Can the beauty of God speak for itself?

Archie Honrado


To contemplate God is to see beauty.

What a pleasure to see a piece of installation art speak for itself. In one of my pieces entitled “Wastebasket,” several crumpled pieces of paper are scattered around a wastebasket. To make it beautiful and simple installation art, I put a soft, aqua-blue spotlight on it. In this prayer station, I proposed two questions: How should you be looking at this art? and What do you want to do here? I witnessed two different reactions. A boy and his mom emptied the wastebasket on the floor, and the boy declared, “Just like God, dumping my waste.” A different family put all the crumpled papers in the basket without any comment.

I lived in Western Europe and was immersed in the architectural beauty of their sacred spaces, and I couldn’t agree more with Thomas Merton when he felt the presence of Jesus through the architecture of their cathedrals. But sadly, most of the cathedrals have become more like museums. After my time in Europe, I moved to Los Angeles—a land where I was concerned that my need to experience religion through sacred art could become malnourished. I know, I was a bit of a snub. I realized art’s limitation when I went to places like the Getty Museum. Museums and galleries put art on pedestals—not just literally—and unnecessarily venerate the creators.

I am most intrigued and mystified when artists allow their art to speak for itself. The less they say about their art, the more it speaks to me. I am drawn to it because of the lack of noise it makes. No wonder there’s an aspect of God’s beauty, character, and nature that speaks for itself. This reminds me of Psalm 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the works of his hand.”

Have you ever been to a mediocre art show, music concert, movie, or even worship service and walked away half satisfied? We long and yearn for beauty; nature is good at satisfying this need. We get disappointed at a mediocre artistic expression or show. We subconsciously want to symbolize the beauty of God in us because we demand God-like performance from imperfect creators imitating the beauty of God, don’t we?

Have you noticed how the experiential worship style continues to grow in popularity? There is a cautionary tale about experiential worship spaces that unknowingly mimics what artists and curators in museums try to achieve—a pure art-imitating life, or an educational experience—but often, they push their boundaries and flirt with providing patrons with a religious experience or otherworldly transcendence. That is why I copy them sometimes or get inspired by them. These avant-garde artists and museum curators are no doubt brilliant at transporting us to a world of beauty. It is a beauty, however, that in some ways only counterfeits God’s invitations to God’s beauty.

Creating sacred space can be limiting and limited to a museum type of experience only. Let us not create artsy, sacred space that venerate art and relegate the art of daily living out of God’s dwelling beauty in us. We can only try to create something powerful that will open us up into the awareness of God’s presence in our lives and not just an ornamental space like the post-modernists dictate. Imagine the psalm I have seen your sanctuary and behold your beauty and strength being reflected inside a staid, nineteenth-century, industrial-era building design. Can the beauty of God be seen in such a space?

God’s beauty can only be gauged by us. We’ve all been awed by nature and have thanked God for the beauty, right? What about the beauty found in the art of doing the dishes and the laundry? Do you revel in God’s beauty that is present in your quotidian living, and not only in spaces venerated or consecrated? When we do mundane stuff soulfully, the beauty of God will speak.

When we live our lives before the face of God daily, whether in the mundane, in the sensational, in affliction, or even in the virtuality of our realities, the beauty of God will speak for itself.

“Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.” –David Hume, Essays, Moral and Political, 1742.

To contemplate God is to see beauty and be invited to live in it.


Archie Honrado is a passionate worshiper of God and a 25-year veteran of children, youth, and family ministry through Youth With a Mission(www.ywam.org) in Los Angeles.  He is also the Los Angeles city coordinator for the DeVos Urban Youth Leadership Initiative.  He creates and guides prayer walks and curates prayer space for Youth Specialties and is a speaker with the Urban Youth Workers Institute (www.uywi.org). 


 





Lilly Lewin


I would say yes, the beauty of God can speak for itself, if we understand it; if we have access to it; and if we are encouraged to look for it.

When I think of the beauty of God, I think of a sunset over Lake Michigan, or the silhouette of the Olympic Mountains on the horizon with their snow-covered peaks against the crystal-blue sky of Washington State. I also think of my kids, especially when they were born; the beauty of those small faces, hands, and those amazing little toes.

For me, the beauty of God is about experience. I’ve experienced the beauty of God listening to music—like Handel’s Messiah. Or I’ve seen God’s beauty through others’ creativity in great works of art at the Cincinnati Art Museum and the National Gallery in London. As a visual person and an artist, I hunger for beauty, especially in vistas. God’s beauty found in nature always inspires me.

We all need help seeing the beauty of God—both the tangible beauty in creation and the beauty of God as our Father and Creator. Too often, we have placed ourselves in boxes—in cubicles in office buildings and in boxes made of brick, wood, or stone that we’ve designated for worship. For me, I’d rather be at the lake, on the beach, by a campfire in the woods, or even in my backyard. I’ve always experienced more of God’s presence and his beauty just from being outside, rather than in the building designated for the job.

In high school I sat in the balcony of our church and gazed out the window at the trees, wondering what God was talking about and doing out there. I met Jesus at camp in the mountains of North Carolina, and it’s still much easier for me to connect with God by taking a walk and watching the sunset. Thankfully I’ve had access to the beauty of God and have chosen to go after it.

Sadly, people often have limited access to the beauty of God. Or, we have access, but we don’t really live like we do. When we engage God on Sunday, it’s a routine and just the same as last week.

Living urban without resources; it’s a thing that closes us from the beauty of God. The authors of the Bible certainly never saw the dreary inner cities of major American metropolitan areas in the middle of winter. Yet tons of people in inner-city ugliness worship Jesus better than any suburban or rural people. Does poverty really prevent someone from seeing the beauty of God? I do think it makes it harder. In fact, George Hunter, in The Celtic way of Evangelism, says that we live in a pagan society today because so many of us live in the land of concrete jungles—places where trees and mountains and rolling hills and rivers are nowhere to be found. How do we help change this and help people engage in the beauty of God, even in a city?

We need to reacquaint our communities with the beauty and mystery of God. We need to provide ways for them to experience nature, like retreats and parable walks and times just to be outside in God’s beauty. Also, we need times to create. We need time for art, music, writing, poetry, etc. We need to help ourselves and others learn to practice silence and being still with God for longer than two minutes at a time.

We’ve either been trapped in our cars, driving on pavement from box store to box store, or we are in front of computer screens most of the day, so we are unable to see what beauty lies around us. We have lost beauty in busyness and in our need for organization and practicality. Thankfully, beauty for beauty’s sake can be rediscovered through art and exploration and pilgrimage to places of beauty and spiritual significance. It just takes time and practice and giving ourselves permission to try something new.

So I started taking students and our family on pilgrimages to experience places of beauty and spiritual significance. In the last few years, our church community had a bi-monthly practice of going to the Cincinnati Art Museum to listen to Scripture and see where God is and how God might speak to us through the various art pieces. Art Walk became a big part of my personal church experience, and I have spent the last decade designing spaces of beauty—sacred space—where people have time to experience God’s presence and engage his Word through all of their senses. And I have friends in Kiev doing medical missions because an entire church was founded there, thanks to a group of Ukrainian musicians who played and sang Handel’s Messiah for the first time and wanted to know the person they were singing about! The beauty of God in music and art is truly powerful!

Can you see the beauty of God if you want to? Can you choose to see it anywhere? According to the Bible, if we have seen the sun or the stars, we’re without excuse. So I’m toast. I’ve seen the beauty of God. I have to continually choose to see God’s beauty, and my desire is to help others learn how to engage God’s beauty for themselves. I’m choosing to make time to experience the beauty of God my Lenten practice this year. I’m looking forward to just being in his presence in the beauty of his world.




Steve Argue


Beautiful things are reflections of the creator. God speaks and creates (Genesis 1). Creation speaks in praise (Psalm 19; 150). Creation speaks to creation. Let’s not miss God’s beauty speaking within us and around us, that interprets and needs interpreting.

There is beauty within. Sadly, there are too many messages that tell us we’re not good enough, healthy enough, pretty enough, or productive enough. Being human is often described as a deficiency rather than an asset. I’m not calling for some sort of self-love that demands the entire world to worship me. Rather, I believe that God’s good news is our good news—that the best we can bring each day is our God-given, image-bearing selves. It’s when we resist this or try to bring someone else that we betray our beauty. Embrace the reality that God created you and calls you “very good.”

There is beauty around. It’s easy to believe this at a sunset, sitting on the beach, skiing down a mountain, or walking through the woods. It is much more difficult in traffic, in arguments, in tragedy, and in devastation. As a result, people can quickly fall into half-empty or half-full camps that either naively choose to see the world through the lens of Disney or who are unable to see beyond darkness and despair.

It seems to me that the hopeful message of Jesus is that we can find God’s beauty in everything. The obvious beauty (sunsets, laughter, happiness) doesn’t escape our attention, and we celebrate with it. Vigilant beauty-seeking rescues us from blinding routines that dull our senses to the miracles that are all around.

The less evident beauty is increasingly seen through a lens that is fueled by hope as we walk the crowded streets, seeing each person as made in the image of God; as we see the profound masterpiece of each awkward adolescent and as we discover that even our greatest enemies are more like us than different.

God’s beauty also moves us to weep over beauty’s absence. Those who seek beauty weep more over events of war, devastation, and oppression. They see systemic poverty as their own, own up to being part of the problem, and look to be part of the solution. They pray for all people, their own, for those in hellish situations, and for the people their country chooses go to war with.

They find that the beauty in our world is found in the blurred lines that resist being divided by conservative/liberal; modern/postmodern; male/female; Christian/Muslim; gay/straight. Beauty is found in third, creative ways that hope for all people everywhere. Thus, noticing beauty is more than an activity for the ignorant, young, hopeless artists, or the inefficient. It’s for all of us to notice, to name, to celebrate, to enter into.

Beauty interprets and needs interpreting. Does the beauty of God “speak for itself?” It certainly is speaking, and like any good message, it has layers of meaning. No one gets the message of love once. It takes on deeper and deeper meaning. No one values friendship because they acquired it once. It grows deeper, multifaceted qualities.

So it is with God’s beauty. As we understand (intellectually, experientially, developmentally) God’s story, it interprets what we see. And what we see interprets God’s story. Sometimes our experiences run ahead of our understanding, and we crave words/art/music to interpret what we’ve felt. Sometimes we know cognitively the concepts of love, grief, or faithfulness, but it bursts with color when we experience what we know.

