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Relational Evangelism Road Trip: Love God? Love the Church!
By chris | May 11, 2008
If you happen to have been on my Facebook, you’d know that I am back on the road on leg number two of my “Mother of all Road Trips” (this time it’s ONT, YYC, YYZ, SPI, BDL!) It seems appropriate I would set back out on Mother’s day, I guess. Don’t worry my wife understands I had to travel and she has known about this trip for a while. (Hence—the roses I got her yesterday!)
Anyway, I have a client who is exploring ways to help churches encourage relational evangelism by their members. They have developed a relational evangelism resource for small groups they want to test and improve before they roll out to “the masses”. I will be traveling to several locations talking to groups of believers who are reflecting on the topic of relational evangelism and trying out the new resource. (I’ll let you know when it’s available—might even be a free resource!)
Though I won’t be using all the information I am getting from my focus group discussions in the blog (no big secrets, most of it is so specific to the resource, you’d have to be familiar with it to appreciate the comments). My client did encourage me to feel free to reflect on the topic of relational evangelism myself as I travel. I suspect my conversations will spark several ideas about relational evangelism.
So stay tuned, during the next few days I will give a few thoughts on my blog about the subject and hopefully a little encouragement for us all to be more proactive in talking up faith in Christ to the people you know.
“They Love Jesus, but Hate the Church” Oh My! What Can We do About it?
Recently there has been a lot of hand wringing by people about the church’s “branding” problems. The way some talk, the church is on the brink of extinction because they just read a survey that says that many non-Christians (or as my friend Ginger says, “Prelievers”) turn up in surveys saying they don’t like us believers.
Statistics show that the masses like Jesus, but hate Christians. Researchers tell us non-un-pre-believers…err…or whatever….think we are too judgmental, that we have a conservative agenda, we are anti-gay, and we want to convert everyone to our way of thinking. Sometimes we even–gasp—vote according to our values! The idea some seem to be suggesting is we work on our image and project a more positive impression toward the people who don’t like us.
The problem with those things people don’t like about us is that we (Evangelicals) really are most of those things! We shouldn’t be judgmental towards others of course—we are only sinners saved by grace–but we should not give up all of our convictions about morals, the Bible, and evangelism just to make people like us more. Last time I checked, it was still an Evangelical agenda item to convert people to Christ. I don’t know about you but I plan on voting according to my beliefs (something that is really hard to do) this year.
The idea that unbelievers “love Jesus but hate the church” is not new. If you just ran into that quote, or some version of it, like “love God—hate his fans” it may sound like a shocking revelation, but it is not novel. And it is not new that people would think Christians are a bad influence on society, or that they are far too political either.
The Romans Hated the Early Church, but Could Have Easily Been Down with JC!
If you could go back in time and interview Christians in the first century, early believers would tell you people thought they were atheistic cannibals who were trying to undermine the Roman Empire. They spread all kinds of wild rumors about the Christians and set out to destroy them! Maybe you have heard about Christians being killed in the coliseums? Unchurched people really hated the church then!
If given the chance, Roman would have easily “Loved Jesus as they hated the church.” They would have happily added Jesus to their list of gods they worshiped. They would have added him to their pantheon without a second thought. And if allowed to interpret Jesus’ words how they wanted to (without influence by believers), they would likely have even loved what they thought (or wanted to think) were his teachings!
I am glad the early church took a stand for the faith and didn’t compromise with popular Roman culture, aren’t you? I am glad they engaged in civil disobedience toward a government bent on removing the influence of their faith in society. In my opinion it was good they rejected homosexuality even though it was accepted by Roman culture. And it was to our benefit that, even though they were despised and rejected by the popular culture, they took it as a badge of honor as though they were partaking in some small measure of Christ’s sufferings—rather than as an embarrassing blemish on their social standing!
So when people tell you what a dire situation Christianity is in because unbelievers hate us—just take it with a grain of salt. You can bet the market research will be forgotten long before the church is! And though pop culture and society would like to take Jesus as their own and toss the church aside and cast us as a bunch of ignorant hayseed hicks—we know the church is the Bride of Christ!
Do You Love the Church? You know, the Uncool One You Think the World Hates? Jesus Said You are Supposed to!
People have been saying the unchurched “love God, hate the church” since I was a kid back in the 60’s. What does this mean? It means people hate what they think the church is. But do they really know the church? Do they hate what the church really is…or what they think the church is?
Usually what the typical negative unchurched person thinks about the church is an uniformed prejudice that needs to be challenged by a friendly Christian witness.
If you ask unchurched people what they think the church should be you are likely to get answers like: The church ought to have people who love and welcome all kinds of people. The church should care for needy people. The church should care for the sick. The church should show love and compassion for people in other parts of the world with AIDS and respond to crisis and famines. The church should help in education. The church should care for the environment, etc.
The church should do all these things! But the church does do all these things! Though she should do even more that she does, the church has a lot more going on than many seem to realize. If you are unaware the church is doing all these things—maybe you should spend less time in Starbucks and more time in ministry.
The problem is the people who do these things are (to their public relations detriment) people who act like Jesus and are actually too humble to want people think too highly of them.
The day the church is known of as the undisputed leader for doing all these things by popular culture, is the day the world starts “loving God, but hating the church” for being a bunch of self-righteous do-gooders who don’t know how people really live.
