» Does the Emerging church have a problem with evangelism?

11 Responses to “Does the Emerging church have a problem with evangelism?” »»

1. Johnny Brooks
   Comment by Johnny Brooks | 04/03/06 at 5:04 pm

   Evangelism is something I have struggled with for some time now. At our church here in Kenya we have abandoned the idea of evangelism as a means of making converts. We instead try to focus on making disciples instead. Disciples we do not define as converts but rather as followers.

2. Jason Potter
   Comment by Jason Potter | 04/03/06 at 5:42 pm

   I think evangalism is one of the areas many parts of the church falls down. In the college I trained the theological focus lead us away from conversion to conversation. Salvation wasn’t as important as engaging the culture and fitting in with Post Modernity. Theology had to evolve and engage humanistic centered thinking rather than speak against it, including the eveloution of the basic tenants of faith.

   The issue of post modernity is real, people have changed the way they make choices, our society continues to evolve. We do live in a Post Christian Era in the sense that our culture is no longer significantly influenced by the institutional church. But instead of becoming like “Post Moderns” (whatever that is defined as), we need to reach them, not imitate them or revise our belief systems to fit in or see God in other religions.

   Evangalism is still about helping people experience love, grace and forgivness which only comes from God. I believe that as humans we cannot become all we could be without knowing and experiencing the reality of God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

   I have experienced one church plant (who will remain nameless) that labels itself emerging, that has consisted of the same 10-15 originating members for the last five years. Their gatherings consist of theological discussions which have no chance of connecting with people who have no understanding of the Christian Faith.

   I’m sure this doesn’t reflect the whole movement, there are some who are connecting, but I think there are significant questions still to be answered.

3. hamo
   Comment by hamo | 04/03/06 at 7:20 pm

   It would be as accurate to say the ‘church’ has a problem with evangelism!!

   I don’t think we can pin this on the emerging church any more than the established church Steve. I think everybody is finding evangelism takes time and is not easy in this context. Am I wrong on that?

   There may be some who quote high numbers, but I suspect (and know) that beneath the numbers there is an equally concerning defintion of evangelism ie. “put your hand in the air and I will count you in”

   I don’t subscribe at all to the idea of evangelism described here, but neither am I all about presence either.

   i believe the scriptures show both proclamation and presence – but in an innoculated world post-Christendom preaching can often do more harm that good unless it is done in the context of healthy ‘presence’.

   We are not seeing people become Christians yet – and that always disturbs me – but I believe we are doing a much better job of evangelism than the church I came from that ‘grew’ rapidly!!

4. Brian Plescher
   Comment by Brian Plescher | 04/03/06 at 11:57 pm

   I think that part of the probhelem is that we have divorced the concepts of evangelism and discipleship. The traditional, institutional church has placed an undue emphasis on ‘saving’ souls and forgotten about the other 99% of the process—discipleship. The church I was a part of in Michigan experience huge revival in the 1990s. This was defined as over 18,500 decisions for Christ over a 4 year period in our church alone. Yet, over that same period, the overall level of membership for our denomination declined. The haunting question became apparent: What happened to all these people? We need to remember that we are helping people become followers of Christ. This involves commitment and relationship, not just answering a sales pitch at the altar. If we define evangelism as a numbers game, we fail in our mission, but the emerging church must also realize that we must continually point people toward Jesus (not the Church, not Truth). A life-changing encounter with Jesus is always relevant.

5. Brian Plescher
   Comment by Brian Plescher | 04/03/06 at 11:57 pm

   I think that part of the problem is that we have divorced the concepts of evangelism and discipleship. The traditional, institutional church has placed an undue emphasis on ‘saving’ souls and forgotten about the other 99% of the process—discipleship. The church I was a part of in Michigan experience huge revival in the 1990s. This was defined as over 18,500 decisions for Christ over a 4 year period in our church alone. Yet, over that same period, the overall level of membership for our denomination declined. The haunting question became apparent: What happened to all these people? We need to remember that we are helping people become followers of Christ. This involves commitment and relationship, not just answering a sales pitch at the altar. If we define evangelism as a numbers game, we fail in our mission, but the emerging church must also realize that we must continually point people toward Jesus (not the Church, not Truth). A life-changing encounter with Jesus is always relevant.