Thus, I find I am drawn to the people who have thought and lived deeply. Beauty isn’t an experience or a concept but something that has been interwoven into the very person. There’s a quality in their words, a safety in their presence, a mystery I long to discover, a hope that runs deep. This is evidence of beauty discovered and beauty joined. Life lived here inspires everyone to join in, responding to God’s hopeful embrace that is speaking faithfully, perpetually, beautifully.


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What is the Imago Dei, and how does it impact evangelism?

Brooklyn Lindsey


I like to think of the imago dei as the term that describes our spiritual DNA. It informs our past and helps us look forward to the future—where we can and will be transformed if we desire to be.

The biblical and theological term imago dei refers to the image of God. It is central to the Christian’s response to the Creator. There is no other being that was or has been created that bears the stamp of God’s image. Genesis 1:26-27 tells us that God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. When we were created, we reflected God’s likeness.

We reflected it in dominion; our God-given abilities (caring for the earth and the animals around us) were exercised with God’s moral righteousness. That is, until sin captured our hearts and turned us inward—we were able to live in love as only God could teach us.

We see the image of God reflected in the Son. Colossians 1:15 tells us that the Son is the image of the invisible God… When perfect fellowship with God was broken and sin marred the image, we found ourselves looking to the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. He is our hope of being renewed day by day, sanctified by truth, and restored again to the moral righteousness of God.

Of course, we all feel like we have a long way to go. I believe that God can and will remove our desire to willfully transgress against a known law of God. He can and will rescue our hearts from sin and our wills from selfishness.

How does it impact evangelism? It’s the key to evangelism. The emptying of our selves—the restoration of God’s image in us as we are refilled by the Spirit—makes room for deep love, not only for God but also for people in the world around us.

Knowing whose we are—whose image we bear—instead of thinking that the world defines and shapes our image, changes how we interact with others. It frees us to love. It frees us to forgive. It frees us to be ourselves, creating a gracious space for others to be themselves in the ways they were uniquely created. Gracious space. It’s so good to give.

The further we move inward, toward that still space where Jesus reshapes and reforms us—the potter removing any defects and reshaping us to his standard and artistry—the more likely we are to want that for others.

When our desires match God’s desires, we’ll do whatever it takes to obey the commands of Christ, to love as Jesus did, to look for moments when we can be a city on a hill and the salt of the earth. Humility and love will begin to take over where pride and selfishness once ruled the thrones of our hearts.

All that was lost in the fall of humankind can be restored. God promises us that it will be. It’s in that promise that we find hope. It’s in that hope that we have a reason to keep seeking the heart and motive of Jesus Christ. It’s in those motives that we find evangelism as a way of life. And that way of life returns us to our rightful place as children of God worshiping a loving and holy Creator—emptied so we might celebrate his fullness, together.



 





Kara Powell


In the last five years, I’ve come to see that the imago dei, or image of God, has profound impact on all we are and all we do. Specifically with sharing the gospel, I want to highlight two of its ramifications.

First, understanding that God has made every person in God’s image motivates us to share the good news. In the past, the imago dei has been understood largely from a substantive perspective, meaning that there was something in our very being as humans that reflected God’s image.

Many theologians and practitioners have shifted their focus to a relational view of the imago dei. God models relationship in the Trinity as Father, Son, and Spirit relate to each other. We as humans need relationship with other humans, as well as with God, to be complete.

When we recognize that this relationality is central to people’s very essence, we are motivated to share the gospel with them, in both word and deed.

During our Deep Justice research, I was consistently struck by how the imago dei motivated the kingdom lifestyle of the exemplars we surveyed. Jim Wallis from Sojourners explained in an interview that the imago dei was “central… Because we’re all made in God’s image, a kid living in a garbage dump in Mexico is just as important as my own kid. I’m going to pick up my two kids from school this afternoon and what has got to motivate me is that other people’s kids are just as important to God and to me as my own kids.”

Similarly, justice icon Dr. John Perkins commented during our research, “Fundamentally, we have to understand that all people are created in God’s image. That gives us all equal dignity before God. I don’t see how you can accept that other humans are created in God’s image with inherited dignity and then exploit them. Once we view others as created in God’s image, we won’t want them to live without him, and we won’t want them to live in unjust social structures.”

Second, an understanding of the imago dei in our evangelistic efforts reminds us that we have much to learn from others. God’s image is alive and well in every person. This allows us to create authentic, reciprocal relationships with folks who don’t know Jesus yet.

To be sure, folks who don’t have Jesus at the center of their lives are missing out on the most important reality of all time: the reality of God’s love for them and the joy that comes from pursuing Jesus. But I find that my best and most fruitful friendships with non-Christians happen when I am able to learn from them as they do their best to love their kids, care for the planet, and practice holistic living.


Chap Clark & Kara E. Powell, Deep Justice in a Broken World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 58. Ibid, 93.




Kara Powell, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) and a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary (see www.fulleryouthinstitute.org). As a 20-year youth ministry veteran, she speaks regularly at youth ministry conferences and is the author or co-author of a number of books, including Deep Justice Journeys, Essential leadership, Deep Justice in a Broken World, Deep Ministry in a Shallow World, and the Good Sex Youth Ministry Curriculum. She volunteers every week as a small group leader for junior girls at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena.

Mike King


I think this question is one of the most important questions that followers of Jesus Christ must consider and contemplate if we expect to recover a kerygma of gospel that truly becomes “good news” again to those in our culture who don’t profess Christianity.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. -Genesis 1:26, 27 NRSV

I could not even scratch the surface of the issues involved in defining the breadth of theological dialogue concerning what imago dei is and what it truly meant in the Old Testament and New Testament texts and what it currently means for soteriology and for being a “human being.” Most theologians and church leaders believe that something about being created imago dei (in the image of God) was broken or lost in the fall. Reformers John Calvin and Martin Luther were in agreement that some aspect of imago dei remained in sinful human beings.

The bottom line and springboard for me to jump into the issue of how imago dei impacts evangelism is to declare that something unique happened with God’s creation of human beings. The problem with evangelism in North America during the last several decades is the propensity to start the story of God’s relations with humanity in Genesis 3, with the fall, and an emphasis on human sin. It is essential, however, for us to start the story at its proper place in Genesis 1, with creation of human beings in the image of God.

Let’s help the young people in our churches understand that they, along with their friends and all humanity, were created imago dei. I found that you don’t have to convince people they are broken and sinful. Most people know something is amiss. When our primary objective is to communicate a message of how sinful people are, we are perceived as judgmental proselytizers.

I’ve been doing youth ministry for 35 years. Evangelism was the primary focus of my early youth ministry efforts. I taught evangelism. I did evangelism. I was called a “youth evangelist.”

In the late ’70s through the ’80s, I gave little thought to any theological implications concerning the hard-hitting, strong-armed, manipulative, bait-and-switch, hellfire tactics I engaged in to get kids “saved.” Throughout the 1990s, this style of evangelism became increasingly disturbing, not only to me but also to hundreds of youth workers in my social network.

I remember how uncomfortable it was to find a way to make sure people knew they were sinners headed for hell. I chastised myself with the reminder that I was not to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ. In spite of the self-motivation and self-condemnation for lacking the faith and courage to boldly let people know they were presently doomed, the attempts to remove my discomfort never worked. It just seemed wrong.

So I shifted my focus to discipleship and began a process of de-emphasizing evangelism, especially the kind I had engaged in within my youth ministry praxis.

However, three years ago, my passion to reengage evangelism returned. A combination of factors (Holy Spirit, conversation partners, theology, my church, experiences, Scripture) refueled my passion, imagination, and calling to begin reengaging in evangelism, although from a much broader theological perspective and different methodology.

My change in thinking about evangelism has been driven by deeper theological reflection concerning soteriology and ecclesiology. What does it mean to experience salvation? What role does becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ play in evangelism and salvation? How is evangelism connected to church? How does our society view proselytizing? What role does apologetics play in evangelism? How do we define apologetics in our current culture? These questions are really important, and the answers to these questions shape how evangelism is taught and practiced.

I remember when it dawned on me that I needed to share the whole story. The idea that we have to place a hyper-focus on our sinfulness in order to get people to respond to our evangelistic techniques does not work in our culture.

Evangelism happens naturally when God’s people live astonishing lives as people of crucifixion and resurrection. I have found it not only easier but also more human and natural to engage in unforced conversation, which often unfolds into a delightful opportunity to bear witness to every human being’s connection to the imago dei. I have found it a joy to be a blessing to people and make the connection to the unique ways they are cooperating with God, regardless of whether they know it.


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How does story play into sharing our faith?

Chris Folmsbee


Story is everything when we share our faith. After all, what is the gospel but the story of God’s will, way, and work of providing salvation and justice for all of humanity through the gift of God’s son, Jesus Christ?

Here are 10 ways that story plays into faith sharing:

Story makes things personal. It makes a personal God and a personal relationship with God comprehendible.

Story provides meaning. What else makes sense of this world and our place in this world but the story of God, self, others, and the world?

Story connects to community. It helps people connect to a people, a history, or a greater context.

Story connects people with people. While story connects people to a broader people, it also connects individuals to others with like affinities.

Story evokes the imagination. While history (in the classic sense) can feel stale to many, story can open up new possibilities. Story can help people visualize how their lives might be different.

Story provides purpose. Connection to a people, particularly the people of God, links not-yet believers to a grand mission in which to engage and to live out.

Story provides explanation. For many, story helps them make sense of their inner selves in light of the outer world.

Story produces forward thinking. Story has a way of making people who engage the story focus in on its ending. Story helps people make sense of the redemptive plan of God.

Story imparts compassion. On a personal level, understanding one another in light of others’ experiences and situations builds within each of us compassion to see with new, soft eyes of grace.

Story constructs a unique expression. Each of us has our own way of responding to the will, way, and work of God. Story helps not-yet believers find their place in God’s epic story.




 





Brooklyn Lindsey


Before I suggest how story fits in sharing our faith I think it’s important to think about the goal of our faith. Take a look at 1 Peter 1:8-9. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

The goal of our faith is the salvation of our souls—not just mine but yours too. We’re all in the same boat when it comes to where we start on the path to redemption. And it’s in that redemption, through Christ, that God is making all things new—restoring the imago Dei, or image of God, in the things that have been created for God’s glory.

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. Romans 3:23-24.

Donald Miller has a great understanding of story and how it helps us reach our goals—ours being the salvation of our souls, through the work of Christ. Miller writes in his blog why many goals don’t get met. “It’s because their goals aren’t embedded in the context of a narrative.”

In his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, you would see that he has reorganized his life into stories rather than goals. He mentions that he likes goals and sets them but notes this: “Without an overarching plot, goals don’t make sense and are hard to achieve. A story gives a goal a narrative context that forces you to engage and follow through.”

