Personal Evangelism in 2017

In 2008, I began the year at HillSong preaching about something very specific: evangelism.  I challenged myself and everyone in the church to wrestle with this question.  How many times have I shared the Gospel or developed a relationship with an unchurched person with the intention of sharing my faith in the past month?  The answer will be one indicator of how we are living as Christ’s followers commissioned to share his love with a lost and hurting world (Matthew 28:16-20).  We are each called to discipleship and to evangelism.  Here’s a less ‘churchy’ way of saying it.

·        Each one of us is called to follow Jesus. 

·        Each one of us is called by God to invite people we know who are not Christians to turn to Jesus and to give their lives to Him. 

Of course in our church we have often emphasized evangelism since 2008.  That’s not the last time we discussed it.  I bring it up today simply because the approach we employed that year is the right one for now.  Today it is again the time to ask am I living evangelistically.  Are we, as a church family, actively sharing our faith and inviting people to church?

People in the world are hurting and they’re looking for hope and looking for answers in all the wrong places.  As followers of Jesus, we know that faith in Him is what everyone needs.  Our church needs to grow, and the world around us needs the gospel God has given us to share.  So here are today’s questions. 

·        In the next six months with whom will I share Jesus? 

·        Who will I lift up in prayer? 

·        To whom will I reach out with the Gospel? 

·        Who is a non-Christian I intentionally befriend because I know God has called me to love that person? 

·        What is my personal evangelism strategy for the next six months?

At the Ash Wednesday worship service, we were invited to look and see all that God is doing to make things right in the world.  Our church spiritual discipline for Lent will be to notice, write down, and celebrate the ways God is at work around us.

In addition, this, another Lenten practice for HillSong Church for 2017 must be invitation.  Invite people who aren’t in a church family right now to come be a part of HillSong.  And note how you do this.  Be intentional about finding an evangelism approach that fits your personality, your skills, your spiritual gifting, and your situation in life. That’s our assignment for Lent 2017.  Know your personal evangelism strategy.  Write it down.  Spend time this week prayerfully thinking about how Jesus will speak through your life from now until Easter Sunday (4-16-17).  Begin writing your own personal evangelism strategy, and begin this week putting that strategy into practice.

That’s two spiritual practices for Lent 2017: Celebrating God’s good works and sharing the Gospel with people outside God’s church.  Spend the next two months engaged in this practices, celebration and evangelism.  And pray for our church.  Pray that all who worship at HillSong embrace these spiritual practices.  Through our efforts to partner with God, we will get to be a part of the wonderful ways He is bringing the Kingdom to fruition.  We’ll see God at work right in our church’s daily and weekly life.

Here are some previous posts I have written about evangelism.  Check these out for approaches to evangelism and theology of evangelism.  Or just type ‘evangelism’ into the search bar on my blog. 

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2012/12/evangelism.html

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2012/12/confessions-of-failed-evangelical.html

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2012/12/matthew-13-sower-parable.html

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2012/07/apologetics-and-evangelism.html#comment-form

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2012/05/informed-open-hearted-evangelism.html

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2012/01/good-news-of-great-joy.html

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-group-approach-to-evangelism.html

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2012/07/evangelism.html

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2012/02/genuine-word-for-evangelism.html

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2010/09/sharing-faith.html

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-is-christian.html

http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-crowd-beside-sea-mark-213-17.html

And please share your ideas with me.  You can comment on one of the blog posts or get in touch with me through twitter (@revtennant), Facebook, or email (tennant.hillsong@gmail.com). 

God in the Neighborhood

This is the way Numbers 35:34 is rendered in the New Revised Standard Version:

“You shall not defile the land in which you live, in which I also dwell; for I the Lord dwell among the Israelites.”

Do not defile this land God has given you, Israel.  God is making His home with you.  Act as if God is present even when you don’t see Him, because God is always with you.

I like the way the verse is rendered in The Message:

“Don’t desecrate the land in which you live. I live here, too—I, God, live in the same neighborhood with the People of Israel.”

The incarnation is similarly described in The Message rendering of John 1:14. 

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”

We Christians, we humans, must always live as if God is watching us.  No, Bette Midler had it wrong.  God is not watching “from a distance.”  We live as if God is with us.  God lives in the neighborhood.

