Saved by Grace, Born Again, and Purpose Driven

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Saved by Grace, Born Again, and Purpose Driven

By chris | November 17, 2006

Every Sunday pastors preach sermons in their churches that attempt to help the members of their church apply the meaning of the Bible to their lives. They speak the context of the Bible into the context of our lives. When done well, the message connects the people who live today to the ancient words from the past and translates it into applications we can live out the rest of the week. Preaching like that transforms lives–that’s good preaching!

Exegesis is the art and science of taking the text of scripture interpreting in light of the context of the Bible. The background of the times when the passage was written, the cultural, social, technological, theological implications, etc of each passage are studied and translated into applications in sermons.

When ministers communicate the message of the Bible, they also need to take into account the cultural, social, technological, and theological context of the people they want to reach.

Exegete the Community

The problems in communication for ministry leaders come when they do all the work to exegete the context of the scriptures, yet do not exegete the context of the community. Each message needs to be spoken into the context of the people who will hear the message, this is known as contextualization. Missiologist David Hesselgrave describes contextualization

”In a word, then the missionary task is to attempt to understand the message intended by the Holy Spirit and human authors of the Biblical text and then explain/communicate that message in a way that is meaningful and persuasive to respondents in the context of their culture” ( Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally, Second Edition by David J. Hesselgrave , 109)

For example, if a missionary to France wanted to reach French people, you would expect him to learn to speak French. You would not expect to see good results until after the missionary has learned to communicate in French. The first task of the missionary would be to learn French, so he could contextualize the message in the French language. Some time ago the first missionaries to France had to translate the Bible into French. But the work of contextualization is not done merely by learning the language.

Every missionary who is effective in a cross-cultural setting needs to learn how to contextualize the message in the society in which he serves. To do so, he studies the social networks of the people group; he learns their culture; he adapts to the technology of the people; he understands their theological background.

After all that preparation, the missionary has the best chance of communicating in a way that assures the message intended, is the message received. Sound complicated? It can be complicated. Tragically, too many ministry leaders have not learned the basics about the people they want to reach and don’t engage enough in the process of contextualizing their ministry.

In the present day, many ministries wonder why they are not effective at reaching people. Yet these ministry leaders often are experts at exegesis. They have the basic skills they need to understand the first centrury. To be a minister and interpret the New Testament, you need to understand the first century world. But to be a ministry leader and communicate the message to people today, you need to be an expert in the “this century world”.

The reason ministry communication is breaking down in many quarters is messages are not being properly contextualized to the times in which we live. Programs and approaches that used to work, no longer yield the harvest results they once did. “We need to pray harder and get back to the older ways of doing things” many say is the solution.

We should pray and we should consider that in some ways we have not relied on God as we should. But we also need to ask ourselves, have we contextualized the message? If we do not do the work needed to communicate, we will be like the missionary to France who can’t speak French. Or, at least, like the missionary to France who knows very little about French people.

Language can be deceptive. The temptation is great to think that since we know how to speak English to Americans we should know how to communicate with people in America. That is the major reason many ministries are not connecting, we know the language, but don’t understand the people.

What has happened lately, is evangelicals have begun to realize we have created a ghetto of Christianity and the world around us has changed. Instead of becoming missionaries, many are in culture shock. Some have resisted the culture judging it and retreating into hyper-conservativism, others are “going native” in love fest with postmodernism. I think the real place to land is somewhere in between. What we need is missionaries and missional communication that understands and contextualizes without compromise.

Saved by Grace, Born Again, and Purpose Driven

All these words have meaning to evangelicals—but what do they really mean to unchurched people? Much marketing coming out of churches today has messages that still have too many terms that people don’t understand. Often, the message requires more biblical literacy than is “out there” in the general public.

I don’t know many unchurched people who could understand what “anointed preaching” is. Once I heard Christian film maker Phil Cooke describe how one church wanted to invite area men to a “mighty time of fellowship” watching the Super Bowl. To the unchurched, who rarely, if ever have a “mighty time” of anything—it must sound like so much swashbuckling. “Arrr, me matees—time fer a mighty time of fellowship!”

You may think people know who Abraham and Isaac are, but they don’t. People don’t know Paul from Timothy, or Sodom from Salvation. The scenario is much like the one Paul found himself in Acts 17. He stood before the Athenians, a people who had no understanding of the basics of the Bible. He knew he couldn’t start with Abraham and work his way to Jesus–he had to start where the people were.

How many advertisements, church signs, brochures, bulletins, websites have terms that a person would only understand if they had a background in the church. “Fellowship”, “Outreach”, “Redemption”, “The Precious Blood of Jesus” We all may know what these terms mean. But what do they mean to the people we want to reach?

In one of my market research projects I came to realize how something I had been saying for years could easily be misunderstood by unchurched people. If you are like me you may have told people they need to consider “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ“. I wish every one had a personal relationship with Jesus in the way that I mean that phrase. That is they understand who Jesus is, what He did on the cross for them, how He rose again and how they should repent and turn their life over to Him to live under His lordship.

But what I discovered in my research was many who hear “You need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ” actually understand that to mean, “You need to come up with something in the way of a personal belief about Jesus on your own and stick to that faithfully”. The context of the message is the relativism of our day. Any idea about Jesus is as valid as any other idea about Jesus as long as you are sincere. I don’t agree with it, but I have to deal with it if I hope to communicate. Sticking my head in the sand won’t do. Railing against it won’t do. Dropping my core biblical beliefs certainly won’t do!

Many Christians don’t realize it, but in some contexts, they may be sending unintended messages because they lack understanding of their audience. We don’t know it, but we don’t really speak English the way unchurched people do. A Christian vocabulary has emerged some people call “Christianese”.

We speak another language; we don’t understand the social networks around us. Outside the church people have a language all their own. They might not have expressions we don’t understand, but they do have experiences that make them form their perceptions. (You need to read Ginger Sinsabaugh McDonald’s Guide to Christianese very funny and true!)

In the days ahead I will show you how to help ministry leaders know their target audiences, learn their needs and help them link ministry in context to the people they want to reach. All without taking liberty with the Word of God. It’s basic missionary stuff

If you can, get a copy of Breaking the Missional Code: Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community by Ed Stetzer and read chapter 7 on contextualization

Topics: Theology & Marketing |