From the 1975 classic “WHAT’S GONE WRONG WITH THE HARVEST” by James Engel
Spiritual Awareness
A properly understood decision for Christ does not require a leap into the unknown. In fact, the experience of many evangelists is that a large number of those who appear to have committed their lives to Christ fail to show signs of regeneration. The cause often is that there was no real grasp of the implications of the gospel.
How much must a person know before a rational decision can be made? This is a very difficult question to answer, first of all, because there are many things that can be understood spiritually only after a life commitment is made. As Paul indicated in the second chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, spiritual truths can be discerned only by spiritual people. Undoubtedly, reference is made here to the deeper truths necessary for growth in the Christian life; otherwise no one could ever become a Christian.
Furthermore, people differ substantially in the amount of information required before they make a major decision of any kind.~ Some will act with only a skeleton basis of fact, whereas others will delay until they can obtain a greater measure of certainty. Full certainty, however, will never be possible; there must come a point at which a step of faith is taken.
Even while recognizing these considerations, most would agree that there is a minimum level of understanding required with respect to God, the nature of man, the uniqueness of Jesus, and the practical steps required for a life commitment to Christ.
First there must be at least an initial grasp that there is one God whose revelation of Himself through the Word of God (the Bible) declares His attributes and His reality as a personal God. Then, as has been elaborated earlier, the Bible also reveals the nature of man. It is crucial for the inquirer to understand this basic biblical premise about the nature of man: that all are incomplete and separated from God. The Impact of this truth no doubt becomes much more apparent after regeneration. But the candidate for saving faith must at least be open to testing this premise. Finally, Christ’s basic claims about Himself and His deity must be understood. At the very minimum, the inquirer must recognize that Christ claimed to be unique — that He is the visible expression of the unseen God and the only way to attain a full and meaningful life both now and in eternity. Once the individual gets to this point and is in a stage of problem recognition (having an awareness of alienation from God and feeling strongly a need for change), the last communication task is to indicate the steps necessary to come into saving belief — repentance and commitment.
If awareness is deficient in any of the above respects, it is the job of the communicator to use the proper combination of message and media to build the minimum awareness level. Furthermore, the extent to which this important task has been successfully accomplished is measurable, as the next chapter will demonstrate.
Attitudes Toward the Gospel
If the communicator has succeeded in speaking to felt need and building a minimum level of awareness, there should be a positive shift in attitudes toward the gospel message itself and toward its most visible manifestation—the church. The gospel, in other words, is presented as the means necessary to satisfy that basic need. If the person is progressing in his or her decision process, there will be growing interest in this alternative. For attitude shift to take place, however, it will often be necessary to counter a previously negative view toward the church.
George and Sally Calderone were not positive toward either Christianity or the church. In part, this reflected earlier negative experiences, but it also reflected ignorance of the true significance of both. Through the combined efforts of concerned lay people, radio, and books, this attitude shifted substantially. The Holy Spirit worked through it all to bring about problem recognition and to set the stage for the life-changing decision that was to come later. The combination of skillful use of message and media, then, was reflected in a pronounced favorable shift in attitude.
From this discussion it may easily be concluded that attitude change can be a useful goal for Christian communication. As will be pointed out later, this type of communication objective is pertinent in terms of signifying the desired response in the decision processes of those in the audience, and it is measurable.
Decision-Making Styles
There are substantial differences between groups of people in the manner in which decisions are made. In some cultures, no one will take a step of the magnitude of accepting Christ unless everyone else in the social group takes a similar step. There are numerous examples in the anthropological literature of people movements,7 and it is common for whole tribes to become Christians at once! Under such circumstances it would be dangerous to press one individual to decide by himself and thereby risk becoming a social deviate. At one time this practice was common in mission circles, and the wreckages of family units that were unnecessarily destroyed still remain. In the final analysis, the strictly individual decision must be made, but it is a distinctly North American phenomenon to see it happen so frequently without deep soul searching as to the consequences within a family or tribal unit. The appropriate decision style, then, is often reflected in the very fabric of the culture itself, and this must not be disregarded.
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