6. nolesrock
   Comment by nolesrock | 04/08/06 at 12:04 am

   i agree that evangelism isn’t really the point of “the great commission,” making disciples is...did jesus say that you had to say “the sinner’s prayer” in order to follow him? so why has the church busied itself with making converts for so long? is heaven really that vacant that we need to fill it with souls? is god really that concerned about an eternal “no vacancy” sign to be hung at the pearly gates?

   i think that the “kingdom of heaven” that jesus preached is in the here and now…if someone is going to convert to something, let it be a lifestyle modeled after jesus’ teaching…if we can influence people by our own discipleship, then great, but to misunderstand the “repent and believe” that jesus taught and to propogate that misunderstanding is a major problem with modern christianity

   we weren’t called to propogate the o.t.-type of religion that was us vs. the world…jesus came as the light of the world, so how are we doing to be luminaries ourselves?

7. Steve Hall
   Comment by Steve Hall | 04/09/06 at 8:56 pm

   I may be simplistic but how do you get to be a disciple without some sort of encounter with the living Christ. I’m with Brian, it is about discipleship, but there has to be a starting point. We need to do lots more work on a start that leads to discipleship. No start, no disciples, no church no matter what you call yourselves!!

8. Pastor Troy
   Comment by Pastor Troy | 05/04/06 at 3:22 pm

   GOSPEL BEGINS WITH “GO”

   It was three years ago when the Lord Jesus spoke to Melanie and I and said, “Go to New Orleans.” We had labored there in Amarillo, Texas for thirteen years; pastoring the church that we had planted, reaching the lost, feeding the hungry and equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.

   Our families were there. Our closest friends were there. Our fondest memories were there. The only thing that was not there was God’s will for what He desired us to do next. In just three months time from announcing to the church that we were leaving, we had loaded all of our earthly possessions in a school bus and began ministering full time in the streets of New Orleans.

   I have discovered that each step and each place that God takes us is typically a wonderful learning experience and time of preparation for the next step in which He will have us take.

   Many in the Body of Christ though grow too comfortable “camped out” in the experience and never truly get to experience the true realization of God’s destiny for their lives. We experience a tremendous move of God in our midst and instead of taking what He has taught us through that experience and using it to reach a lost and dying world, we instead “build a memorial” to the experience and spend the next 25 years trying to remind ourselves of what once was.

   Across this nation there is a trend towards the Mega-Church (churches with membership over 1,000). There are even churches in the US that boast membership at 30,000 or more! With that many Mega-Churches being pastored by Mega-Ministers one would think that the Mega-Problems in our cities would be quickly solved by a mobilized army of high-powered, Holy Ghost filled disciples being churned out in these faith factories!

   But therein lies the problem: Churches, or more accurately “leaders of churches” are no longer “equipping the saints for the work of the ministry”, but have instead adopted a “come and watch me minister” mentality.

   On the basketball court it is referred to as being a “ball hog.” There is one person taking (or calling) all the shots and getting all the points on his personal stat sheet, but the team is suffering through yet another losing season. Friends, the time is too short for the Body of Christ to suffer through another losing season! We have got to start functioning like the CHURCH was meant to function.

   SAVED
   SANCTIFIED
   SENT

   Pastors, ministers, elders, leaders (or whatever is in vogue this week in regards to titles) have got to get back to the true work of the ministry!

   Ephesians 4:11-12 “It was He (Jesus) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”

   Instead of spending multi-millions on state of the art, multi-media comfort centers for the spiritually impotent—why not use the resources to reach the lost, equip them (discipleship) for the ministry, and then send them out to win more people to Jesus before they get too comfortable and too convinced that the GOSPEL message is somebody else’s responsibility to share with the world!

   Last year in the NBA (National Basketball Association) a young player for the Phoenix Suns won the award as the leagues Most Valuable Player.

   The player, Steve Nash, was the teams point guard. He was the one who called the plays on the court, he was the one who the ball came to first, and he was the leader of the team. Yet, if you looked at Nash’s statistics you would see that there were other players in the league who had better numbers in one area or another.
   Nash did not lead the league in scoring or in rebounding—but he did what an MVP should do, he made everyone around him better! The one area that Nash was the very best in the league was that of assists. For those unfamiliar with that term, it means the number of times he passed to others so that they could score instead of him taking the shot!