For example, I could set a goal to go without coffee and soda for a year. It’s a good goal. My blood sugar would love me for it, but knowing me, I would fail superbly. But if I put my goal into the context of a story, I might be able to do it. Let’s say giving up caffeine consumption for a year would save me around $500 a year—$500 is about half the money it takes to give $50 a month to the International Justice Mission (lawyers and caregivers who fight for the cause of the oppressed) for a yearly commitment to being a freedom partner. Let’s say I found a friend who also had this same passion. We decide, together, to save every penny we would spend on beverages for this cause in 2011 to raise the $1,000 to be partners in rescuing the oppressed. In this context, I wouldn’t fail—because the story gives life and meaning to the goal.

God knew we needed a story. God knew the importance of inspiring the writers of the Bible to preserve the details—we needed to know. Why? Because we needed to know reason we need redemption in the first place; we needed to know the depth of God’s love and sacrifice so we could then live in response to it. It changes the way we look at our goals.

When Jesus responded to the learners’ question about the most important way to live, he ranked loving God with our entire beings and loving our neighbors together as number one. He set a goal. He was telling his disciples the way to follow him. But he also gave them a great story to live in—sharing in his glorious riches through trials and temptations. He gave them the big picture.

Sharing our personal stories with others is the natural extension of the story Jesus told with his life. It’s easier to tell others how much God loves them when we give them the context of how God has loved us. The journey we’ve experienced with God foreshadows what could happen in someone else’s life. The story gives meaning to the sharing of our faith.

Jesus left his earthly story here with us when he gave us the gift of the Spirit. The story of redemption is alive and being played out in our journey. Sharing our stories not only plays a part in sharing our faith; it is how we impart the gospel to others. The Israelites looked back to the Exodus. We look back to the resurrection of Jesus and are able to say he has rescued us from sin and so many other things. Those “things” are our stories—the context of our being rescued—and those stories are compelling and rich and personal. At the same time, those personal stories are collective in the body and useful for the edification and encouragement of the people.

Most people want to be free. Most people want to be forgiven. Most people want to know what it feels like to experience unconditional love. Hearing how you’ve experienced all of these things may just be the bridge to their own stirring and curiosity for God. And in the midst of the telling, we find the gentle and prevenient grace of God doing the important work of love in our hearts.




















Helpful Resources:

Story, Signs, and Sacred Rhythms
by Chris Folmsbee

Mike King


“You have yet to understand that the shortest distance between a human being and Truth is a story.”* -Anthony de Mello

Without story it is impossible to share our faith. Furthermore, it is not possible to even have a faith to share without a story. As Christians, our story begins with these words: “In the beginning God created.” This story unfolds through the creation narratives, the exodus, the priestly accounts, the exile, the coming of Messiah, the gospels, and the church and ends with a glimpse into our future, thus becoming a story that gloriously has no ending. This overarching story of God at work in the world, of humanity’s role in that story, and of Jesus Christ, who is God for us, is a story that is actually alive and still unfolding. It is a true story that gives human beings real life and meaning.

Theologian Harvey Cox, in his book The Seduction of the Spirit wrote, “All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by… Religion, whatever else it has done, has provided one of the main ways of meeting this abiding need.”*

For us to even have Christian faith means that we have found our story as persons embedded in God’s story. There is a proverb from an anonymous Siberian elder that declares, “If you don’t know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you don’t know the stories you may be lost in life.”1

Sharing our faith should not be reduced to a formula focusing on rational arguments and systematic reasoning. Author Madeleine L’Engle weighs in on the role of story and faith. “The language of logical arguments, of proofs, is the language of the limited self we know and can manipulate. But the language of parable and poetry, of storytelling, moves from the imprisoned language of the provable into the freed language of what I must, for lack of another word, continue to call faith.”*

The story of my salvation and faith journey is still being formed. I find my story intertwined with the story found in Scripture. I know that my very life is miraculous. I’m alive. I was created in God’s image. I find myself in the creation story. I also know that I am broken and the image of God in me has been altered by sinfulness. I find my story in God’s movement toward restoration.

At times, it feels like my life resembles the exodus and God’s Spirit is leading me out of bondage. I find the possibility of salvation through the priestly story found in the Old Testament and fulfilled through Jesus Christ, our great High Priest. At other times, my faith story reminds me of the story of exile, and I feel distant from God, longing for restoration.

I am passionate about sharing my faith. I love to stir people’s imaginations to grasp the beginning of our story when God created all human beings in the image of God. Let’s start there. Let’s help the young people in our churches understand that they, along with their friends and all humanity, were created imago Dei. I found that you don’t have to convince people that they are broken and sinful.

Danish author Isak Dinesen declared, “To be a person is to have a story to tell.”* Our story is a wonderful story. It’s a story of creation and beauty. It’s a story of despair because of our brokenness and feeble but tragic attempts to circumvent God’s story. It’s a story that reveals a God who becomes most known to us through Jesus Christ, who makes restoration and new creation possible.

In the gospel of John, chapter one, are these profound words, which tell an amazing story: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it… And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

These words make sense because of story—a story that took centuries to develop. Right now, our Youthfront staff is reading the book What Is the Point of Being a Christian?, by Timothy Radcliffe. Last week we read, “It needed thousands of years before there was a language in which God’s word could be spoken in the form of Jesus. We needed all those experiences of liberation and exile, of the building and demolition of kingdoms. We needed innumerable prophets and scribes, poets and parents, struggling to find words before Jesus could be born as the Word.”2

Yes, a good story takes time to unfold. I believe the Christian story is true, and I find my story—the story of my life—in the story of God at work in the world. I can’t help but share it.
1 All quotes marked with * from www.storyteller.net - Quotes about Story and Storytelling, compiled by Patti J. Christensen
2 Radcliffe, Timothy. What is the Point of Being a Christian?, Burns & Oates, New York, 2005, pg. 79



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How has evangelism changed in the past two or three decades?

Mike King


Since I am in my 36th year of vocational youth ministry, I can respond to this question from the scope of my own experience. Evangelism was the primary focus of my early youth ministry efforts. To give more context to my evangelistic journey, see the September 7, 2010, Slant33 post. In the late ’70s and through the ’80s I gave little thought to any theological implications concerning the hard-hitting, strong-armed, manipulative, bait-and-switch, hellfire tactics I engaged in to get kids “saved.” Throughout the 1990s, this style of evangelism became increasingly disturbing, not only to me but also to hundreds of youth workers in my social network.

There are many reasons the practice of evangelism and the posture toward evangelism have changed so much in the last three decades. I’d like to think the primary reason for the change in my thinking about evangelism has been driven by deeper theological reflection concerning soteriology and ecclesiology. What does it mean to experience salvation? What role does becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ play in evangelism and salvation? How is evangelism connected to church? How does our society view proselytizing? What role does apologetics play in evangelism? How do we define apologetics in our current culture? These questions are really important, and the answers to these questions have dramatically impacted the issue of how evangelism is taught and practiced.

I strongly believe that the gospel, which means “good news,” has been defined and communicated in ways that has led to the good news not being genuinely and intuitively perceived as good news by most people outside the church. One of the reasons for this negative reaction has been the framing of the proclamation of our story of the gospel around a primary emphasis on how wicked and sinful human beings are.

We mistakenly corrupt the good news by starting the story of humanity in Genesis 3, with the fall. Yes, human beings are broken, but the story of humanity begins in Genesis 1, with God creating human beings in the image of God. Let’s tell the whole story! The idea that we have to place a hyper focus on our sinfulness in order to get people to respond to our evangelistic techniques does not work in our culture.

Several months ago I was verbally assaulted in a coffee shop by a young man involved in a college ministry who wanted to evangelize me. He started by asking if he could ask me a few questions that wouldn’t take more than “a couple minutes” of my time. His first question was, “Are you a good person?” I knew immediately where this was going. I replied, “Yes, I think I’m a good person.” He asked me if I was married. “Yes, for 35 years to my best friend.” His next question was, “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”

I told him that I found his question, 30 seconds into our conversation, to be quite inappropriate and personal. For the sake of the conversation, I explained to him that my wife is the only woman I have ever been intimate with. He then proceeded to find a variety of ways to prove that I really was a bad person who certainly had lusted after other women and was therefore an adulterer (based on Jesus’ Beatitudes) who had no hope unless I prayed a prayer that he had written up, ready for vile sinners to recite. This came with the promise that I wouldn’t have to spend eternity in hell.

Being the fatherly person I’ve become and because of my love for college-age young people, I spent more than an hour engaging in a theological and biblical discussion with him. His head was spinning, but I could tell that his heart was opening to imagine a more Christian way to share and live the good news. He had been assigned to travel a half hour away from his church to do evangelism. I explained to him that he was in the neighborhood of my church community and that we were engaged deeply with people on a regular basis. I asked him if he were to lead someone to Jesus Christ, would he come back to build a relationship and disciple the new convert, or would that be the last time he would see that person? He acknowledged that he was only focused on getting people to “pray the prayer.”

This zealous, well-intentioned young man wanted to get people to believe what he believed about salvation, sin, and Jesus Christ. This methodology focuses on the progression of Believe, behave, and belong. If we can just get people to believe the gospel, they will begin behaving properly, and eventually they can belong to our churches.

When I think about how evangelism has changed in the last three decades, I think that the progression of Believe-Behave-Belong has shifted to Belong-Behave-Believe. God has instituted the church to bear witness to the glory of God and (like Israel) be a blessing to the world. Evangelism happens quite naturally when we are entrenched in faith communities that are actively caught up in cooperating with God’s compelling work of restoration—restoration between people and God; between people and their own brokenness; between people and other people; and restoration of all creation.

As our God invites us into the divine fellowship of the Trinity, so we should invite people to join us in community. In my church, we are intentional about being actively engaged in our community and inviting people to come join us, even before they believe or really know what to believe. In fact, they often actually begin behaving like Christians before they really grasp (believe) what it means to be a Christian. We engage in activities of justice that people want to participate in. We also embody hospitality. We throw parties and tell stories of love, life, transformation, and hope. Evangelism happens naturally when God’s people live astonishing lives as people of crucifixion and resurrection. We must recapture the essence of the gospel story that is truly good news for all who hear and see it.

Recently I have seen the following quote used frequently in blogs and books. This description of Christians, written in the late second or early third century, is found in the Epistle to Diognetus.

