be intriguing and attractive to those who are looking for God, and for a better life?

John P. Bowen, Evangelism for “Normal” People, Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis, 2002

Douglas John Hall, The Cross in Our Context, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2003.

Evangelism for individual Christians

Be constant in worship and in the study of the scriptures. Before we can tell the story of God’s love, we must know the stories that tell us of God’s love. Every time we gather for public worship and hear the gospel, we grow in faith, we are forgiven our past failures, and we are invited to respond anew to God’s desire to be at work in and through our lives. As evangelism is a process that takes time, so is our growth in faith a process that occurs over a lifetime. The Holy Spirit shapes us for mission through the continuous encounter with the scriptures, both in personal study and in corporate worship. And as we grow in faith and discipleship, we will find ourselves, as Hall notes, “being sent with increasing insistence ‘into all the world.’ ”

Be clear on what the gospel is. Bowen explains, “It’s no good saying, ‘Evangelism is sharing the gospel,’ unless we know what the gospel is.” He continues, “The good news is not that God meets our needs, even the genuine spiritual needs for forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit. The good news is not simply that God rescues individuals from hell and gets them into heaven. That’s far too narrow and self-centered a view to count as ‘the gospel.’ The gospel is far bigger than that.

“The good news is that God has not given up on us and this world. God is determined to make a brand new world out of the mess we have made of the old one. In a sense, the gospel message is the whole Bible because this is its major theme: from beginning to end, God acting in our world for redemption.” Evangelism, while it is “God’s idea,” is also part of our baptismal call to participate in the redemption of the world.

Know your own story. Again, Bowen is helpful: “May I ask a personal question? What is the gospel according to you? In other words, in what way has Jesus been good news in your life? How has the breaking in of God’s kingdom to this world touched your life? Or to put it less dramatically, what is it about God that keeps you hanging in as a Christian despite all the hassles? When so many are giving up on church as bad news, what is the good news about your [community of faith] that feeds your soul?” That last question should not be overlooked as our stories all involve one or more communities of faith that have nurtured and fed us.

“Whatever that kernel of good news is in your life,” Bowen continues, “it is crucial to your ability to evangelize. You may not feel able to communicate the macro-gospel to anyone, but you can certainly say something about the micro-gospel. You do not need to be eloquent, you certainly don’t need to be aggressive, and I promise you don’t need to learn special sales techniques. All you need, at the heart of things, is a story—your story of why you think Jesus is good news.”

Meet regularly with other Christians and find clarity on the questions Bowen poses. Telling your story to these other Christians first will help when you have the opportunity to tell it to someone who is looking for God. Hearing the faith stories of other Christians will help clarify your own.

Pray. Ask God to open your eyes to people in whose lives God is already at work. They surround you in your everyday life.

Listen. Listen not only to the urging of the Spirit in your prayers, listen as well to the people in your life. Let the story of Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman be your guide. Listen not only to what people say; listen to what their lives and their actions tell you. Build relationships with these other people through empathy and care. Remember that evangelism is as much about deeds as it is about words. What “cup of water” can you give these other people that will show them that you care and understand?

Pray. Know that God wants to grow closer to you and to the other people in your life. Pray that God will open your eyes to what it is that the people in your life are asking, and what it is they need to hear. Pray for the ability to reveal God’s love to other people through the telling of your own story. And remember that evangelism is inevitably linked with the willingness to take a risk.

Invite people to come and see God’s people at work. Remember Nicky’s story, and how she began to notice that Sarah and the other Christians seemed to live in a way that was different from everyone else she knew. Open the door for the Spirit to use other Christians in your faith community to bear witness to God’s love.

Pray. Pray for the Spirit to be stirred up in this other person’s life. Pray that the Spirit will walk through the door that has opened in this person’s life and continue the process of moving her or him toward Christ. And know that ‘conversion’ is not your job. Conversion belongs first to the Spirit, and second to the community. “Evangelism is the work of the whole Christian community,” Bowen writes. “If each person does what they are gifted to do, however insignificant any individual piece may seem, a rich tapestry of evangelism will result.” Because a faith community is so diverse, the Spirit can work through a wide variety of people and evangelism can take on as many forms as there are people who are looking to hear the good news.

