Inviting Evangelism: Reclaiming Gospel Belovedness

As I continue this Eastertide series on inviting evangelism, I want to review just a bit. Last week I quoted Dr. Jim Singleton from Gordon-Conwell Seminary – “creating a culture of evangelism in our congregations is hard work!” – and asked you to craft and share a brief statement that tells the Story to one other person, asking them to give you feedback on how you did. I encouraged you to make your telling of the Story a part of your own story: core and compelling, allowing your personal rhythms of faith and life into the conversation. What I did not do is share with you how I tell the Story.

            It’s about time I walk my talk.

For me, sharing the Story flows from the beautiful narratives of Scripture, and it is difficult to know where to begin. Do I tell the Story from the place of justice and jubilee (Luke 4)? Or perhaps I tell the Story from the starting place of God’s joy (Luke 15)? Should I claim the blessedness of my brokenness (Matthew 5) or proclaim the comforts of prayer (Philippians 4)? From the depths of Job’s despair to the heights of Jesus’ cross, the options are endless.

For me, however, my spirit is drawn to Matthew 28 and the Great Commission. In this passage, we are commanded to make disciples – not just converts but disciplined followers of the Lord Jesus – and told to teach each other to observe all that he has taught us to do – not just believe a certain way but live and move and have our being pointed in the direction of God’s life in, with, among and through us. And the key to this commandment is the middle step: baptism.

It strikes many as odd that in the middle of the Great Commission are found these words: “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” What does baptism have to do with making disciples, many wonder? In the same way Communion is the sacrament of community, so is baptism the sacrament of identity. In baptism we discover our identity, our true name: before the beginning of time God knew us, chose us and called us by our true name – Beloved of God – and we are held in the arms of God’s everlasting love until after the end of all things.

The Great Commission, then, can be paraphrased like this: As you go into the world, help people learn that life with Jesus is a life of Belovedness. Teach them that their true name is “Beloved,” and teach them all that it means to live into the fullness of their Belovedness. Teach that life with God in Jesus Christ is not about becoming morally good enough, nor is it about being sufficiently spiritual, but rather it is an invitation to join in the eternal dance of justice and joy with the Triune God. God, through Jesus, has done everything needed for this to happen; we need only say yes to God’s invitation to join in the dance.

Here is your homework: choose three of your favorite Scriptures and craft one to three sentences about how these verses / passages connect your life with God’s life. How might these Scriptures invite a personal story that invites another into the Story? Share what you craft with one other person – ask them to tell you honestly how you did.

What on earth are we doing for heaven’s sake,

Brad Munroe

Inviting Evangelism: Reclaiming the Story

Throughout Lent my newsletters focused on cultivating justice; throughout Eastertide I want to focus on inviting evangelism. Together, justice and evangelism form the two-legs upon which the Gospel stands. Without God’s shalom, the announcement of salvation rings hollow; without salvation, the work of justice is merely the “Rotary Club at prayer,” (and I say this as a former Rotarian with due respect for the good they do in our communities!).

            So what does it take to invite evangelism in one’s congregation?

There is a crisis of confidence in the Church about our foundational message of salvation. The list of slings from secular critics is matched equally by the arrows of religious deconstructionists such that, many in our congregations could no more practice evangelism than I could perform surgery. As Jim Singleton, professor of Evangelism and Discipleship at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, recently reminded us at Grand Canyon’s Ignite the Spark! event, “People in our churches are experiencing the double whammy of wanting to look sophisticated and be well thought of by their friends and colleagues, and not wanting to risk looking foolish because they are really sure what it means or how to share Jesus.” Jim went on to say that “creating a culture of evangelism is a huge undertaking for churches.”