“For the Christians are distinguished from other people neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life, which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct, which they follow, has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive people; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking way of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners.”1

This quote is consistent with the narrative in the book of Acts that describes Christians as a community of people who do astonishing things. The citizens of Jerusalem viewed Christians favorably because they were generous people who demonstrated love and concern for their neighbors along with proclaiming the great good news. As a result, people were being added to the church every day. Christians who are lovers of people and bearers of a story that is perceived as good news by those outside Christianity create a compelling environment for evangelism. Embodied Christianity creates a portal to salvation and the church.

1 Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Church Library, Edinburgh 1867, Volume 1, pg. 307.





Lilly Lewin


Well, the scary thing is that I actually remember three decades ago and remember how we were doing evangelism back in the dark ages of the ’80s. As a high school and college student, I really wanted people to know Jesus, and I really didn’t believe that only people with “the gift” were the ones called to evangelize. Honestly, though, I never believed I had the gift, and I was much more about relational evangelism than the in-your-face kind. As a college student, I was in student leadership in Intervarsity Christian Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. IVCF had a more relational approach to outreach and evangelism through small groups and mission trips, and that fit my personality better than cold calling or passing out tracts with the four spiritual laws written on them.

During my college years, my IVCF group sponsored a campus-wide outreach called Reason to Live that had nightly large-group gatherings in the basketball arena, packed out each night with students and faculty. Billy Graham was the speaker, but we only did an altar call on the last night, and we didn’t call it a crusade because, even back then, we felt that word was a negative.

The problem was long-term follow up. It too often didn’t happen. We told people the good news, asked them to receive Jesus, and had them “pray the prayer.” And then we left. We didn’t help these newbies learn to live out their faith or walk through the hard parts of the Christian life. And much too often, we didn’t talk about the hard parts at all. Sadly, after Reason to Live, our leadership team was so tired and we’d been working so hard for so long, that we didn’t follow up with many of the folks who actually filled out their little commitment cards.

Street preaching was also a part of campus life. Often you’d walk by at lunch and find a student preaching in the Pit outside the student union. The “preacher” got lots of hecklers but also a lot of listeners too. Last year, on the University of Cincinnati campus, a street preacher was confronted by the Christians on campus rather than the not-yet Christians. The Christians were verbally challenging the street preacher because they felt he wasn’t really preaching the love of God or forgiveness but a lot of legalistic condemnation, and they were discouraged by his style. This preacher didn’t care for dialogue.

There was an openness to the name Christian a couple decades ago that has been lost, thanks to negative press and negative impressions and comic stereotypes of believers in film and on TV. The impression of Christians, especially evangelical Christians, is that they are negative, judgmental, anti-everything, and this has shut down the openness of conversation on the street. People are skeptical, jaded, and a lot more afraid of fanatics. But they are also hungry to be listened to and to have authentic relationship. They just don’t want to be slam-dunked with Bible verses.

And since fewer and fewer people have biblical memory, it’s important not to make assumptions that someone actually knows John 3:16 or anything about the story of Nicodemus. Thus, in 2010, we have to start a lot farther back than we did in the 1980s. Even kids who have grown up in church don’t necessarily get that they have to respond to Jesus’ invitation and receive his gift of salvation. It’s more important than ever to take time with people and help them hear the story and learn how their own stories intersect God’s story.

Another change I’ve experienced in the world of evangelism is the difference between contemporary church and traditional church. Where many contemporary churches provide opportunities to accept Christ on a regular basis, more traditional churches rarely give their members the opportunity to accept Christ as their savior. They have you join the church, but there isn’t a traditional an altar call, so no one is ever invited to make a decision for Jesus. There is never an up-front “ask.” The assumption seems to be that if people want it, they’ll ask for it themselves.

But if we don’t ever ask the question, how will they even know there is a question? “Have you invited Jesus to be the Lord of your life? Have you received him as your Savior?”

Too often in the past, we led people through these questions but didn’t really stop to consider the consequences of accepting Jesus as Savior. It’s not all roses and perfection or big houses and fancy cars. Following God is hard work and can be painful.

What I see as most important in this age of relative truth is that I/we are living out our faith and actually loving people and serving them regardless of their response! Even if they are different from us, even when we are tired. Remembering that the way, the truth, and the life are Jesus—a person, not a doctrine. Faith in Jesus is a relationship, not just a belief system or a list of rules. And contrary to popular belief, the Holy Spirit is still at work and hasn’t lost any power! Now, that’s exciting!

People in 2010 want a holistic Christianity. They want to see how being a Christian actually makes a difference in one’s life now, not just in eternity. People in 2010 are focused on the present and how they are living now, not where they will be when they die. And people aren’t really worried as much about where they will go when they die. At least, not younger people. They are worried about getting into college and actually finding a job after that. Or whether they even want to go to college because what’s the point anyway? Everything seems so messed up. There is a real lack of hope.

Our emphasis needs to be different. It needs to be about living life to its fullest now, not just for eternity. And helping ourselves and others discover how to do this—doing it together in community!

Caring about what people need, learning who they are, not just dumping the Bible verses on them. Unlike in the ’80s, the question Where would you go, if you died tonight? is extremely outdated.

So in this new decade, I’m working on living missionally and building relationships with those I’d like to see experience the kingdom and know the King.




Dave Rahn


Evangelism has, apparently, embarrassed too many people in the Western church over the past few decades. A casual tour through any Christian bookstore reveals that this is a subject matter for the faithful that is out of favor. There isn’t much interest in marketing or teaching on the topic.

The salient feature of evangelism centers around proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news is that salvation is available to any person on the planet because God loved us enough to step into history as a Jewish baby born in Bethlehem who would ultimately and willingly die on a first-century Roman torture device so that our sin need no longer separate us from God. The facts of this storyline were originally professed by hundreds of people whose faith in Jesus Christ so profoundly transformed their lives that they, in turn, changed their world. Many died as martyrs so that the truth of a resurrected Christ and hope of salvation could be known everywhere. They believed that the stakes of making this gospel known were worth forfeiting their lives.

Their faith in Jesus meant that they had acquired a new perspective on their earthly existence and were convinced that death no longer held any power over them. This freedom propelled them, and millions of Christ followers since, to fearless missionary efforts. They established communities of believers who could encourage one another for the task at hand—to make the one true God known to the nations.

Evangelism was and is the communication function assigned to the church. To be effective, it depends on the integrity of God’s people. The early church lived as compelling witnesses so that when they testified about the necessity of faith in Jesus they were not dismissed for incongruent lifestyles. They walked their talk, oftentimes gaining a favorable hearing from others due to the sheer attractiveness of their courage, dedication, and selfless, sacrificial love. It was clear that Jesus not only was their inspirational model, he fortified them with his indwelling power and constant presence.

I wonder if there aren’t a couple of distressing reasons that evangelism is no longer an urgent agenda for many churches. First, in our postmodern, truth-is-relative culture, are we still convinced that humans are utterly lost in their sin? Much of today’s preaching seems to deal with the common pain of our existence, certainly an issue the gospel addresses. But navigating the difficulties and trials of what life tosses at us is very different from zeroing in on our own culpability as sinners who cause damage because we are broken and incapable of self-repair.

A second fear I have is that many nominal Christians do not believe in the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ for salvation. There are sophisticated theologians who have painstakingly argued for nuanced ways to affirm that we are saved through Christ even if our faith is (mis)placed in some other source. It seems to me that this shifts the salvific burden to the quality of our faith rather than the certainty of Jesus Christ and the sole sufficiency of his redemptive work on our behalf. In any case, such inclusivity (at best) or universalism (at worst) certainly reduces the burden of our own evangelistic faithfulness.

I’m now prepared to offer a short and disturbing response to the question of the day. As someone who has walked with Jesus for 40 years, it’s my perspective that evangelism has changed over the past two or three decades. If we are truly dispossessed of convictions about how thoroughly sin wrecks everyone or how faith in Jesus Christ is the only solution to our lostness, it is easy to understand why evangelism is not the priority it once was in our churches. This shift in evangelism is not good.

There is one more factor at work, and I am sympathetic to how far-reaching it is for Christians today. We are increasingly “word weary” and do not, collectively, walk the talk as followers of Jesus. Evangelism of a few decades ago concentrated so much on getting the propositional truths of the gospel packaged well for delivery and understanding that we began to acquire a verbal formulaic faith. Our subsequent church structures and forms have been built to reinforce this pseudo-faith. We have bred Christians who may be strong in confession but weak in observable Christlike character. As a result, evangelism-as-explanation is left without Exhibit A.

Two streams of evangelistic approaches have evolved from this unhealthy landscape over the past few decades. One seeks to verbally steer would-be converts away from considering the poor evidence presented in the lifestyles of contemporary western followers of Christ. The other seeks to counter our image as slick talkers by shutting up and living well.

I view this shift in evangelism as a corrective and one that we still may not have dialed in just right.


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Evangelism.Books

What are the three best books you have read on evangelism and why?

Chris Folmsbee


Three books come to mind in a hurry. (1) Evangelism after Christendom: The Theology and Practice of Christian Witness, by Bryan Stone;
(2) The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West…Again, by George Hunter III; and
(3) More Ready Than You Realize: Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix, by Brian McLaren.

Each of these books has inspired, challenged, and equipped me. When I read a book, that’s what I want to happen to me. I want to be stirred within and see new, imaginative possibilities; I want to be pushed and stretched in my current modes of thought and outfitted with realistic ideas and practices that I can contextualize within my own community. Each of these books has done that for me.

Regarding Evangelism after Christendom: The Theology and Practice of Christian Witness, I feel that this book is first theological then methodological, which I love. I am all for methods but love when they are rooted in rich theological meaning. The book isn’t particularly practical (it wasn’t meant to be), but it does lay a comprehensible biblical foundation for evangelism and puts forth a stout framework for everyday practice around common themes such as hospitality, presence, justice, peace, reconciliation, etc. I also found this book to be thrilling on one hand and crazy scary on the other. Thrilling in the sense that I am able to see what could be, should the church live out the intended ways of God. I found the book to be scary in the sense that I realized how much of my own life has to change in order to be a faithful witness.

The Celtic Way of Evangelism is one of my all-time favorite books on evangelism simply because of its candor and simplicity. It certainly isn’t a simplistic book, but it does confront the church’s need for a new kind of evangelism head on in a no-nonsense way that elicits immediate action. You can’t read this book, agree with even some of it, and not change your life and practices accordingly.