Remember that conversion is a process. What is important is not “crossing the line,” but continually moving toward Christ. We’re all in the process of becoming, all the time.

Christian living does not mean to be good but to become good; not to be well, but to get well; not being but becoming; not rest but training. We are not yet, but we shall be. It has not yet happened. But it is the way. Not everything shines and sparkles as yet, but everything is getting better.

Martin Luther

Evangelism in the congregation

Finally, what do these insights about evangelism mean for our congregations? How might they affect our corporate witness? In addition to the usual projects of an evangelism committee, like greeters, letters and visits to those who worship with us, and “Invite a Friend” Sundays, what can we do to create and nurture faith communities where love of God and love of neighbor shine like a beacon?

Pay attention to our worship life

Darrell Guder, quoting another author, says, “Therefore, ‘one of the primary and irreplaceable ingredients in evangelism is the quality of worship in the Christian community.’ ” Guder goes on to say, “What we need to grapple with is this: Not all evangelization is worship, but all worship is evangelization.” How we worship, what message is proclaimed, whether people find hope, meaning and purpose in worship, and how we incorporate those who are looking for God are all critical to our corporate witness.

Many hear the call to “pay attention to our worship life” as a call to engage in what has become known as the worship wars. Some maintain that, if we are serious about evangelism, we need to change our form or worship, or at least the music. Again, Guder notes, “Merely changing the externals of worship will not meet the crisis.” Both ‘contemporary’ and ‘traditional’ forms of worship can be faithful, Christ-centered, and effective means of evangelism; both ‘contemporary’ and ‘traditional’ forms of worship can be self-serving, uninspired and deadly to our corporate witness.

There are others who maintain that, in order for worship to be an effective means of evangelism, the message should be couched in terms that “meet the felt needs” of those who attend. While Jesus often met the needs of people he encountered by providing healing and hope, he certainly didn’t dispense blessings like a religious vending machine. In fact, more often than not he challenged people and called people to change in ways that they could never have expressed in terms of “needs.”

For far too long, due in large part to modernity’s emphasis on the primacy of the individual, worship in our congregations has been focused on the needs and desires of the individual worshiper. “Paying attention to our worship” means, in part, making sure that the subject of our worship is always God, not the “expressed needs” of those who are present. Mary Jo Leddy, writing in Confident Witness—Changing World, writes, “When we know God loves us for nothing, only then do we begin to contemplate, ‘Can we love God for nothing, for no reason? Not for what we will get out of it. Not for how God shores up the church and helps us increase and multiply. But rather, can we love God because God is God?’ That is the beginning of worship. Worship services are not yet worship when we ask what we are going to get out of it.” Guder adds, “The ‘gospel which meets my needs’ must be replaced with the good news that reveals needs I did not know I had while providing healing I never dreamed was possible.”

Others worry that the form of worship and the symbols that the church has used for the past two millennia is foreign to most people today, and therefore will harm the church’s ability to witness. While we certainly need to pay attention to the “user friendliness” of our worship, we don’t need to change everything to make worship relevant.

An excursus: I don’t like ice hockey. The music is much too loud, and far too raucous. I don’t know the rules, and I don’t understand the game. What does the National Hockey League need to do to get me to attend their games? Change the music? Install bases and make players run from first to second and on to home? No, I need someone to take me to a game, buy me something to eat and drink, explain the rules, tell me who the players are, introduce me to other fans, so that I can enjoy the game. (Providing some earplugs might be helpful, too.)

Guder writes, “public worship is the first and central form of witness to the world. It is at the same time a demonstration of the reality of God that cannot be, in every way, understandable and accessible. The watching world must see a community of people who love the God they are addressing, who love each other, and who desire to carry their God’s love into the world. That watching world will not necessarily understand the significance of broken bread, poured out wine, or baptismal washing. They will not know what is happening when people pray… But even as they do not understand, they will witness the difference that the presence of God makes in the midst of this community. They will see good news happening, whether they can join in worship of the one true God or not.”

“Paying attention to our worship” also means building the sense that we are called and sent into our worship, for the sake of the world. Like Lutheran Book of Worship did in making baptism central to our worship and our self-understanding, so do we now need to build our call to witness into the very fabric of our worship. The dismissal at the end of the service is a good start: not the “Thanks be to God” part (in which some people might be saying, “Thank goodness, church is done for the week”) but the “Go in peace, serve the Lord” part. We would do well to expand the sending rite, and to clarify what it means to “serve the Lord,” especially in terms of witness.