   For the season Nash had 861 total assists. The second best in the league had 668. That is 193 more than his closest competitor! The true MVP’s (most valuable preachers) in the Church today are those who make others better. Nash did such a great job that there were other members of his team that some thought might eventually be league MVPs themselves. He ELEVATED the play of his team mates.

   Philippians 2:3-5 says “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

   Rarely, if ever, in professional basketball has the team with the leagues highest scorer ever won the championship. While the individual may boast great accomplishments on his own—he is not able to win the whole thing by himself.

   This is the picture of the church of today. There is very little if any genuine equipping the saints for the Gospel Ministry. I qualify that by inserting the word Gospel, because there is much going on in the Church-but very little of it results in people taking the Gospel to a lost and dying world.

   While there are many activities filling the schedules of a great many in the Christian Church of today; meetings, conferences, retreats, and even a great many Bible studies and prayer gatherings—how is it that with all of these activities being done in the Name of Jesus that so few people are out doing the actual work of Jesus?

   “The Son of Man (Jesus) came for only one reason, and that was to seek out and to save lost people.” Matthew 19:10

   That sounds pretty clear to me!

   Some of the greatest coaches in any sport will often say, “We have got to work on the fundamentals. The game is won or lost based upon the fundamentals.” This is the same with the Gospel. It all will really come down to whether or not we are raising up people (a team) that is solid in the fundamentals. The fundamentals are pretty simple:

   Love God with all your heart and life.
   Then tell as many people about Him as you possibly can.

   If I, as a minister, do not lead the league in assists, then I am really not my teams MVP. The church, and especially those in leadership have got to get back to the basics (fundamentals) of equipping the saints for the work of the ministry of reaching people for HIS KINGDOM and not just establishing another flesh-based, low-impact, man-centered program that might make the “spiritual highlight reel,” but will never make the type of eternal impact that HEAVEN DEMANDS.

   “Ball-Hog” Christianity may fill up stadiums (or sanctuaries) but it will NEVER win the ultimate prize: “Well done My good and faithful servant.”

   Jesus raised up (12) and then told them, “You will do even greater things than I have done.” That was His goal– to teach them how to take it to the next level. Yet, a “have your best life now” mentality has slipped into the church under the guise of positive Christianity that has been the death knell to global evangelization. Instead of raising up a generation of blood bought, word taught, Holy Spirit filled warriors of the Cross– the church at large has cloned a brood of spineless, powerless pew-sitters with no urgency for those outside of the walls who have not had the opportunity to hear the Gospel themselves!

   2 Cor 4:3-5 “But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord;

   Bigger buildings, more luxurious surroundings, a more relevant approach and a more welcome atmosphere seem to be the mantras being chimed by today’s diminished standards.

   Jesus said the “fields are white and ready to be harvested”, yet the “fields” that He spoke of where the harvest fields of souls filling street corners and the market places of this world-that demand that we GO and take His message to the masses.

   Today the “harvest field” has instead become the proverbial “field of dreams” and the empty promise is “if you build it…they will come.” Buildings, programs, pizza parties, lattes, and grinning greeters will never draw a person into His presence. These things are things that man has power over! These things are man-made and man-centered.

   Romans 1:21-23 “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man…”.

   The GOSPEL demands GOING. The GOSPEL demands DYING to SELF and LIVING for JESUS. This is rarely a comfortable situation! Can you imagine these book titles in your local Christian Bookstore:

   “Go through hell NOW so that you can experience heaven LATER.”
   (Rom 5:3, Rom 8:18, Phil 1:21, Phil 3:10-11)
   Or perhaps this one
   “How To Be Hated”
   (Matt 10:22, James 4:4, John 17:14)

   These titles would obviously have a more scriptural foundation! Now am I saying that living the Christian life is just some hard, negative, drudgery? Not in the slightest way! It is the GREATEST LIFE that one could ever know and experience-but with it there are GREAT DEMANDS and great CONSEQUENCES involved.

   To see someone’s heart miraculously changed and transformed by the Holy Spirit upon hearing and receiving the Word of God is indescribable!

   Watching an alcoholic pour out the drink he just paid for in the street and then kneel down in front of thousands weeping before Jesus defies description.