I believe the foundation for creating such a culture of evangelism begins with the Story we tell. We all know the story, after all we just finished Holy Week. But do we? How do you tell the Story? What are the ways your church tells the Story? For much of the Western Christian tradition, including many of our confessional documents within the Reformed tradition, the Story goes something like this: (a) you bad, (b) God good, (c) God wants you good so (d) God killed Jesus: (e) if you believe this intellectually without doubt or question God will let you go to heaven; otherwise…well, let’s just say you want to go to heaven! My re-telling of the Gospel in this paragraph is badly caricatured (sorry!) but I fear it is the sub-text our listeners hear, an accurate reflection of what they hear in what we have to tell. Is it really any wonder our congregants may not want to “risk looking foolish” by telling this Story?

But is the Story above really and truly the Gospel? Can we become more sophisticated in how we tell the Story without compromising the Gospel’s integrity? Yes, yes we can. Can we help our congregants focus on aspects of the Story that are both core and compelling? Yes, yes we can. Can we help our congregants learn how to put the Story into their own words to invite evangelism that is natural to oneself so that it flows with a personal rhythm? Yes, yes we can. Can our congregations do the hard work creating a culture of evangelism? Yes, yes we can.

Here is your homework: write a brief summary of the Story in your own words. Give it integrity; make sure it is true to the core of what Scripture tells us in Jesus. Make it compelling, yet allow it to be spoken in a way that it reflects your own personal rhythm. Share your Story with one other person – ask them to tell you honestly how you did.

What on earth are we doing for heaven’s sake,

Brad Munroe

Good Friday (Excerpted and adapted, with permission, from the Rev. Bart Smith)

I appreciate what the Jesuit liberation theologian, Jon Sobrino, wrote about the cross:

What does Jesus’ cross really say? It says that God has irrevocably drawn near to this world, that he is a God “with us” and a God “for us.” And to say this with the maximum clarity he lets himself be a God “at our mercy… There can be no logic, only faith.”

This story—the whole story, all parts of it—hold up a mirror to us. In its harsh light, we see the truth of what humanity is capable. We can see ourselves in Pilate washing his hands saying, “I’m just doing my job.” We can see our reflection in Peter’s betraying a friend because of his fear. We can see ourselves in the other disciples, as they flee; in Mary, who faces the agony of losing a child. We can see our reflection in the fickle crowds who shout “Hosanna!” one day and “Crucify him!” a mere few days later. It’s all there: disloyalty, dodging responsibility, mob rule, persecution, blaming, bloodshed… you name it.

I’ll quote Jon Sobrino again: “the cross of Jesus points us to the crosses that exist           today.” The cross points to other crosses. Like other deaths, Jesus’ death says, “Don’t     look away.”

§  Don’t look away from the crosses that our mission partners down at Frontera de Cristo lift up along the border Tuesday evenings at sunset, shouting “Presente!” after the names of people who have died crossing the desert are read aloud.

§  Don’t look away from our coworker or classmate who is constantly made to feel like an outsider, to the sneers of others.

§  Don’t look away from the face of that person holding a cardboard sign by the exit ramp.

§  Don’t look away from the young women who are victims of human trafficking, around the globe and down the street

§  Don’t look away from the statistics of disproportionately incarcerated people of color or young men of color who are killed with impunity.

§  And thinking specifically about this week, don’t look away from the photos of Syrian children killed by chemical weapons, the same faces of children who wouldn’t be welcomed as refugees to the country that fired missiles in their defense. Don’t look away from the dark irony of that.

Examples of other crosses are limitless. There’s no need to name them here; we know     them all too well. We don’t want to look into these “mirrors” because they’re             overwhelming, and shameful. The cross gives us an unvarnished look, not at sin in the abstract, but at the specific harm we cause one another, the violence of our systems of domination, the scapegoats we have the need to blame. I’m speaking of this in a collective sense, but it applies to our interpersonal lives as well.

The cross is a mirror for all the ways that we break God’s heart—a heart that still, somehow, has enough love in it to try to coax the world into being better than it is.Yet, somehow, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.”

It’s Friday…and we shall not look away,

Brad Munroe