The story of the disciples and their encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus is one possibility for expanding the sending rite. Luke tells us that, as soon as the disciples recognized Jesus (interestingly in the breaking of the bread) they 1) rose, 2) returned, 3) found the people who had heard preliminary reports about Jesus’ rising, and 4) told them about their encounter with Jesus. Rose-returned-found-told; it could be a pattern for a new sending rite. There are many other such ways to instill in worship the sense that we are called and sent, for the sake of the world.

Build community

Guder states that “to enter into the kingdom means to experience the forgiveness of sins, the liberation from all the demons which possess us, the gift of new life, and the invitation to a new kind of community.” Worship certainly conveys the first three of Guder’s four aspects of entering the kingdom. But if the last aspect, invitation to a new kind of community, is not present in our congregations, the first three will remain detached and individualized.

Jesus came proclaiming, “The kingdom of God has come near.” While his promise can be confusing to modern ears, it is a promise that something new is always knocking at the door. And Bowen notes that ‘something new’ “is not just the chance for individuals to relate to God in a new way, but the birth of a new community…where God [will] once again be acknowledged as king, not just in words or even in the life of godly individuals, but in the life of a community.”

If evangelism is a result of vibrant faith communities, as stated earlier, then we not only need to pay attention to our worship life, we need to pay attention to the kind of community we are building.

Indeed, “God is concerned in the first place,” as Bowen writes, “to create a community committed to twin foci: love of God and love of neighbor—a community that will be intriguing and attractive to outsiders.” As we build a community where God’s people live in God’s way—as an alternative to the ways of the world—our life together will be “a powerful magnet for everyone searching for truth and compassion, for justice and dignity, for meaning and hope.”

Help people know and tell their faith story

Lutherans are known for being hesitant to tell our faith stories to other people, even people we know and trust. The funny thing is, we will eagerly share our faith stories, as long as no one tells us that we are “sharing our faith story.” Questions as simple as, “Tell me about your spiritual journey; Have you always been Lutheran?” can often open the floodgates for those whom Garrison Keillor calls the “frozen chosen.”

We took time in our 2003 synod assembly to meet for an hour in small groups. In that setting, we studied and talked about the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. Using Jesus as a model, we explored why we are so afraid of entering into such conversations, and we discussed what it might mean for us to invite someone to “come and see” for themselves.

Numerous Bible studies on evangelism are available, and we would be wise to take advantage of them. Another option is to get existing small groups in the congregation to walk people through the “Evangelism for individual Christians” section (above). Offering people the opportunity to speak their faith story in a safe setting and to hear the faith stories of others would be a good way to help people know and tell their story of why they think Jesus is good news. Congregations need to help their members speak their faith when they are together, so that they are prepared to say it when they are in the world as God’s called and sent people in mission.

Read, study, know and discuss the Bible

While hearing the scriptures proclaimed and interpreted in public worship is where most Christians start their faith development, unfortunately that public proclamation is where too many Christians end their faith development as well. It is important to hear the Word proclaimed in worship, but it is also important that our congregations steadfastly work to provide places where people can learn and know the scriptures. “Rigorous biblical learning,” Guder says, “must be the missional congregation’s priority. The congregation intentionally commits most of its time together in biblical study—which takes place in many different ways.”

At a congregational council meeting not long ago, I asked the members to open a Bible (which I had to provide for them) to Philippians. Ten out of twelve of the people present turned directly to the index. How can we expect people to share the story of God’s love if we don’t know it?

Bible study is more than just learning the order of the books. Members need to learn what it means to think and live as a disciple of Christ; they need to learn how to see the world through Jesus’ eyes; they need to become biblically literate so that they can be effective translators of the gospel in their daily lives.

Bowen puts “knowing our faith story” and “knowing the story of God’s love” into terms of the “micro-gospel” and the “macro-gospel.” He writes, “The macro-gospel alone can seem abstract, impersonal, and remote (God has a plan for the universe). The micro-gospel alone becomes narcissistic and individualistic (God exists to meet my needs). But the two together represent, I believe, the balance that exists in the Bible itself. We need both. More than that, we need to become comfortable with both.” And our congregations can be communities “capable of forming people with the ability to witness to God’s love” when we do all that we can to give people the opportunity to read, study, know and discuss the Bible.

