The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s young and enthusiastic director of evangelism and church growth organized and recruited speakers for the Evangelism and Church Development stream of activities at the Big Tent event in Atlanta.
Hoey was one of those speakers, and he took aim at changing the hearts and minds of the participants.
“Presbyterians can’t assume any more that people are going to join their church simply because of its denominational name,” he told them. Rather, they must get out of the church sanctuaries, meet their neighbors, do mission work, and tell the story of the faith.
The workshop was titled, “Fearless Evangelism,” and it stressed prayer as its beginning point. An exasperated Hoey pointed out that many prayers in church focus on the health of the members. “So few prayers for unbelievers, for neighbors, for outsiders are lifted up,” he lamented.
The spiritual and evangelistic climate in the whole denomination could use a shot in the arm, so the members of his department in the denomination’s headquarters have started having prayer meetings for the lost. “Three days a week we gather in the ECD lounge, read a chapter of Scripture and pray for the church,” he said.
Then again, most folks willing to pray still are too unsure of themselves to evangelize. So Hoey outlined various methods of evangelism – a hint of the outline he would be expounding in the evening’s plenary address: confrontational, intellectual, testimonial, interpersonal, invitational, and service.
“I believe that the testimonial approach is one of the most powerful ways to share our faith with others,” Hoey said. A testimony, he explained, is a three part story: what my life was like at one time, how God connected with me — whether in a conversion, or an answered prayer — and what my life was like afterwards.
Hoey also drew attention to the fundamental challenge of having conversations with unbelievers. “I often feel like I have to help Presbyterians meet people, to know how to start conversations.” There are direct methods and indirect methods. Direct methods many times begin with throwing out a provocative thought such as, “If you’d ever like to know the difference between religion and Christianity, I’ll be glad to tell you.” Or he might ask, “How is it going with you today? … Ahh come on, you can tell me, how’s it really going?” or “I’m curious: do you ever think about spiritual matters?”
“I call them pick up lines for Jesus.”
More indirect approaches involve having conversations about basic interests, “How’s your business going?” Or “What do you like to do in your spare time?” He just then listens for opportunities to bring a witness to the gospel.
Hoey also summarized several different models for sharing the faith, especially highlighting a video titled “The Big Story,” developed by James Choung.
Mead speaks
Jim Mead had a few things to say about having conversations for Christ. The associate pastor of Chapel Hill Church in Gig Harbor, Wash., a plenary speaker for the ECD conference, said that folks’ questions are not so intellectual as heartfelt.
When someone asks a Christian “‘Why do you believe in all that God stuff?’ they’re not looking for an intellectual answer,” said Mead. They want to know, “Why does believing in God matter?” or “How has it changed your life?”
They want an answer that’s authentic, heartfelt, and real.
But Mead said that evangelism “violates the norms of our culture.” Christians know “it will cost them to say anything about Jesus, even to invite people to church.” So they’d rather leave all that to their minister, because “people already think pastors are weird, and that’s what we pay them for.”
But God thinks of each Christian as a potential evangelist – the Bible is full of instructions about sharing the gospel. “Evangelism, witnessing for Christ, is an amateur activity,” Mead said. “You don’t hire people to do that. It’s not your pastor’s job. … You are the missionary, the witness, that Jesus has sent … ” in the workplaces, the family reunions, the schools.
In those places, “people are watching how you treat people, and you are making a witness, like it or don’t, unless you manage to keep it a secret that you go to church.”
Mead encouraged people to prepare themselves for opportunities to share their faith. “Take time to know your Bible, take time to find out what you believe about Jesus.” Read the Bible, pray, consider how your life has changed because of your faith – how you’d answer, “Why do you believe?”
And “develop a heart for the people who are in God’s heart,” Mead said. “Have your heart break for these people” – not only the poor or marginalized, but also the successful business executive who thinks problems can be solved by writing a big enough check or knowing the right people.
But sometimes churches would rather leave things as they are – even if the congregation is ever-shrinking – than to change a thing.