Look, this is a rigged game! We can’t win by playing up to the world. We need to embrace who we are as a church and love each other so much people won’t be able to deny that God is among us!
If you “love God and Hate the church” as a Christian I worry for you! Jesus said we are supposed to show the world the truth, not by consuming the same brands as the world, or by impressing them with our social work, or with our over-branded self-help seminar sermons–but by the quality of our love for each other.
One thing is certain, Jesus loves God the Father and He loves the church!
“I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17: 14-21 NIV)
A few things I take away from this:
- Sounds like from the prayer of Jesus above that if the church is firing on all eight pistons, the world is going to hate the church. So it doesn’t make sense to make being loved by the world a benchmark for evaluating the church.
- A better benchmark would be the measurement to which you see the church experiencing unity and love for one another from every quarter. Critics of the church who show disdain for the various parts of church seem to be part of the problem, not the solution.
- If you love God, but don’t love the church as a Christian, you are not likely to be talking up faith in Christ and encouraging involvement in the church. You are not likely to be a very active evangelist I would think.
- Also, if you are helping spread the word that the world hates the church and by so doing increase the fears people have of rejection when doing outreach, you may be slowing down what little evangelism is going on in the church. If people are already afraid to talk about their faith, and you convince believers that the unchurched people “out there” hate them, you maybe be causing the opposite effect of evangelism. (See Social Norms theory in Social Marketing for more about this effect)
- As a missionary, I would rather do what I can to promote unity in the church and be a part of building up the confidence of church members toward sharing their faith with their friends.
- As a believer, I should seek to familiarize myself with (and participate in) the various ways Christians engage in social ministry. Talking about what the church is doing in this area openly also might serve to open up a conversation about Christ with my unbelieving friends.
Topics: Evangelism |
May 11th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
I’m a church planter. I hated the church but loved Jesus until I give my life to God at age 26. Most of those like me who love Jesus but hate the church do so because a wound they carry. The wound came from the church or a Christian who beat them about the neck and shoulders with scriptures. The real problem is trust. Because they don’t trust Christians or the church with their wound, they build a wall to protect themselves. The downside is the wall stands between them and God. As Christians our job becomes taking out a few bricks so they can see God again. It takes time and loving someone right where they are to remove those bricks. Only God can take down the wall.
I’ve been called to start a church that is built on relational evangelism. I would be very interested in a relational evangelism resource for small groups. Let me know if I can help you test it.
twitter & myspace: JohnQMinister
Facebook: John Quinton
May 11th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Thanks so much for your comment John. I understand about the idea of hurts. I have been there myself. No denying there are jerks in the church. Point well taken.
But I still see a lot of what is happening is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And I think you may agree there can be as many jerks in the newer seeker, Purpose Driven, emerging, emergent, missional–whatever people want to call–church as there are in the traditional church–that’s because people are sinners, you know? I have been tracking the discussion for a a long time and see they can be as fundamentalist against their opposition as any conservative.
I’ll let you know when the new resource is coming out. For now it is just a beta version. Thanks again!
May 12th, 2008 at 5:26 am
Great post. I too look forward the what results you can share about the focus groups. I’ve had the privelege of seeing the material I think, and look forward to its continued development.
I assume you are familiar with
1. Kimbal’s book: They love Jesus but hate the church
2. UnChristian.
Both are pretty full of statistics and appropriate responses and what now.
Sometimes the Church embarasses me, but that’s more my issue. I want to build up the church and help the church with its evangelism strategies.
The local church will have to in its own context overcome such negative imagery.
Chris W
EvangelismCoach.org
May 12th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Chris, thanks for the comment!
Yes I am familiar with those books. I have a different view than some on these. I think too often books like this are used in lieu of actual research. I would rather a church research their own community rather than just reading books written by authors like this. When pastors only read books, they tend to imitate the ministries of people in other parts of the country and develop outreach that is a mismatch for the people in their community.
Frankly, the book most ministers need is not one they can buy at a Christian bookstore, it is one they need to write. They need to become experts on the people they want to reach. Just like missionaries begin their service by learning about their people groups, pastors need to become experts on their own communities.
No one should know more about people than the church. But as Rick Warren has sad, the “average McDonald’s manager more about his community than the average pastor knows.”
Secondary research (like reading books) is all well and good, but it is no substitute for getting first-hand information.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:35 am
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May 14th, 2008 at 8:42 am
So… this morning I happened to read a passage (Mark 13:13) where Jesus says something similar to that which you quote above from his prayer. It made me realize what a classic example this is for how we take things Jesus said to/about those who follow him (his global church if you will) and automatically fold those over onto what we know as “church”; the micro and sometimes macro cosmic institutions comprised of a small portion of the church Jesus talked about when he talked about it. You said: “the world is going to hate the church”. Jesus did not say “church” in that prayer but the churchianity embedded within us drives us to automatically assume “church” and what we call “local bodies” from something Jesus was speaking to the greater body of all who follow him. I would re-write your sentence above as follows: “Sounds like from the prayer of Jesus above that if a Christ Follower is walking as Jesus outlines, the world is going to hate him or her as they hated Jesus. So it doesn’t make sense to make being loved by the world a benchmark for evaluating a Christ Follower’s walk.” The “church” we know today and the “body of believers” referred to by Jesus are not necessarily auto-synonymous. Hence, we must be careful about automatically folding over Jesus words to/about the global body of his followers onto the localized religious institutions built by man upon brick/mortar of tradition for decades.