   Suddenly seeing a light come on in the darkened soul of a young man set free from years of homosexuality is the most amazing thing!

   All THESE things require GOING out where the broken and bruised are. If your Gospel doesn’t REQUIRE you to GO, then it is not GO-SPEL, but just a SPELL!

   Galatians 3:1 “Oh, foolish Galatians! What magician has cast an evil spell on you? For you used to see the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death as clearly as though I had shown you a signboard with a picture of Christ dying on the cross.” NLT

   It is time to break free from the spell and then GO do that which God has repeatedly commanded in His Word.

   Most Christians would readily agree that “this world is not our home” and that we are all just “strangers and pilgrims” in this place—–yet why is it that the core of our time and investments are made in those things that are so temporary and this-worldly? I lay it squarely upon the shoulders of pastors and teachers who have failed to equip, empower and release His people into their God-given and God-required mandates to reach people for HIS KINGDOM.

   As long as winning the lost (with the Gospel—not a bounce house, hot dog or cappuccino machine) remains on the backburner of Christendom and not our primary purpose in this life, then the church will remain a place of “ball hogs” and “bloated statistics” with no true victories.
   If we genuinely believe that our stay is temporary, then why not “pass the ball” and get other people involved in the game rather than building more coliseums to showcase our religious superstars.

   Church buildings, gymnasiums, air conditioning—there is nothing inherently wrong with those things—but once THEY become the focus, THEY become the idols that testify against us and set us in difference toward the TRUE Gospel of GO.

9. David Kueker
   Comment by David Kueker | 06/09/06 at 10:24 pm

   Obviously what is emerging is nothing new, but the same old church that has been really good at building a temple and filling it with worshippers. Now we have a post modern temple with big screens and great band. It’s still a come structure based on an attraction paradigm.

   If discipleship is obedience (Matthew 28:20) then it is going to have to include a personal obedience to the Great Commission. That means personally going, converting and then discipling those converts. Why do we believe that we can delegate fulfillment of this commandment of the Great Commission to others, to clergy or specialists or an institution?

   I’d much rather be playing my guitar in a big sanctuary; it’s easier. I understand the temptation. And maybe, as the pastor or the temple, I’m a part of the problem.

   Dave

10. Pastor Aaron
    Comment by Pastor Aaron | 01/21/07 at 6:03 am

    The apostle Peter warned that, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily (secretly) shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” 2 Peter 2:1. I don’t understand why thinking Christians who love God’s word and hold it as inerrant truth are even considering the emergent church. The emergent “conversation” leaders are changing the definitions of the words of scripture, thus changing the clear meaning of scripture, or at least bringing clear truth into the muddy waters of doubt and confusion. I recently watched a video of Rob Bell of Mars Hill wow the people at Willow Creek. He spent the first 30 minutes on a history lesson “revealing” that many verses in the book of Revelation were first coined by the Roman emperors who lusted for human worship. He thus inferred that John’s revelation of the risen Christ was really John using language that the 1st century Christians would understand based on their current culture. According to Rob Bell, even the 24 elders around the throne who worshiped God in Rev. 4 were John drawing from the pagan practices of the Roman emperors. So with many other examples, Rob Bell showed that although there are some basic truths we can glean from Revelation, it basically is a letter written off the culture of the day and not a revelation from God given to John for the churches in Asia and the church catholic. It’s interesting to me that the God of heaven patterns his heavenly tabernacle and creatures of worship after the kingdoms of men. NOT! Heb. 9:23,24. The gospel according the the emergents is a false gospel with a hip, relevant, non-judgmental, nevertheless false Jesus. It is sad to me that so many Christians are so scripture illiterate that they fall for every new wind of doctrine. P.S. Besides the emergents, I know someone else who hates it when Christians evangelize those who are lost in sin- his name is Satan. P.P.S “Those who define the terms win the argument.” P.P.P.S According to Rob Bell, you can’t accurately understand scripture without understanding the historical context (Rob Bell’s historical context!). So much for the Holy Spirit leading us into all truth! So much for that anointing that teaches us all things! Thank God that the church can finally understand what the scriptures really mean through Rob Bell! I am not saying that historical context is not helpful in understanding some texts, but it is rarely critical for understanding the meaning God intends.

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