I haven’t read this book for some time, but I remember two key elements of new thinking for me. The first element is a comparison between the Roman way of evangelism and the Celtic way. In short, the Roman way is based on a presentation followed by a call for a decision, and then community with the people one is evangelizing comes later. The Celtic model begins with community, continues with conversation, and then leads to an invitation to commit to the Christian faith. I found this model comparison relevant to the church and culture some time ago when I read it. I still find this model relevant to the way in which the church and culture co-exist and converse, toward intermingling, no doubt. The second element I found helpful is the concept of “soul friend” (anamchara) in the Celtic way of community formation. A soul friend is a peer who aids you in your spiritual formation. We need soul friends! Spiritual formation happens in community.

Finally, More Ready Than You Realize helped me see past some of my own junk as it related to my view of evangelism. As with The Celtic Way of Evangelism, it has been a while since I have read it, I remember being moved by two things in particular. First, the book helps event-based thinkers move away from the idea that salvation is a moment rather than a process. I found this book helpful to give to volunteers in my ministry for this reason. Second, the book follows the narrative of a person, and out of the relationship the author has with this person, the ideas of evangelism are brought about. I much prefer engaging concepts about evangelism within the context of a narrative, rather than mere opinions and conjecture.

This book is great for helping people come along in their view of personal and corporate witness; moving them away from static—and often stagnant—practice of faith sharing and toward a dynamic and relevant practice driven by authentic community. I also like the author’s metaphor of evangelism as dance, as opposed to a wrestling match that we are trying to win.


Helpful Resources for Teens:
Being Real: Sharing Your Faith without Losing Your Friends
Mike Kipp and Kenny Wade

Mike King


I have probably spent more time contemplating this question than any other Slant33 post I have written. I must confess a couple of things before I attempt a response. The first two decades of ministry for me were focused primarily on youth evangelism. I taught evangelism. I did evangelism. I was called a “youth evangelist.” Man, do I have stories! The last couple years of those first two decades were spent struggling with the concept that I had been taught and had embraced concerning how evangelism was to be done.

That 20-year period was followed by a decade of shifting my focus to discipleship and a process of de-emphasizing evangelism, especially the kind I had engaged in within my youth ministry praxis. This timeline now brings me to around three years ago, when my passion for evangelism returned. I believe a combination of factors (Holy Spirit, conversation partners, theology, church, experiences, Scripture) fueled my passion, imagination, and calling to begin reengaging in evangelism again, though from a much broader theological perspective and different methodology.

As I reflect on my early practice of evangelism, I remember how uncomfortable it was to find a way to make sure people knew they were sinners headed for hell. I whipped myself with the reminder that I was not to be ashamed of the gospel. In spite of the self-motivation and self-condemnation for lacking the faith and courage to boldly let people know they were presently doomed, the attempts to remove my discomfort never worked. It just seemed wrong.

I’ve discovered gradually over the last three years that the problem was my insistence to do what many evangelicals do—start the story of humanity in Genesis 3 instead of Genesis 1. We start with the fall instead of the creation of human beings imago Dei by a loving Creator. I have found it not only easier but also more human and natural to engage in unforced conversation that, most of the time, unfolds into a delightful opportunity to bear witness to every human being’s connection to the imago Dei.

I have found it a joy to be a blessing to people and make the connection to unique ways they are cooperating with God regardless, of whether they know it. It is also amazing how often the reality of people’s brokenness comes up naturally—except it’s not me but the non-believer bringing it up. I have amazing stories of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with people who actually respond as if the gospel is actually good news.

Well that is the introduction for my answer. I wanted to give you my context so it might make sense to you when I answer this question by saying, I don’t know. I don’t currently have an answer to the question concerning “the three best books” on this subject. But I will make a few suggestions that you can consider along with me.

My first suggestion is The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach The West…Again, by George Hunter (Abingdon). Dr. Hunter is the dean of world mission and evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary. I have traveled to Ireland and Scotland extensively and have explored the monastic outposts of the Celtic evangelists who converted Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales. I am intrigued by the story of these ancient evangelists who converted a very pagan culture to Christianity. This is fascinating history. To study this more, I would also recommend author and historian Thomas Cahill, who wrote the bestselling book How the Irish Saved Civilization. In addition to evangelizing a whole culture, they also kept western culture alive by preserving classic western literature.

A couple of books that are important theological considerations for the issue of evangelism are Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, by David Bosch and The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, by Lesslie Newbigin.

Another recommendation is Ancient-Future Evangelism: Making Your Church a Faith-Forming Community, by Robert Webber. Additionally, I suggest Webber’s fourth title in the Ancient-Future series, called The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life, because I think one of the most important issues involved in recovering a compelling environment for evangelism is for Christians to live passionate Christian lives, following Jesus Christ with fervent devotion and deep spiritual intimacy with God.

Dave Rahn


My three favorite books on evangelism are those that have helped me clearly articulate paradigm shifts that affected me personally and through which I have tried to lead others. Others may have written about these subjects better; but these books were seminal perspective changers for me.

As a young man who was not really engaged with the church growing up, my coming to put my faith in Christ was marked by a moment in time. Not surprisingly, my earliest understanding of evangelism was to seek conversion decisions from others. Robert Coleman’s The Master Plan of Evangelism stunned me by introducing me to overwhelming evidence that embedded Jesus’ evangelism efforts in the center of his disciple-making strategies. Since reading that book in college, I have continued to resist forms of decisionalism that reduce evangelism’s goal to securing a prayer commitment from someone. These approaches threaten disciple making as a process that brings about fruit of character transformation and reproduction.

This is not to say that decisions for Christ are not intricately connected to the formation of a disciple. It is, rather, to understand evangelism as targeting the process that leads one to initially decide to become a follower of Jesus Christ—the first in a lifetime of decisions that must be navigated well if we are to live as those who bring honor to God.

The burden of carrying the weight of responsibility for evangelism’s fruit troubled me considerably in the early part of my career with Youth for Christ. That’s when I read J.I. Packer’s Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. As someone who tilted toward the Arminian side of free-will discussions, I could never understand why a Calvinist would even participate in the evangelism enterprise. This book introduced me to a picture of a high and holy God who draws his people into a mission that is for his glory. I came to understand evangelism as an important aspect of living all of my life in obedience to the Father. And the most important practical benefit was that I began to grasp the idea that God is the only one who can bring about the true fruit of a transformed life. There is incredible rest in this reality, without reducing the urgency of my need to be faithful all the time to a God who loves me deeply.

The third book is Joe Aldrich’s Lifestyle Evangelism. It came at a time when I struggled with tools that would help me coach the many volunteers in our ministry, most of whom were not inclined by gifts or disposition to practice proclamational or confrontational evangelism. Not only does Aldrich make the biblical case for why each of us is to be actively involved in evangelism, he instructs us how we can do so by putting the rightful priority on living as salt and light. Even more intriguing is the concept of how churches often breed “professional weaker brothers” who effectively squelch the freedoms of those who otherwise could move into relationship with non-churched people. It’s safe to say that the seeds of this book found their way into the YFC 3Story philosophy and curriculum we use today.

Honorable mention for me is the book Persuasion, by Em Griffin. His application of communication research to the task of evangelism profoundly affected me and probably helped form the passion for one of my own books. For many years as an academic I asserted that I would not write a book unless I could make an original contribution. Evangelism Remixed (which I co-authored with Terry Linhart) is the result of researching the factors that are present when adults raise up students who influence others for Christ. I consider this book to be an important extension of what I learned from Coleman, Packer, and Aldrich, with Em Griffin lemon-twisted on the side.


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Evangelism.Proclamation

In what ways can youth ministry improve in the area of proclamation (kerygma)?

Steve Argue


Let me begin by admitting that I am inspired by youth workers I know who are committed to proclaiming the gospel to students, pursuing them with their investments of time, relationship, sacrifice, and love. Their actions embody the perpetual hope that consistently announces good news that God is near, that God loves eternally, and that God is calling each person toward her or his created identity. I continually hope youth workers know that their thinking, planning, joys, heartaches, and sleepless nights proclaim our future hope in the here and now.

As with any discipline, there is always room for improvement as youth ministry relentlessly pursues clarity and authenticity in its proclamation. In this spirit, I urge youth workers to reflect on the following…

Proclamation is revealed through a compelling narrative, not bumper stickers. Proclamation sound bites, sadly, still cloud youth ministry’s proclamation with disjointed, undeveloped, dogmatic phrases that only perpetuate confusion and misunderstanding. For example, saying, “Jesus died for your sins” to an American teenager (or parent) will likely mean little unless one understands the significance of creation, fall, blood sacrifice, or resurrection.

Youth ministry must erase bumper-sticker proclamation from its discourse and methods, recognizing that announcing the mystery of the gospel requires a broader understanding of the biblical narrative that unfolds through teaching, dialogue, and faithful journeying in relationship. This narrative must be faithfully proclaimed within the whole community of faith as it is told and retold through the beautiful rhythms of the church calendar and intentional liturgy.

Proclamation devoid of the narrative, apart from a community that lives into the narrative, remains a sound bite. Let’s clarify proclamation with narrative, within community.

Proclamation needs congruency in words and actions…and in youth workers. Let’s sidestep the debate over whether word or action comes first in proclamation. Both are needed and, more importantly, both need to be congruent. Further, students’ experiences of love, grace, forgiveness, reconciliation, discipleship, prayer, etc., need an interpreting faith community that encourages them to make meaning of what they are understanding and experiencing.

Interpretation through a faith community is expressed through various forms—explanation, teaching, worship, modeling, ritual, and symbol all embody proclamation. When this happens, the proclaimed message of Jesus rings with congruency, resisting bodiless platitudes, random acts, and hypocritical expectations (which adolescents can smell a mile away).

For this readership, let’s keep in mind that a congruent proclamation within a congruent community requires congruent youth pastors, youth workers, and youth ministries. Reflect on your personal and ministry congruency and commit to keeping words and theory and actions and experiences within close proximity so that students catch the connection.

Proclamation invites liberation, not suppression. One of the challenges I often see with youth workers is that they get stuck believing that there is only one way to proclaim the gospel and only one way to respond to it. I believe this perspective (even though often driven by good intentions) suppresses adolescents’ faith formation. When one’s own cultural and personal experiences are uncritically fused with a narrow theology, it leaves little room for one to accept the responses and journeys of others that may be different from one’s own. The result often ends with those in positions of power (adult youth workers) prescribing both message and response.

This truncated proclamation celebrates “faithfulness” by rewarding behaviorism and conformity while suppressing critical thinking. Adolescents, then, are taught that their thinking, questioning, creative expression, and varied responses to good news beyond the narrow bandwidth prescribed by authority figures are off limits. Some research shows that adolescents are smart enough to play the game, making adults/authority figures happy by offering the right answers while working out their real issues on their own, in other places, with other peers, in other ways. Proclamation invites adolescents into safe space, liberating them to hear and respond to the good news of Jesus. It doesn’t drive them away to work things out on their own.