Connect members’ daily lives with witness

I have harbored a desire to put a large sign over the entrance to our congregation’s worship space that invites, “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” (Isaiah 2:5) The surprise would come when worshipers turn to leave through the same doors through which they entered: Over the doors, on the way out, would be a message that challenges us, “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

But people won’t know how to “walk in the light of the Lord” in their daily lives if congregations don’t help members understand how their baptism connects with their vocation. Guder writes, “The concept of membership as a status, an accomplished level of spiritual attainment, must be replaced with a lifelong process of calling and response that could be called ‘vocation to mission.’ ”

The newly restored catechumenate concludes the process of bringing people into the church with a rite of affirmation of vocation. This is one deliberate attempt to integrate the newly-baptized’s faith with the concept of the church at work in the world.

Congregations can and should take up the task of challenging its members, individually, as families, and as groups to identify the specific shape of their ministry in the world. “Every Christian community,” Guder writes, “should see itself as a community of missionaries. Its responsibility to them is to guide them to identify God’s calling, to recognize the gifts and opportunities they have, to provide them the biblical and theological training to incarnate the gospel in their particular fields, and then to commission them to that ministry. Our structures of membership need to be transformed into disciplines of sending.”

Our congregation has begun the process of supporting our members for witness in their daily lives. We are attempting to put into place what Guder recommends: “For whoever seeks the congregation’s support and guidance for mission, there should be a process of nurturing which leads to the commissioning of individuals or families.” Granted, we are beginning with the commissioning of like-groups: teachers, medical workers, and farmers. Our hope is that once members see other members being commissioned for service in their vocation, they will seek guidance in determining their own area of service and support for carrying out Christ’s mission in their daily lives.

Guder concludes, “If a mission community saw itself primarily as the Spirit’s steward of the calling and gifts of its members, its internal activities would, in one sense, diminish. It would spend much less time on providing activities that take its members out of the world. It would devote more of its times of gathering for the equipping, support, and accountability of its member-missionaries… Our concept of ‘active church member’ would, of course, have to change.”

Commit ourselves to prayer

Of course none of this will do any particular good unless it is bathed in prayer. Pastors need to continually pray for the Spirit to stir up a desire among the members of the congregation to know and understand God and God’s will for them and for their congregation. The intercessory prayers of the church should specifically name and support the various ministries of the congregation’s member/missionaries. In addition, just as meetings in the church include prayer, so should events (such as stewardship campaigns or “Invite a Friend Sunday”) be under girded by prayer.

But we also, as Lutherans, need to become more intentional in helping our members learn how to pray. We are known as people who are incredibly reluctant to pray in public. Certainly we can help people become more comfortable in that role. Pastors need to learn how to (gracefully) relinquish the role as the one who can always be counted on to offer an eloquent prayer in public. Members should be trained and encouraged so that they too can offer a meal blessing or open a meeting with prayer.

Yet we cannot stop there. I’ve discovered that, just as people don’t know how to find the book of Philippians, so are they unsure of how to pray, personally and privately. We need to help people learn the many ways to pray that Christians have discovered over the centuries. The tradition of prayer in the Christian community is deep and rich; we can accomplish great things, if only we will teach our members how to pray.

Letting the Spirit work in, among and through us

We have now come to the conclusion of Evangelism Illuminations. I thank you for the opportunity to have been in conversation with you about this important topic. Many ideas and suggestions have been presented in these articles over the past two years, and I am (obviously) not the first person to present them. The changes in attitude and practice that have been suggested will take time, prayer and experimentation to implement and to yield results. Any emphasis that simply puts pressure on its members to “share Jesus” with others runs the risk of increasing the chasm that already exists between our people and our God-driven call to be witnesses. I am urging that we allow room for the Spirit to be at work, that we attend first to the vitality of our worship, the quality of our life together in community and the spiritual formation of our people. Any faith community that allows room for the Spirit to be at work in, among and through both its community life and its members will not lack for witness or for witnesses to the amazing love and the redemptive work of God in Christ.