Over the last few blogs I was looking at the gospel (good news) and what it really is. Much of this involved deconstructing the “Calvinistic” message that many of us have grown up with and been fed, and trying to show that what Jesus tells us is the gospel is something radically different and so much bigger and more exciting than just getting a ticket to heaven.
Over the last few years, whether you realise this or not, this has shaped the journey of Southampton Vineyard. If, as the famous business adage goes, “the systems you have, are perfectly designed to produce the results you are getting” (in other words, what you have is not despite your best efforts but because of them), then things needed to change.
I saw that the Bible only ever talked about making disciples – apprentices, or students, of Jesus – but as I looked around I saw converts – people who had prayed a prayer and yet it had not really transformed their lives or hearts. So we set about trying to build a church around making disciples.
But here’s the thing; I think that we may have swung too far the other way.
What do I mean by that?
Perhaps, we have focused so hard on making disciples and loving people and serving our communities and social action that we have shied away from actually leading people to Jesus. There are some notable exceptions to this – CAP, especially.
Maybe we fear that we come across as having an agenda? Maybe we are worried that we would seem to be treating people as projects? Maybe we are just scared of people rejecting us?
Maybe we have been burned by the “pray this prayer and you have a ticket to heaven” “gospel”?
Those would certainly be reasons that have influenced me.
“Evangelism” means “to bring good news”.
The trouble is that it has got hijacked and now means “bang someone over the head and tell them they are going to hell unless they sign on the dotted line”. No wonder it feels like a swear-word! The thing is, we do actually have some really good news. Jesus is taking charge. Look around at the mess. Jesus is doing something about that and invites us to join in!
As some of you may have heard, something is going on in Reading (the one in Berkshire, not California). I know, the idea of anything going on in Reading is truly unbelievable, but it seems as though it is. In the last month, around 2000 people have made a decision to follow Jesus.
For me, as soon as anyone mentions numbers, I switch off. Which is what happened when I heard. Then Nick sent me a link to show that the teams were going out on the streets using the very “script” that I pulled apart in the blog last week. As you can imagine that made me even more predisposed to run a mile.
Last week, a staff member from another church in Southampton rushed up to me to tell me about it all. He had just come back from Reading that afternoon and was full of it. That (as well as being in mourning about the referendum) did it for me. I felt this anger rise up in me and I was less than encouraging back to him. “It’s about making disciples, not converts. That script makes my stomach turn. Blah! Blah!”
I had to find him on Facebook and apologise.
I was left scratching my head. Why did that produce that reaction in me? Why was there so much anger and cynicism in me?
I went to bed and prayed, “God you have to take this anger from me.” I don’t often dream, but that night I dreamt that I went to Reading and was in a random traditional church and a couple of elderly ladies prayed for me and the Holy Spirit did some serious work in me. I felt amazing. I felt as though all the anger had gone. I woke up and I still felt amazing and I still didn’t have any anger.
I have been to Toronto, to Pensacola and to Lakeland and experienced “revivals”. In most cases there was more that I hated than I loved – and yet I could see God in the midst of it and I was being changed through the experiences. But here is the thing, God can, and will work through anything. I think that I am open-minded. I have said many times “we are all wrong”. All of us have dodgy theology. None of us have an objective view of truth. So, why would God not work through people whose theology I cannot stand?
Yesterday Gina and I met up with our friends Billy & Caroline Kennedy, the leaders of New Community Church in Southampton. I trust Billy. He is a great man. He went to Reading on Friday. I asked him if he enjoyed it. He said, “not at all”. I asked him what he saw, and he told me it was cringe-worthy, it was old school, he hated “the script” but, he said, there was an openness there that was unbelievable.
He told me that he went with a team member and they did the whole spiel with a guy on the street, and the guy “prayed the prayer”. He said that, instantly, the man’s countenance changed. The man said, “something just happened to me”. He said that he saw team members go up to someone who has lying on the grass, eyes closed, listening to music and they interrupted him and asked him if he wanted to give his life to Jesus and he replied, “yes, I would like to do that.”