This challenges youth workers to embrace the beauty and mystery of what they’re proclaiming and stretches them to welcome to multiple responses and journeys (based on culture, development, etc.). It may challenge even youth workers’ own understanding of good news.

Better proclamation isn’t louder. It’s bigger, closer, and wider. Let this define youth ministry’s ongoing proclamation.

Mike King


The word kerygma is a transliteration of a Greek word that describes preaching and/or the content of preaching or proclaiming. In the first century, kerygma meant the proclamation by a herald who had an important announcement. The emerging church described in the book of Acts embraced this cultural tool.

In the New Testament framework, the kerygma is an announcement of divine action by God. It was in the context of the reality of Jesus’ resurrection that the kerygma received its mandate. The disciples discovered an empty tomb and later interacted with the resurrected Jesus Christ. They could not help but proclaim far and wide that Jesus Christ, who was born miraculously, lived sinlessly, proclaimed the kingdom of heaven was at hand, died sacrificially, arose from the dead victorious, and ascended into the heavens, is Lord.

In the simplest terms, our proclamation is “Jesus Christ is Lord.” In the fullest sense of proclaiming the good news, we declare that God is at work to redeem and restore the whole creation. There are many evangelicals who have unfortunately drawn the battle lines with a definition of proclamation that narrowly focuses on a particular view of atonement.

Youth ministry must move away from a proclamation ensnared by formulaic and one-dimensional soteriology. A kerygma that focuses solely on You’re a sinner who is going to hell but Jesus died for you so you can go to heaven if you ask Jesus into your heart is deficient in heralding the scope of truth contained in the great good news.

Our efforts to preach and proclaim the great good news seem warped when we start out with the emphasis that people are sinful and need to get saved so they can go to heaven when they die. Let’s herald the good news that starts with the reality that all human beings were created imago Dei (in the image of God). Let’s connect the imago Dei in our fellow human beings with the overarching story of God at work in the world. We should not start the story in Genesis 3 with the fall of humanity. We’ll get there soon enough. I meet few human beings who deny that they are broken.

For youth ministry to properly proclaim the great good news, we must embrace a high Christology. We must look to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God’s proclamation of good news. Also, I think it is critical that we embrace the whole of the Christ event—not just birth, crucifixion, and resurrection but also the words and teachings of Jesus.

I believe it is the responsibility of the church and of God’s people to always be on the lookout for demonstrations of God’s in-breaking kingdom, even when these acts come from outside the church and from non-Christians. When we see people and institutions cooperating with God, our proclamation should be to point it out and declare, “There it is!”

Jim Hampton


As a professor who routinely grades sermons of current and future youth pastors and a consultant who hears a lot of youth pastors speak, this is an issue I’ve had a lot of time to consider. Therefore, I offer the following two suggestions for improvement:

1) Preach the whole narrative of Scripture. Why is it that most people only seem to preach from the New Testament? In one of my classes, I ask students to think about the last 10 youth sermons they’ve heard and to identify whether the sermons came from the Old or New Testament. On average, they indicate that 80% of the sermons were from the New Testament.

We sometimes seem to forget that we are the people of the book…the whole book. How can one make sense of Jesus the Messiah, who chooses peace over violence, without first understanding the suffering servant of Isaiah? How can we help our teenagers grasp the importance of the Passover meal without first comprehending the Passover account as found in Exodus? In short, the Old Testament is as much a part of our history as the New is. And in a culture where adolescents seem to learn best by narrative, the Old Testament is replete with narratives, both small and large, that are part of our identity as the people of God.

Given that most young people have trouble connecting the dots between the biblical stories, perhaps the best thing we can do is to take our students through Scripture from beginning to end to give them a sense of the whole story. What if you were to devote a year to preaching through the Bible? For instance, one could show God’s salvation history by choosing 52 representative stories or themes from Genesis through Revelation that illustrate God’s mercy extended to his people. This would not only help students see how the stories connect but give them the big picture of God’s work throughout Scripture.

2) Learn to properly exegete your audience. As a seminary professor, I often hear sermons that are biblically and theologically solid yet never connect with their intended audience largely because the speakers never thought to consider whom they were speaking to and what the congregations’ needs were.

Look closely at the story of your youth group. What kid of worlds do they live in? Do you know their needs, fears, and desires? Do you understand them developmentally, culturally, and spiritually? This is sociological analysis, and it is vitally important if we want students to be able to apply what we are saying.

Homiletics professor David Buttrick says that one of the most important things that should occur in any sermon is an understanding of the blocks (cultural, social, denominational, religious, etc.) a congregation might have that keep it from hearing what you are saying. Ask yourself, What thought patterns or prejudices exist in the minds of these students that could prevent them from receiving this message? Then work to address those concerns in the sermon.

As a side note, one of the problems with preaching someone else’s sermons is that the person who originally wrote the sermon doesn’t know your youth group. He or she may understand adolescents and youth culture, but they don’t know your particular group of students. They don’t know about the young girl who confessed to you last week that she was pregnant or the boy whose parents are getting a divorce. They don’t understand the unique context (geographically, culturally, denominationally, etc.) that is part of your group’s identity. Therefore, it is impossible for that sermon to truly connect with your group since you haven’t done the hard work of exegeting your group and addressing their congregational blocks.

3) Allow the sermon to shape you before you expect it to shape others. Authenticity is a buzzword these days when it comes to preaching, and with good reason. Our students need to know not only that can we explain the text but that we are living the text in our own lives before we ask them to do so. Are you willing to spend equal amounts of time both in sermon preparation and in what Tim Keel calls heart meditation—that deep, intimate conversation with God where our very souls are shaped by the text?

Jesus himself did more than just teach and tell others what to do. Instead, he caused them to hunger for the righteousness they needed by demonstrating in his own life a vital relationship with the Father. He modeled an attitude and devotion that spurred others to imitation. As preachers, we must take care that the character and examples of our lives are consistent with the messages we speak.

Preaching to adolescents may be one of the hardest things we do. Yet if we are willing to do the hard work of biblical and cultural exegesis, thereby opening ourselves to God’s transformation, preaching to youth can become a vitally important aspect of discipleship.


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Evangelism. Gospel

How would you define the gospel? 

Scot McKnight


After 2000 years—give or take two decades—of church history, one would think that a strong consensus or even certainty about crucial doctrines would have been achieved. Such is not the case when it comes to the ground-level word gospel, and it surprises some when I stake that conclusion in the ground with a flapping little flag.

So let me flap this little flag one more time. The first thing we have to do is ignore scholars, for whom the term gospel has endless nuance and careful articulation. And I say this as one of them, and I say it because our nuances frankly have not been translated into common communication. If you ask an ordinary evangelical Christian what the gospel is, chances are you’ll hear something like this: Jesus came to die for my sins so I can spend eternity in heaven with God.

If you have enough time to sit down over coffee with them and ask them to discuss the meaning of gospel, you will most likely get something like this: God loves us, but God is also immensely holy. God created us as image-bearers (what I prefer to call Eikons), but we sinned. God is now in a dilemma: God’s holiness drives God to punish us for our sin and our rebellion because God cannot tolerate sin in his holy presence. But God’s love drives God to do something about our condition. What God’s love did was prompt God to solve the problem of our rebellion by sending Jesus Christ, who—as God—satisfies God and—as human—satisfies our humanity. What Christ did was suffer our penalty: he took upon himself our sin and placed upon us his God-approved righteousness. If we simply accept, by repentance and faith and confession and baptism, his perfect substitution, then we can be made right again with God and reconciled with God forever.

And many of us would say, “Yes, that’s the gospel.” We might want to quibble here and there, but I think many of us would say that is an adequate representation of the gospel.

The problem is that no one so far as we know preached the gospel like that in the earliest church. There are seven evangelistic and gospel-shaped sermons in the book of Acts, and they are found in Acts 2, 3, 4, 10—11, 13, 14, and 17. They are preached by the two greatest apostles: Peter and Paul. If these records are an accurate summary of the gospel preaching, we can say they didn’t preach “our” gospel.

We can’t examine each of these sermons, but I want to look at one very clear summary of the gospel according to Peter, and I want to quote it because only by reading it can we see how Peter preached the gospel. It’s found in Acts 10:36-43, and it’s addressed to Gentiles (with some Jews listening in):

You know the message he [God] sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.

Not a word about God’s love and God’s grace or about God’s holiness that burns in wrath against sinners until they respond in faith to Christ. Not a word about Jesus as Savior. Not a word about justification or substitutionary atonement. Okay, I know what some think about such statements, but you read it, and you can see that those terms are not the framing terms for Peter. Those terms tell us truths—let that be clear—but they are not the way Peter told the gospel truths.

Instead, we get these ideas: Jesus is the Messiah; Jesus is the Lord. We get lots about Israel’s story coming to its completion in Jesus’ story. We get a narrative about Jesus’ life; we get a story about Jesus’ unjust death and God’s reversal of the injustice by raising Jesus from the dead. And we get the command that he told the apostles to tell this story to others. Jesus is the judge too. And people are to respond to him, and those who respond in faith will be given forgiveness of sins.

This sermon mirrors the others, so I want to answer the question we have been asked: The gospel is the announcement that the story of Israel is now complete in the story of Jesus, and this Jesus brings forgiveness of sins and empowers others to declare this story.

Andy Root


I would define the gospel in one simple sentence: God’s act through Jesus to bring life out of death. So now that I’ve defined it, let me explain (because any definition of anything worth defining needs further explanation).

The gospel is the good news that death (and its diabolic engine in the world, sin) will not have the last word for humanity and creation. The gospel rests in the action of God to take on death and sin so that we might find life up against our many experiences of sin and death. So at its core the gospel is relational; it is about God seeking to overcome what destroys relationship—sin and death. But the only way to overcome death and sin is for God to become death and sin, not because God in heaven needs some sacrifice to appease God’s anger over sin but because death has entered so fully into the world (into every corner and niche of human existence) that we need death to be overcome.

But death can only be overcome by suffering. Suffering is never good, but in a world where death is around every corner and stands as the destiny of every person, love must suffer; love must enter into the fragility of humanity. So the gospel is God entering into death for the sake of love because only God entering into death, only God suffering death on a cross can overcome death without using the weapons of death. In other words, the only way to overcome sin and death is to suffer sin and death. So for Paul, the cross is the ultimate sign of the gospel, for in the cross we are dead with Christ—we are with Christ. While sin separates us from God, God does the amazing act of reconnecting with us, not through our own action but through God’s—God’s action to take on death.

