So How is Evangelism Working for You?

The Gospel truly  matters if we want evangelism to work

Khen Lim




Image source: thecapranica.com

In a 2008 survey, roughly three in every ten Americans are either atheistic or agnostic, or they believe a ‘higher power’ exists but not as a personal God in a personal relationship. And the trend was said to be sliding. A 2014 Pew Research called ‘Religious Landscape Study’ says faith in God is on a decline, confirming the suspicion that even within Protestants, the erosion appears unstoppable.

The online Wikipedia tells us that many indigenous tribes in East Malaysia are converting to Christianity and one local blogger suggests that no more than one percent of the country’s population are atheists or as some put it, ‘freethinkers.’ Yet Christians are under the intense pressure of persecution in myriad ways. While evangelism is alive, one wonders how effective – or believable – it has been.

The fundamental issue isn’t about how a person respond to Christ because that is a matter that is in God’s sovereign hands. What is of greater concern and something we have responsibility and control over is how we get the person to hear the Gospel. Paul writes in 2 Tim 4:2, “Preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season.”

He also wrote in Col 4:5-6, saying, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” In Rom 10:17, he says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ.”

So I offer in this article, to focus on two reasons why our evangelism might not be yielding as effectively as it should.

Image source: christumc-charlotte.org

Is it done in grace?

Evangelism is our responsibility, says Paul, but it’s more than just that. He continues by telling us to do it ‘in person,’ meaning to do it in the flesh in deference to the usual out-of-body – or excarnate – experience. Paul refers to the incarnate approach in which our evangelism should come from deep within ourselves.

Surely we can remind ourselves of a more passive Christian who hurriedly and clinically gets Jesus off his chest at work and into some banal conversation piece. Or a time when I thought I was genuinely sharing the Gospel with some friends at an open-air kopitiam at night when in fact, what I was doing was to impress others around to overhear us.

We can also see active evangelists crawling the Internet and trolling blogsites to engage people in order to win arguments ‘for Christ’ when in fact, they lose more than gain believers. Therein lies the new off-with-the-gloves street corner, the free-for-all comments section in a blog.

While all of these are a rising trend among Christians with a zealous fighting spirit, they lack wisdom. Rather than treating people with concerned love, they regard them as projects to complete and missions to accomplish. Maybe you have or haven’t been on the receiving end of an evangelistic project but imagine how you would feel about such efforts if you were treated as such.

Picture, for a moment, a JW evangelist or an American Mormon ‘elder’ on a bicycle who persistently and incessantly visits your home. Would you consider them pushy pluralists at work? Do you feel loved by them or do you feel used…as if in a high-pressure sales situation? Do you, for a minute, think they considered how you might feel at the hot blustery end of a hairdryer treatment?

Paul reminds us, saying, ‘know how you ought to answer each person.’ He means that we should explain the Gospel not in a canned form. We should, in other words, adopt a listening evangelism where the greater importance lie in knowing each person rather than just spewing and spluttering. How else can we ever know how to respond to each person otherwise?

When American Evangelical Christian theologian and Presbyterian pastor Francis August Schaeffer (1912-1984) was asked how he would spend an hour with an unbeliever, he said, “I would listen for fifty-five minutes, and then, in the last five minutes, I would have something to say.”

Image source: gracechurchdawsonville.org

Begone our foolish ways

Evangelism should be personal, Paul also says, but again, it’s more than that. He also says that we ought to do it with wisdom, which is more than mere head knowledge but an expression of knowledge acquired through sincere understanding. This is knowledge that takes into account life circumstances. It is applied knowledge with a good touch of people skill. We could sum all this up and say, this is evangelism from the heart, with love personified.

Instilling love into our evangelism efforts will help slow us down considerably. It might make us inefficient but that’s actually a good thing because it drags us back enough for us to have the opportunity to understand the people we’re trying to reach and to comprehend their objections to the Gospel.

Love allows us the recognition that people are complex beings but it also equips us to meet them in their need be it in sufferance, or in despair, whether they are indifferent or cynical or in a confused state. Our evangelism should be preceded by a desire to help people bring to surface their hesitations and resistance.

I remember a time before I was married when I met up with a very learned friend for dinner. Thirty minutes into our time together, he said, ‘That’s enough about me with all your questions. I want to ask you questions now.’ I replied, ‘Sure, go ahead and ask. But I also want to know you enough so that my answers to your questions become relevant to you. I want to be wise and purposeful in how I respond.’

After that, he began to reveal more about his personal self, opening up quality time between us where I then began to understand his objections to Christianity. At the end of our dinner, we both concluded that it was a meaningful time spent and promised one another that we should do this more often. And we did. Today, he is not only married to a Christian but he was also baptised as one. They have a little daughter today as well.

Image source: intervarsity.org

Going by rote and saying, ‘Jesus died on the cross for your sins’ alone doesn’t cut it. It isn’t walking in wisdom if people don’t know what that means. They don’t share the same idea as we have about ‘Jesus’ or ‘sins’ or the ‘cross’ and if they’re a cynical bunch, we’re simply opening ourselves up for a barrage of counter-fruitlessness. While there remain parts of the ‘old Malaya’ that still has cultural memories of the colonial Christian culture, people can still misconstrue them for ‘moral teaching,’ or being ‘good’ and so on.

We seriously need to hold back long enough to think of what they mean and why people are having so much trouble with what we’re trying to do. I believe, more often than not, there is some kind of pain that they are associated with.

Rather than simply go through the motions and assert them, we must explain these important truths and more. If we are to get past that assumption that ours are mere ‘moral teachings,’ we must then help people to distinguish cultural conceptions from a true understanding of the Gospel. Only then do we get to say we have moved evangelism forward in wisdom. Of course we won’t get there overnight but that is not to say we shouldn’t try.

Every church, including Hosanna EFC, must view evangelism as a long-term proposition and not a project with a due date. To change our mindset, we need to stop checking off lists and learn not to troll blogs and upstage others with our theological prowess. Neither should we submit to the pressure of performing just to impress others. Let us be in-the-flesh and not be out-of-body in our evangelistic efforts. Stop rushing but instead, think, be wise and do a little more listening than ever before, and while we’re at it, love them with all our hearts.

Remember, most of the conversions are unlikely ever to come from single, one-time conversations but instead they are usually the culmination of some degree of sweaty effort that comprises in-the-flesh reflection, Gospel witnessing, real outbound love, even doubt, and of course, the real work of the Holy Spirit. These are the collective process that puts a personal stamp on every evangelising effort you make to each person you meet.

Above all, don’t pressure yourself too much. Conversion is never something we do. We just do the witnessing of the Gospel; it is in God’s hands to convert. All we do is to share the unprecedented works of Christ, the amazing Good News and the promises that come with it. In other words, the Gospel truly matters if we want evangelism to work.