A bizarre level of openness that is just plain crazy!
Go figure!? Some of you reading this are probably filled with revulsion. Even as I type it I am struggling with that!
As we chatted, Billy and I were discussing the script. He said that if they were going to start doing it they would need to change the script to something he believed in.
He was chatting about a friend of his in Northern Ireland who leads a church. He had laid out a challenge to his church at the start of the year about seeing one person come to faith a week. The main feedback he received was “we don’t know how to lead someone to Jesus”.
As we talked, we realised that “the script” is not it. There is no model. There are no magic words. There is not just one way to lead people to Jesus. The point is that ‘the script’ has given people a tool. However flawed it is (and believe me it is, in my humble opinion), it gives people help in what to say and as a result it gives people boldness in being able to say it.
Many, many years ago, John Wimber came up with “The Five Step Healing Model”. His intention in doing this, was to break down praying for people into five steps to make it more accessible. I heard him speaking once about this five step model. He said that he would never tell his people that this is what he was doing, otherwise they would write it down and make it into a “model”. Irony.
But…it does help people to pray for people because it makes it accessible and demystifies it.
I have jotted down some thoughts that may or may not help you with this. It is a tool. It is not a model. It may help. It may not. Certainly, it will need to evolve as we work things out. So, here it is – Some Thoughts on Leading People to Jesus
Right, back to the beginning. I have been burned by the “broken gospel”. I detest people treating others as projects. I cannot stand people serving with an agenda. I hate the way that the incredible good news of justice, mercy, hope, life and beauty – the kingdom of God – has been reduced to a “religion for death”…
But…
I think that knowing Jesus is the most incredible thing ever. I have seen pain in my life that I hope none of you will ever go through, but I honestly do not think that I would have survived if it were not for Jesus. I have seen people healed. I have seen lives transformed. I have seen hopelessness turn to joy.
There is nothing better that I could ever do for anyone than to introduce them to Jesus. To invite them to join in the dance that is going on. To know real life that will go on forever.
But, honestly, I think that I have been really bad at that. I think we – Southampton Vineyard – have been pretty bad at it.
It may be that most of those we talk to – friends, colleagues, family – will not respond positively. It may be that most of those who respond never follow it up. But if we don’t give anyone the chance to follow Jesus then no one will become a disciple! Sometimes I wonder whether we are too busy building relationships with people and sowing seeds that we miss the harvest.
My own story is that I spent nearly a year trying to get the Christians, who surrounded me and were all praying for me, to actually tell me how to meet with Jesus! I really do not think that there is anything else I could have done short of doing an interpretive dance about it! Actually, that really would not have worked! When you write “I believe Christianity is true” on an evangelistic questionnaire and no one says anything, you have to say that nothing is going to work!
I think we may need to get better at it, because if we really love people, we cannot do anything better for them than introduce them to our saviour who desperately misses them and loves them and wants to walk with them through life.
One Comment
Thanks for the post. I think that for the overwhelming amount of UK Christians the word ‘Evangelism’ is indeed a 4 letter word. Thre majority just don’t take Matt 28 seriously and don’t really take Jesus seriously. The Vineyard church has been ‘against the grain’ in that they’ve made reaching out a number one priority from their beginning. Outside of the Vineyard (which I am) it’s a really, really lonely place if you’re someone who is passionate about leading people to Jesus – be that for the first time (justificiation) or again and again (sanctification). Regarding what you’re saying, essentially about the ‘sinner’s prayer’ (so to speak), Wimber would endorse using the ‘Engel scale’. On that basis, with discernment, you ‘nudge’ people down the scale. Whether you can get them from -10 to 1 with a word of knowledge, or from -10 to -9 is not the point. The point is that you’re following the command of Jesus. The problem is when someone is -10 on the Engel scale and the ‘christian evangelist’ is engaging with them as if they were -1 on the scale. All I can say is praise the LORD for John Wimber and MC510 or I’d still be searching for a christian ‘friend’. Matt, may you be a coin in the LORD’s pocket and may He spend you and your life in any way He would like.