In order to reverse that trend the other historic way — growing the church through evangelization — about 80 Presbyterians gathered beginning yesterday (Nov. 10) 30 miles northwest of New York City for the “Grow the Church Deep and Wide: Evangelism Consultation at Stony Point Center”. The conference concludes Nov. 12.
In his welcome, Rick Ufford-Chase, who shares with wife Kitty the center director role, told the participants that many of them had been specifically invited to the meeting “out of a determination to assure that there would be a broad mix of theological perspectives.” Once that mix was achieved, an invitation was issued denomination-wide so anybody wishing to participate would attend. “It is my assumption this is a kairos moment we are in,” he said.
Susan Andrews, general presbyter of Hudson River Presbytery, set the stage for the first of many discussions by invited contemplation of Philip’s witness to the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts. 8:26ff).
Then Stan Ott, director of the Vital Churches Institute, set the theological stage for the discussions. “The church by nature has three priorities, doxological, communal, and missional,” he said. “Our missional calling and one of its primary dimensions, evangelism, is one of the dimensions of our missional calling among the six great ends of the church.”
Having been raised in an unchurched, secular family, he was introduced to church initially by participating in Boy Scouts at a local Presbyterian church. Only in college did he actually encounter the gospel, “a call to faith and followership, and it burned like fire within me to respond to Jesus.”
Acknowledging the diversity of opinions among today’s Presbyterians as to what evangelism is and does, Ott outlined his perspective. “I understand evangelism to happen in four movements: sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in sensitive and effective ways, calling for faith in and followership of Jesus Christ and participation in the community of believers, relying on the power and the timing of the Holy Spirit, and leaving the results to God — because only God can soften the human heart.”
However, Presbyterians and other mainline churches are failing to carry out such a commission. Citing the research of Martha Grace Reese, reported in her Unbinding the Gospel series of books, only 150 out of 30,000 mainline congregations (Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, etc.) have been baptizing five or more adults a year. And, he added, “those 150 congregations represented the theological spectrum … evangelism was not the province of one end of the spectrum.”
The “church of which we are a part today majors in silence and not in speaking — the mark of the mainline is silence.” Ott then clarified, “By silence I do not mean our preaching is silent or our stands for compassion and justice are silent, because in word and deed it often speak volumes, but I mean the silence of those who could speak of the reality of God and the person of Jesus and invite people to faith and followership — and don’t. In the vast majority of cases, mainline Christians today do not speak about their faith in a personal, conversational way, even when given an obvious opportunity to do it.”
The reasons for such silence, he recounted, are numerous.
· General ignorance of the faith leaves many feeling unprepared to share.
· The culture at large does not share even a general familiarity with the language of faith.
· Many worry that faith-sharing will be perceived as intolerance of other viewpoints.
· Too much church life is set up as one-directional in communication.
· Some signals from the culture sound resistant to even allowing religious communications — and many Christians respond by acting “as though Jesus said, ‘Go into all the world and do not interfere!’”
A change of result requires a change of behavior. “Many years ago W. Edwards Deming said of human organizations, ‘The present system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.’ ”
So what changes are needed? What can the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) do to break its silence, to give voice to its faith? At least three things are critical, according to Ott.
First, the church needs to impart to its people “a heart to impart,” a desire to share their faith with others, what Elton Trueblood called “the incendiary fellowship.”
Second, the church needs to adopt for itself an outward missional mindset, one that exists to serve those outside the faith.
Third, church members need to “learn to talk” instead of the regular practice of sitting in pews and listening to someone else do all the talking. Sharing their person stories of faith with other believers, can empower each “to speak to those outside the faith or communicate with them online, bearing witness to God’s reality and the person of Jesus, calling them to faith and followership.”