So the gospel is God taking on death so that we might be bound to God through our own experiences of death (just ask an eighth grader if she has experiences of death—rejection, fear, bullying, poor body image…). But the gospel is even more; the gospel is God entering into death so that we might live. God encounters us in our deaths, but the cross is not the goal of God’s action. Rather, from death God brings life; from cross comes resurrection. So the gospel is the overcoming of death with life. For Paul we are now dead in Christ, and therefore made alive, we share in his death and therefore in his resurrection. So the gospel is the promise of life out of death.

But here is the most important question, the one that makes the time reading this blog worthwhile: How do young people encounter the gospel? How do they participate in it? For me, because the gospel is the good news of God entering death, reversing the natural and tragic ways the world unfolds (from life to death, from death to new life), it then means that we encounter and participate in the gospel not through our cognitive belief or moral assimilation but in seeking God in our experiences of death, seeking for new life up against realities of doubt, yearning, and brokenness. This means that to help young people encounter the gospel is to invite them to share their experiences of death and together in community seek for the God of life to move, a God who takes all that is dead and brings forth new life—this is the gospel lived!

Claire Smith


We talk about it. We write about it. We seek to share it and encourage others to do the same. Just what is this gospel we are called to proclaim? It is the good news of Jesus Christ. Okay. What does that mean? I like what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:2-4: “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures…”

In Jesus Christ—the Messiah—has dawned the new age of the reign of God in which is the full restoration of relationships as God intended them under the sovereignty of God. Jesus came announcing the good news of the kingdom (Mark 1:14-15). Jesus’ life was a demonstration of life under God’s reign—love, right relations with people, forgiveness and reconciliation, restoration and newness. Jesus died on the cross. Jesus’ death and resurrection showed Jesus to be Lord and Messiah. Peter summed up the gospel when he spoke to Cornelius and said:

“You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Acts 10:36-43

In this passage, Peter shows the continuity between the two covenants, with Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promise. He describes that Jesus was sent by God as the anointed one. Jesus was Immanuel, God with us. He not only died but rose again. This Jesus is able to forgive sins. Furthermore, this resurrected Jesus Christ is Lord of all people.

The gospel has significance for everyone, then. It is something to be shared, not a secret to be dearly held. It is noteworthy that Peter, like Jesus in his own life, points to God, the one who sent Jesus Christ, and puts the emphasis on God at work through Jesus Christ. God is the one who has shown Jesus to be Lord.

It is good news. Christ died and rose again for all people, and in Christ we are set free from sin and its consequences. We do have a problem, however, because sin doesn’t matter to many people, whether it be personal or systemic sin. Blinded as we often are by our deep sin of self-centeredness, we often judge, value, and behave based on how things affect us. Thus, for example, it may be okay to stretch the truth—that is, to lie—in the effort of self-preservation.

Nevertheless, when we accept the good news and trust in God’s work in Christ Jesus, we have no choice but to turn from self because we have owned up to our sins and sinful state and received God’s love and salvation. We are now oriented toward and around God and believe that God’s love is enough. God now sets us free to love God and others. Thus we can follow Christ’s ways of gentleness and humility, knowing that God is with us. That is good news.


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Evangelism.Evidence

Should we still be giving evidence that demands a verdict?

Steve Argue


Josh McDowell’s book written in the 1990s, from which I am assuming this question stems, searches for conclusive evidence about the Christian faith that ultimately demands one make a decision or declare a verdict. Lee Strobel also made a “case for Christ.” Both individuals identified themselves as skeptics who were overwhelmed by evidence that Jesus was Lord and Savior over lunatic and liar. These are interesting cultural artifacts representing a tight coupling of modernity, evangelicalism, and apologetics.

At their best, their approaches offer glimpses of personal journeys. McDowell and Strobel model an intentional quest to understand the Christian message, which gave them language for understanding themselves and their worlds. Whether one agrees with the methodology, they modeled an honest pursuit and were open to personally changing.  Journeys like these take guts and hopefully inspire anyone who lives in ignorant bliss (“I won’t seek so I don’t have to change”) not to stay there.

Therefore, I heartily encourage people seeking to make meaning of their worlds. Further, I invite all to consider that the Christian narrative offers a way of navigating this world that gives people identity, community, and purpose. Christians believe that Jesus has made our journey possible through his life, death, and resurrection, which promise hope and restoration for everything. However, I am not hopeful about “giving evidence that demands a verdict” as a methodology for discovery. Here’s why….

It Over-Simplifies the Transformative Process
Those who believe that convincing evidence alone brings change fail to appreciate the complexity of people. Conversion is hardly a purely cognitive process. There are multiple factors that influence when or why people change (or don’t change). Choices affect—and are affected by—relationships, identity, and aspirations. They bring risks, costs, and pain. Often I find that those who push evidence-demanding verdicts (whether they are altar-calling youth pastors, street evangelists, or over-zealous small group leaders) fail to appreciate what they are asking of others. They want others to make decisions divorced from real-life contexts. We insult people’s existence when we ignore the non-cognitive aspects of the human condition. Demanding evidence risks being narrow, uncompassionate and mystery-less. Gospel and transformation are (thankfully) bigger than this.

It Reinforces Oppressive Relationships
Paulo Friere believed that educating others through what he called a banking system methodology was problematic. Banking assumes that an enlightened one holds the knowledge and banks (or deposits) it into others’ empty minds that simply need to be filled with the right information to produce the right behaviors. Christians often adopt this posture, assuming that they must give the truth to obtuse, ignorant pagans who don’t know anything. Per Friere, this ignores the meaning-making ability each one possesses and reinforces passive learning, which abuses power in an attempt to change and control others.

Oppressive banking is evident in youth ministry. We see it in the way camp counselors try to get adolescents to make a decision. We see it in the way adults bemoan the adolescent biblical illiteracy and assume that the right speaker or curriculum will “get them on fire for God.” Adolescents are not empty vessels, and more evidence rarely changes their behavior. Instead, these practices teach adolescents to accept a faith passively (“I didn’t get anything out of it”) and live compartmentalized lives that go through Christian motions to please adults, while they live their real beliefs elsewhere.

Churches lament that adolescents and emerging adults just don’t “get” the Christian message. Maybe the church’s evidence/verdict and banking system approaches have underestimated young people as image bearers and meaning makers, reinforcing oppressive approaches that alienate rather than welcome. Maybe it’s time for youth workers to discover and nurture image-bearing evidence already present adolescents’ lives rather than trying to discover the right, evidential curriculum.

A More Helpful Way
I have been most helped by the metaphor posed by Christian Smith (cf. Soul Searching: The religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers). He likens faith to a second language. Like any second language, the best way to learn it is to be immersed in a culture where it is spoken. Language is more than words and grammar. It has history, context, and symbol. Similarly, faith is best learned when expressed through language (theology, concepts), situated in day-to-day experiences, integrated within trusted relationships, and tried in safe contexts (family, friendships, faith communities). Like any language, the language of faith takes time to become fluently part of us.

The evidence, then, is not disembodied facts but is connected to and flows from narrative and community. The verdict isn’t a one-time decision from oppressive demands to conformity but daily decisions expressed in life and language as one makes sense of one’s connection with God, others, and world. This messy journey of transformation should challenge youth ministry programs away from evidence-that-demands-a-verdict methodologies and toward contexts where a Christian second language can be tried and eventually spoken by a generation that is more than ready for it.

Sarah Arthur

I’ll be frank. I’ve never met a Christian who was argued into the kingdom.

Really. I’ve met folks who heard powerful personal testimonies that turned their hearts toward God. I’ve met believers who heard convicting words about sin in their own lives, which led them (sometimes sooner, sometimes later, and not always happily) to bend the knee. I’ve known people who sensed the presence of Jesus in moments of crisis—car accidents, AIDS, drug addiction—and couldn’t ignore him. I’ve known people who broke down during communion or on a mission trip or while reading a novel or in the midst of an orchestral performance or while gazing at a work of art or upon watching a biblical drama. And I’ve known folks who silently observed the holy living of Christians and wanted what the believers had.

But I’ve never known someone who was argued into faith.

I suppose such people exist. Lee Strobel, maybe? Josh McDowell himself? But even the most famous apologist of the twentieth century, C.S. Lewis, traced the beginnings of his conversion not to late-night arguments with J.R.R. Tolkien but to a fantasy story he read as a teenager. Lewis wrote, “I should have been shocked in my teens if anyone had told me that what I learned to love in Phantastes was goodness. But now that I know, I see there was no deception.”

The author of Phantastes, a Victorian minister named George MacDonald, snuck in Christian meaning through the back door of Lewis’s imagination. And it had far greater effect on Lewis than any reasoned argument for the truth. That’s because all of Lewis’s intellectual defenses were on high alert. The front door was locked, bolted, and double-bolted with all his arguments for atheism. If someone had come knocking with a truckload of evidence, demanding a verdict, Lewis would have laughed and gone to bed.

In addition (or perhaps more honestly?), he wanted nothing to do with what he called the Transcendental Interferer. It didn’t matter that all the reasoned arguments favored Christianity: he just wanted to be left alone to do as he pleased. Trouble is, he left the back door of his imagination unlocked. Oops.

It was many years before he finally surrendered his will and intellect to Jesus; but it was the novel that, in his words, initially “baptized” his imagination and thus launched him on the journey. After his conversion, he went on to write some of the most powerfully imaginative Christian literature of our time—literature which has had a similar effect as Phantastes on many a young heart.

But we youth workers and pastors keep pressing the evidence, demanding a verdict. Instead, shouldn’t we be writing novels?

Yes, one might argue, but Lewis also wrote some of the greatest Christian apologetics of the twentieth century—works that have had an equally huge impact.

True. But impact on whom? On those who are confirmed pagans, naturalists, or atheists? On those with a carefully articulated non-Christian belief system and a robust sense of religious identity? Or has his impact been on those who are nominally Christian, maybe even nominally something else, flummoxed or even swayed by arguments against the faith until they hear calm reasons for it?

I don’t know the answer. But I suspect that most of the people who will be buying Lee Strobel’s new Case for Christ Study Bible are not atheists.

Maybe it depends on what we mean by evidence. Most of the time, in our modern society, it means scientific proof or irrefutable argument. We want archaeological digs to confirm that Noah’s ark really existed. We want the ultimate logical explanation for why someone had to die in order for me to be with God. And this is what we youth workers are trained to supply for our youth. But is that what Christianity offers?  

