The other day I stumbled upon a youtube video of a man street evangelizing. The man had engaged three males and the man doing the evangelizing was telling the three men that Jesus was coming and unless they repent they will be judged and go to hell. I am sure we have all seen people holding up signs and maybe you have had a one on one experience like these three men.
Not to long ago I was out with a friend walking down a street when a woman came up to me and handed me a track. The track explained that God created the world, then man sinned then Jesus came so that we can go to heaven and eventually God will come and judge the world and then destroy it. The woman did not say a word to me she just continued on passing out her tracks with bad theology to other people on the street.
As I try to study Jesus and attempt to understand the Jesus way, I have a hard time with people who claim to be Christians that are standing on street corners telling people that they are going to hell, or walking down streets passing out literature that tries to tell me in ten little pages who God is and what he is going to do to me if I don't believe. It makes me wonder, if we believe in the same Jesus?
These forms of ministry are more about exerting power over someone rather than showing the love, mercy and justice of Jesus. We often find Jesus with the lowest of the low the outcast of the day, women, children, prostitutes, tax collectors, the sick, and the poor. When Jesus is with these people he is not preaching at them he is participating in life with them. He is not condemning them but in the process of restoring them. In Acts we find that the early church was not preaching turn or burn, but telling people their testimony and letting the Holy Spirit do the rest. If we believe that God is in the process of restoring us, and all of creation through resurrection, then we should ultimately be more concerned with the process of building community with the people around us believer and nonbeliever. It is the Holy Spirit that will do the work through us. Through our relationships through the way we conduct business, through the way we talk, through the way we treat one another, through our testimony for what Christ has done in us and through us.
If our view of salvation is simply decisions then we are missing the glory and fullness of God. Ministry has to be about forming and developing communities that reflect the majesty and wonder of who God is. Communities that are for helping the poor, healing the sick, loving the outcast, giving value to the devalued, embracing the single parent, bringing justice where there is injustice, better reflects who God is, more than any track or person on a corner preaching judgment.
5 comments:
Well said! Now let's do it!!
Excellent thoughts.
Hey Andy, I just now (finally) went on the FCCN website, which I think you've been putting together, and it is really great! Good job!
I read you blog on "The Same Jesus" and I have something to say.
The Gospel reaches out far beyond any one person's understanding of God. God can speak to people through a tract handed out on the street, and guy holding up a "Doom" sign, a Rock and Roll song, the scripture, and a Worship leader pressing for Community. All of us will turn some off and turn onother on becasue it is the Holy Spirit who does the only everlasting work in the end.
I like talking with you because you think. However, I believe I fall short in preaching the Gospel, holiness, understanding of God's ways, etc. Yet I know the Lord.
What do you think of that?
Pete I agree with you that it is the Holy Spirit who does the work however I do believe that the way we present the gospel matters. I think we need to look to Jesus and study how he ministered. As Christians we should be sharing the love of Christ and the restoration that he brings. The issue I have with sign holders and tracts are that they are impersonal. Is our goal to get people to heaven or to bring them to relationship with Christ. I believe there is a difference. Signs and tracts in my experience generally have a theme of doom and gloom however the gospel seems to have a much brighter tone. Everlasting Life! Our God is about restoration and life.
Pete I agree with you that it is the Holy Spirit who does the work however I do believe that the way we present the gospel matters. I think we need to look to Jesus and study how he ministered. As Christians we should be sharing the love of Christ and the restoration that he brings. The issue I have with sign holders and tracts are that they are impersonal. Is our goal to get people to heaven or to bring them to relationship with Christ. I believe there is a difference. Signs and tracts in my experience generally have a theme of doom and gloom however the gospel seems to have a much brighter tone. Everlasting Life! Our God is about restoration and life.
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