Not sure what more I want to say about the bait and switch approach to evangelism, except that the whole enterprise may be misguided - a lazy attempt to short cut the process of spiritual formation that is necessary to speak words of life and light - I don't think you can get there from here. We need to get something to give and I don't mean words coming from a being devoid of his goodness. We need to participate in the divine nature.
Peter, in the first chapter of his 2nd letter, set out a spiritual formation path. He said for us to "make every effort to..." (translate intentional, well-directed effort). With some good effort and some grace, things happen. At the end of his list of spiritual disciplines he says, "For if you possess these qualities (being) in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive.
I want to be in a group that wants to figure out how to do this. We are not ready for the beach until we do. As Peter said, "if you don't have them, you are nearsighted and blind, and you have forgotten that you have been cleansed from your past sins."
Let's ask a question of the bait and switchers. Have they made every effort in following the recommendation of Peter? Have they figured out how to possess these godly qualities in inceasing measure? If they haven't, skip the beach. Go out to the desert instead, preferably alone and figure out how to do this.
My fear is that we prematurely send these young kids out that have not made every effort at spiritual formation, but since "they have not love" there words are blah blah blah, and they are ineffective and unproductive. They wouldn't know, however, since they can't see well or might even be spiritually blind.
I don't blame the zealous kids. I blame the industry that has been created around the efforts of these kids. Something else is driving this industry. I have been in churches for 30 years, and I can say that they do a lousy job of promoting spiritual formation. You can't give what you don't got, and, unfortunately, many churches don't got it to give. So we settle for things like bait and switch.
I vote we send the next batch not to Florida, but to the desert for the summer to learn how to tap into the River of God, the source of what we need for godly living. After three summers of this, they might be ready for the beach and I'd bet they would have words of life and light to speak. I'd also bet they would not need the bait and switch.
I would be interested in joining with a few that wanted to make every effort. I need to, because I am tired of being nearsighted and blind. I want to learn to speak words of life and light.
5 comments:
Merry Christmas....it's been a while.
There's no point in my comment, I just read your last few posts and wrote my thoughts:
You mentioned before how Campus Crusade tends to do this-- have events where non-believers come and then get sucked in to hearing the gospel.
It was interesting reading your last three posts...at my school, over the last couple years, our Crusade has rapidly grown from 20 people to 200 people.
But once the students realized that there was a good sized body of believers the outreached stopped. It's as if they no longer saw the need for people to know Jesus.
So the Campus Crusade Staff decided to get rid of all the event planning teams and Student Leadership teams, and starting next semester they are gathering a group of about 10 students and giving them the mission of the great commission. So the 10 people will know they are a team, will recognize their responsibility, and be sent out to fulfill what God would have them do.
No events. No forced activities. Just a group of students who love people and want them to be reconciled to God through Jesus.
You talked about how we just need to love people-- show them love. Well we also (because we love them) want them to be saved. And sometimes it becomes sort of a task.....is that wrong?
Hey Mark!
Thought you and your brothers had dropped off the blogging scene.
I wrote an off the top of my head response to your comment, then deleted it. I think your comment deserves a more thoughtful response. I will post something soon.
Hey Mark:
A couple thoughts are running through my head after reading your comment. You said they are going to give the students the GC, their responsibility.
The GC was not given to new believers, but to his disciples, those who had spent years learning from the master Himself. They were the only ones qualified to carry out the GC. The new, marginal, and non-discipled believers are the target of the GC, not its promulgators.
The good news is that Jesus is calling us to a new way of life, life in the kingdom of God. It is a very different way of living (sermon on the mount, Luke 6 type stuff). We have to learn how to enter it and stay in it. Someone needs to teach us. We need to practice and learn from that practice. Through intentional, well-directed effort and grace, you can begin a journey of transformation. A journey where you learn to access that portal deep within the soul that taps into the River of God. It is from there that you will find all the divine resources needed for kingdom living. Then you intentionally live your life in a way that you come across the oppressed, the poor, the destitute in your community (they usually are not found on the beach). Once you come across them, you look them in the eye, drop in to the heart, and see what you find. You will find some interesting things there that are not always congruent with how God sees things and wills to act. There is work to do to be able to get to that place where you can be compassionate like the father is. This is what discipleship is about.
That’s what CC should be doing. I don’t know what CC does with its time, but I would ask one question: What are you doing to address the crises happening in your community. Right now, just across town, there are families living in poverty, sleeping hungry on the cold floor with no electricity and not enough blankets. There is no real question that God has compassion on them, society doesn’t. He is looking for attentive and obedient followers to let God show his love to that family through them. And, for the rich, smart, college students at Radford, this could be done in a snap, without any change in their standard of living. Treat the whole enterprise as a journey of transformation, where your heart and your actions are becoming more compassionate. Let you efforts at trying to love speak for themselves. There may be no words needed. Once the heart begins to change and you can stay tapped into the divine when you are present with then, maybe He will give you some words of life and light to speak. They will be unlike any others you have spoken. The family will be changed by such an encounter with you. It is likely that they have never experience something like that in their life. And you will be changed by the encounter with them. It will leave you speechless, mumbling something like “this is good” under your breath.
Then you can go back to you CC group and actually have something worth talking about. Then go out and do it again. As you did something like this, I would bet some would notice and be attracted to what you are doing, perhaps many of those that did not fall for the bait and switch.
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