I’m not so sure. What the biblical eyewitnesses saw were miracles. This or that person saw the resurrected Lazarus, watched Jesus calm the sea, put a hand in Jesus’ side. Yet these things cannot be duplicated by scientific experiment. And meanwhile, as Lewis himself said, God’s way of salvation is about as obvious, at first glance, as how babies are made. You mean Mommy and Daddy—what?

Perhaps we’re just supposed to introduce youth to the baby. Or would that be considered evidence?




           

Lilly Lewin


As a college student, I had the book Evidence that Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell, on my bookshelf. Honestly, though, I never read much of it. I wasn’t someone who needed a lot of proof that God was real or his Bible was believable.

I believed in God because of what I had experienced and because I’d seen God work in my own life and in the lives of other people. I believed in God because of my relationships with people who knew him. Their lives and lifestyles drew me in and convinced me of God’s reality. I wanted what they had; the joy and peace and relationship/friendship with God. Their ability to connect with God as a friend and Father was intriguing to me. I was also convinced by a mission trip to Jamaica, where, at the age of 16, I met people who had next to nothing materially but who had a depth of knowledge and love for God far beyond my own.

Today I believe people need shoe leather, not doctrine. They need to see people live out the kingdom, not just talk about it. Too many people have gotten their image of Christians and God from TV and movies. The Simpsons, South Park, Dogma, etc., just enhance the stereotypes of Christians and do nothing to introduce them to the person of Jesus as found in the Gospels. Also, it seems to me that our media portrays Christians as bigoted, biased, and always “against” things. The stereotype is that we are all anti-people who are constantly fighting and angry about life. As followers of Jesus, we are not seen as positive, helpful, compassionate people.

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” John 13:34-36 (New Living Translation)

The evidence young people need to see is love, acceptance, and forgiveness. They long to see Jesus lived out in us. And get to know people with a 24/7 faith that lives out the kingdom, serving others in the real world, not just in the church building. Young people today and people who have not grown up in church need to see in order to believe. They must see love practically lived out in us and through us. They are hungry to know people with a 24/7 faith that does what it says.  

There is also a need for facts. The evidence needed today is an understanding of how the Bible was put together; how the various documents were chosen to be a part of the canon. They also need facts about the other world religions. Since we live in a pluralistic society, we all need a working knowledge of what other religions believe and practice. Because there are distinct differences as well as important similarities, education can help promote dialogue, not fear—or worse, hate. We definitely need evidence of love, joy, and hope, not fear, anger, and hatred.

People also need evidence that God is actually faithful and personally loving; and that his heart breaks over injustice and suffering. To me, evidence in the twenty-first century is to live in a way that reflects this. It means living out hospitality to friends, neighbors, and strangers; giving time and resources to the needy, not just to the church buildings; caring about each other, the planet, and people who are very different from us.

Some will still want and need hardcore facts and figures in order to believe in God and his Word. Many more will just need to have a relationship with someone who is living out their faith and who is willing to love them where they are on their journey and allow them to experience God’s love firsthand.


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Evangelism.Apologetics

How would you describe the necessary way to view apologetics for a post-Christian world?


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Chris Folmsbee


It isn’t enough for us to view apologetics in a necessary and new way. Apologetics must be practically lived out in a necessary and new way. This may begin with a new view, but it cannot reside there. Ultimately, a necessarily new apologetic for a post-Christian world must end with a new way of life.  

Before I describe what I think is a necessary way to view (and live) apologetics for a post-Christian world, I think it is important to begin by defining the term “post-Christian.”
 
In its simplest definition, post-Christian simply means that Christianity is no longer the prevailing religious conviction in the world today. Or said another way, the values of people are no longer primarily shaped by a Christian message. When defined as above, the term often assumes a pessimistic position.

Those of us who have conversations about the church also use the term post-Christian to identify an emerging generation of people who have been raised with little or no Christian tradition to speak of. To post-Christians, the ideas of one supernatural God, the Bible, and the church are completely alien. When defined as such, post-Christian in the evangelistic and redemptive context often assumes an optimistic position on the world. Whether one holds a pessimistic or optimistic outlook, one thing is certain. The church needs to embrace a new kind of apologetic.

To me, there are three primary elements of a new kind of apologetic that move apologetics in a post-Christian context from rational argument and logical reasoning to a way of life. The three primary elements are: (1) personal holiness, (2) embodied practice, and (3) trusted guidance.
 
The blend of those three things lived out in the life of a Christian in a post-Christian context will stand taller than modern methods of apologetics. A holy life, a commitment to living out the message of Jesus and allowing the Holy Spirit to direct one’s life, will prove to be—in my opinion—the greatest apologetic in a post-Christian world, therefore revealing a truly transcendent God whose mission it is to restore the world to its intended wholeness.  

.slant

Scot McKnight


My job, peculiarly enough, is to introduce students to Jesus. I’m a professor, and my discipline is Bible, and one of our required courses is called Introduction to the Bible. Which means I look at mostly first-year students from the end of August until mid-December as we go through the main elements in the story of the Bible. Now the peculiar part: a good portion of my students make no profession of faith; many of them are young agnostics, and a few—though quite rare in my experience—are young atheists.

I don’t care what they believe—or at least, what they believe isn’t the issue at hand. What is at hand is that they have to master the basic plot of the Bible, understand what the gospel of the Bible is, read a few books, take a few tests, and write a few papers. And I grade them.

Annabelle is a good example. She came to my class one August, sat in the back row, and settled in for what had to be a weird experience for someone with her past. I began class by giving a quiz that was designed to accomplish two things at once: reveal to me what the students knew about the Bible so I could measure what they learned by the end of the semester and reveal to the students how little they knew. The test does both well. The first question is the easiest one: Who are the first two people mentioned in the Bible? It gets harder from that point on.

Fifteen minutes or so into the first day of class, Annabelle approached me, handed me her first-day test, and said, “I don’t think this class is for me.”

I asked, “Why is that?”

“Because I don’t know anything about the Bible. I can’t answer any of the questions.”

I said back (rather stupidly I realize in hindsight): “Not even the first question?”

She answered, “Nope, not even the first one.”

Well, there are no other options for Annabelle. The course is required for graduation. So I said to her, in a moment of what I consider to be Spirit-prompted grace because it wasn’t all that gracious until this moment: “Annabelle, this class will be designed for you.”

I made a commitment to Annabelle, and I taught with her in mind every day. I learned her name; I said hello to her every day by using her name. She got to where she walked by me quickly on her way to chair, but she smiled and made quick eye contact. I gave her the assignments and gave her space to think about the Bible and the gospel and Jesus. She never asked a question about the lectures.

About halfway through the semester, I saw some changes in her face, like she was getting it. Then I began to notice a sparkle in her eyes, and I knew something was going on, but she didn’t seem to want to sit down and chat, so I just kept saying, “Hello, Annabelle,” and she kept smiling.

One of the final assignments students can write is an evaluation of their faith and how their faith has changed. She wrote me a story that made the entire semester float in the clouds. Her father had been religiously abused; he prohibited church attendance and Bible reading and would not let his kids talk about God. So Annabelle had come into class as a total newbie. But, as she said in her paper, “As I read the Bible, I always felt like my heart was being warmed, as if God was present inside me or something.”

She went on to tell me that she was now reading her Bible every day and loving it; she said she had told her dad that she would be going to church, and he wasn’t happy about it, but he said it was her choice. She said Jesus was now her own personal Lord.

Four years later, in May, Annabelle graduated with a degree in nursing. We have a custom at North Park that the graduates process after the faculty, and we stand there and clap for them as they walk by us. Annabelle came through the line, saw her Bible professors, offered a big smile, shook our hands, and hugged us.

Give them space, give them the story of the Bible, give them the story of Jesus, and God’s Spirit will do the work.
 
Apologetics, I’ve learned, has changed. Arguments work with some, but the newbie would rather hear the story. That story, we must remember, Paul calls the power of God.

           


.slant

Dave Rahn


I agree that I live in a post-Christian world, but it may be arguable that the world is post-Christian.  Intelligentsia who live in Europe and America certainly seem to have gotten a bit too big for their Christian faith britches. Sometimes I can feel the condescension—like those of us who love the Lord should have outgrown our small-minded worldview by now. But there are plenty of places in the world where such a perspective is rightfully dismissed for the self-aggrandizing pap that it is. The experiential reality of many second- and third-world Christians is far too dynamically derived from the Holy Spirit of God to be threatened by post-modern arguments.

And therein lies the apologetic key for us all.

There are a few tests to lay on any thought framework that espouses to be a worldview contender. Is there internal consistency with the different parts of how life is explained? This particular test may be a bit out of favor now that modernity is slipping below the horizon. Christianity can get a good grade, but it’s probably not the SAT score we want to wave around just now.

Another question to ask is whether a worldview actually corresponds to observed reality. This is where the smart guys outthink themselves. They can do so much reframing of experience that the makeover ceases to look anything like the lives that we live. The Christian explanation for things, properly understood, does a fabulous job describing life as we know it. And the dominant common story line that needs to be satisfactorily explored is that of human suffering.

In fact, church leaders and authors like Tim Keller and Ajith Fernando have sweetly shown us how biblical truth more completely and honestly explains our human condition than the package of self-deluding half lies trotted out in contemporary culture. We shouldn’t start with headline-grabbing atrocities because that’s not the source of our problems. Sin is. And authenticity is an important enough value that there seems to be a new willingness to reckon with how the ego-dominated destructive (self and other ways) tendencies in our souls wreak micro- and macro-havoc on our world.

Of course, there are still some hideous presentations of the Christian faith on the scene that apologists have to overcome. The inclination to try to correct our public persona by controlling our image rather than reforming our substance has been, in my estimation, disastrous. Our neighbors in the world laugh derisively when we embrace such tactics. The collective evidence testifies that a spin-crafted faith—so fundamentally different from the first-century transformational powerhouse that Jesus launched—is impotent and irrelevant.

The last question to ask of any worldview contender is whether the outlined solutions actually work to overcome real-life challenges. We who love and follow Jesus know that he is the fundamental answer—the way, the truth, and the very source of life itself. It’s when our lives fail to demonstrate this coherence and integrity that our apologetic efforts will be dead in the water.

Wherever Jesus’ people are ego-burying, cross-carrying, love-sharing servants, the gospel advances. The most polished and well-rehearsed presentations never can win hearts like humility, transparency, and honesty do. God’s grace in Christ Jesus in us is the juice that needs to be tasted. Our fully surrendered lives are now and always have been the foothold the Holy Spirit uses to guide men and women into truth.


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