“Their eyes are turned in on themselves, their hearts are turned in on themselves,” Mead said. A friend who served as an executive presbyter used to put it pretty bluntly when he visited such congregations. He’d tell them: “This church is going to die. … You’re going to grow old and die together. The last person can shut off the lights.”
Or “your church is going to die because it grows,” and with that growth comes change – so the church they have known and loved will have to become something different.
“Why don’t you just pick the form of death you prefer,” Mead’s friend would say. “One of them is like life.”
McDonald’s workshop
Glen McDonald’s workshop, the “Disciple-Making Church,” echoed Mead’s call for change, urging 42 participants to become sacrificial in moving their congregations from “maintenance mode to missional mode.”
“We need to be congregations for the next 100 members,” he said, “not the 100 who are already here.”
The pastor of the Zionsville (Ind.) Church told about asking a group of church members who would be willing to sacrifice their lives to save the life of a child or grandchild. All hands went up. He then asked, “Who would be willing to change the music in your worship service in order to appeal to your child or grandchild?” No hands went up.
“A sacrifice might be necessary,” he said, and challenged them to be willing to give up some things in order to move the church to a new way of being.
He also warned that they might have to give up some of their valuable time to become mentors to help at least one person move forward in their faith.
“This area of mentoring needs to explode,” he said. “It takes time. We have to let go of certain things in order to be able to do this.
“Jesus asks for the sacrifice of your whole life,” McDonald said. “When church people tell others this and say, ‘This is incredibly hard, but the Spirit of Jesus is helping us. Will you walk with us for a while,’ they say ‘Yes.’ They want a faith that is authentic.”
McDonald also told participants that this is not a job that is ever done so it can be checked off. “Every day we are at a new place, and we go forward from there.”
Other perspectives
A very different tack to evangelism came from Marianne Vermeer, presently a senior fellow at the Acumen Fund, a non-profit venture fund that provides micro-loans and business acumen to help build small but thriving businesses in India, East and South Africa, and Pakistan. She is a pastor’s spouse, but with an M.B.A., she is a teacher, non-profit administrator, and banker. From 2004-06, she and her family lived in Lahore, Pakistan, where she served as business administrator of Forman Christian College.
Drawing from the history of Presbyterian missions work in Egypt and India/Pakistan, she provided insights into the practice of evangelism for Presbyterians everywhere. Intentionality stood at the top of her list. “There are those who may disagree and feel the mission heritage is too colonial for our modern sensibilities,” she said. “But you cannot argue with the fact that they decided what to do and then went about doing it. They analyzed the situation, took the Great Commission to heart and plunged themselves into the work.”
They also set their eyes upon the people who had the least to lose and the most to gain. In a caste society, that meant doing ministry among the poorest of the poor. Above all, they prayed and prayed and prayed. Vermeer invited the participants to do so, too.
Also committed to prayer is Martha Grace Reese, whose workshops drew scores of participants. Her book, Unbinding the Gospel, has been so popular that it has spun off sequels: Unbinding Your Heart, Unbinding Your Church, and the upcoming Unbinding Your Soul. A lawyer turned Disciples of Christ pastor, the ebullient speaker now heads the Lilly Endowment-funded Mainline Evangelism Project.
That project funded research into the most rapid growing congregations in the country. “We found three critical things that made the biggest difference in the world for churches that are doing evangelism,” she outlined. “People in these churches love Jesus. They talk about Jesus. They adore Jesus, regardless of where they are on the theological spectrum.” Second, “People in these churches are able to talk about significant things in their lives and God in their lives.” Third, “They care about people outside their church.”
About that long-told story that most evangelism is done by new church developments, she said that the ages of the growing churches averaged 96 to 97 years old. “So, you’re church may be too poopy to do evangelism, but they’re not too old to do it.”
Each of these workshops along with several more highlighted the potential and power awaiting the church as it enlarges its tent, reaches out to others, and engages in conversations for Christ.
While the Presbyterians may have much to learn and many patterns to reverse in order to advance in this way, Hoey’s closing words elevated hope. “Evangelism is an adventure. It is not a dirty word. We can do this stuff. God has given us an incredible story in the person of Jesus Christ. We can’t keep it to ourselves. But you have to get out of the church.”