Is there an environment where a human being is more in his element, more natural and less affected than in the neighborhood?  That is where one’s norms are established.  Everything else in life is measured by the pace, volume, and sense of life as experienced in the neighborhood. 

If you neighborhood is in the city that never sleeps, in the middle of constant traffic and masses of humanity in constant motion, you would find the country arrestingly quiet. 

If you live in a small town where all the houses have huge yards and farms are seen beyond the town’s outskirts for miles and miles in every direction, you’d be appalled at the cramped quarters in an urban suburb, like Arlington, VA.  There, people pay top prices for .25 acre plots.  Half the money would get you 2.5 acres out in the country.  But the country folk find the city too crowded, too congested.  It’s too unlike their neighborhood.  The city people would find the country too quiet and a bit dull.  It’s not fun and hopping – like their neighborhood. 

In Israel, God made Himself at home among a particular people.  Whatever they imagined to be their neighborhood norms, God was at the center.  In Christ, God makes Himself at home among all peoples.  God settles right in the wide open spaces.  God is just as comfortable in the sensory-overloaded city. 

Do we live like God is the norm in our own neighborhoods?

I don’t think my neighborhood would feel comfortable with the thought of God being in the midst of everything.  Rarely do my neighbors and I talk about God.  Most know I am a pastor.  Out of respect, I try not to force religion onto people.  I find they will be more receptive conversation partners if they bring up spirituality or theology or evangelical Christianity. 

Usually when I bring it up, I feel a couple of things.  First there is the apology.  “I know, I know – I should go to church more often.”  I may not have said a word about church.  I may have tried to invite God into a conversation or make the conversation about God.  But quickly, my neighbor switches to a safer topic – church.  From there he acknowledges he “should go to church” the way people should brush their teeth or call their moms once in a while.

Another response is the buffet.  You believe what you want, and I’ll believe what I want.  In this posture, absolute truth is an unwelcome subject.  God is an option, not an actual, living, personal reality.  I could say what I felt like saying about God, but the response is always some form of “I am glad that works for you.”

A third reaction to me raising the notion of God is very similar to the first.  My conversation partner will refer to some church in town as “my church.”  I know that last weekend that person went to the beach, and the weekend before they were at the mountains.  Prior to that they referenced being in the grocery store when it was empty, 10AM on Sunday morning.  Knowing this person as I do, and knowing their Sunday habits, I wonder when they ever actually attend “their church.”  I am convinced they have attended once or twice and it becomes “their church” because when you’re talking to an overly zealous pastor or especially to preacher, you have to be able to reference “your church.”  Otherwise that preacher might not leave you alone.

The far worst response when I try to raise topics like faith or religion or Christianity or spirituality is the non-verbal wall.  The person’s face loses expression.  Nonverbal cues indicate that defenses are going up and a counteroffensive may be in the works.  The other seems bothered, even offended to the point of hostility, that I would dare raise the idea of God in a friendly conversation.  They will most likely shut down the conversation and things will not be friendly again until this encounter is completely over and we talk in a few weeks. 

All these responses – the apology, the buffet, the fake “my church,” and the nonverbal wall – make it clear that most people do not want God to be at home in our neighborhood.  But in the Pentateuch, in the book of Numbers, God is not asking to be invited.  God is not asking at all.  God is commanding.  “Do not desecrate the land.  I live in the neighborhood.”

Christians cannot control the neighborhoods in which we live.  But we can make decisions about how we live.  Maybe I’ll use another post to ponder ways around the apology, the buffet, the fake “my church,” and the nonverbal wall, although I will say right now I don’t have any secrets. 

In this post I simply suggest that the ways of God should be what is normal for a Christ-follower.  We know that in Christ, God moved permanently into the neighborhood.  Not only that, but God declared that the neighborhood belongs to Him.  We should acknowledge that, respect it, and live with our lives pointed toward Him.

This is not seen in how holy we act.  Prayer, Bible reading, and church participation are all important things, vital life practices.  But, our orientation toward God is seen when we treat our own families with love and grace.  Our God-lives speak when we are filled with joy.  Our witness is energized when everyone in the neighborhood knows we are people of love and they know our love is linked to our faith.  If we can establish that witness, it won’t mean all our neighbors feel at home with God.  But they will know that someone in their neighborhood has God in their home.  That is a start.