Up until now we have talked a great deal about Loving people into the Kingdom. How Agape love is the kind that reaches people; non threatening wide open accepting love. There are worldly patterns to follow. If you want to understand the word Brother or Brethren as used in the bible watch Animal House the movie, Fraternity Brothers (Brethren). Or when George Bush says, My fellow Americans, (Brothers Brethren), Or when Mark Anthony says, Friends Romans Countrymen, lend me your ears, (Brothers). It's an affiliation relational inclusion and not an intimated blood brotherhood. Unfortunately it has been polluted in meaning over the centuries and is an obstacle to evangelism.
Everything the Church has tried to do in the last 20 years probably could be best described as wasted effort in evangelism. The old ways just don't work any more. We used to hand out tracts when giving someone a piece of paper with writing on it was something unique. Today it's junk mail. We are buried in paper. Try handing out tracts on Michigan Ave in Chicago. You'll be arrested for littering as people throw it on the street.
We used to reach people by conducting Bible Studies. People were interested in hearing things they hadn't heard before. This was before 150 channels on TV, and now anyone can be a greater expert than you or me in 20 minutes using Google on the Internet. They might be misled but there is no shortage of explanations or information. People are in info overload.
We used to do it by having crusades. Events. Something that would attract the lost out of curiosity. Some of our forefathers used tents. People came because there was nothing else to do. That doesn't get it anymore. People hardly have enough time to watch American Idol, go shopping for shoes, to the movies, out to dinner or to the club. Mass crusades aren't of much interest to the lost any more. Oh, its ok for reaffirming the backslider but believe me, the lost ain't coming.
Bible Studies, Handing out tracts on the 4 spiritual laws, and having a famous "Evangelist" show up in town is akin to tossing a gospel grenade and hoping for the best. You know the Gospel Grenade: lean back, pull the pin and toss it into a crowd of sinners yelling, "GET SAVED". Or we pull the pin and heave it hollering, "REPENT OR BURN IN HELL". We do this all the time. It explodes. Now and then it gets a tiny result. So we believe that it works. That might have worked a hundred years ago. The Devil has equipped the lost with flack jackets. They aren't as easy as they used to be.
So how do we win the lost? There's only one way left: Stealth, Infiltration. Sleeper Cell Christians. We have to sneak up on them. They aren't going to come to us. We have to get next to them and bring them into the fellowship of believers and only then they will come to Church. We jump the gun on this one badly.
There is a danger in all this: we believe that we have to go out and become buddies with the world to lead them to Jesus. We think we have to become a guy's "best friend" to win him. That is a recipe for disaster. Think I'm all wet? OK, "buddy", What are you gonna do when the Sinner you have decided to get next to so you can earn the right to share the gospel with him wants to go out and chase whores and smoke dope? I mean you're his buddy now. Right? You should go along. Right? Chasing whores and smokin dope for JESUS. Wrong. You have to love him with the exact kind of Love God loves us with. Nothing else. Nothing less.
That's the problem with evangelism strategies that requires us to get next to someone on a friend level to share Jesus most of the time gets to be a case of who's zoomin who. Who's leading who where. Unless you know and understand this truth if you go out to infiltrate the world they will infiltrate you. I have known Good Christian Men and Women led into backsliding sin by trying to lead a sinner out and getting sucked back into the world.
Here's where the rubber meets the road. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BECOME SOMEONE'S BEST FRIEND TO SHARE JESUS WITH THEM.
Wow, I can hear you say, that's heresy. OK, is it? The principle is I can love you as a brother in the sense of a fraternity brother and NOT be your friend in the way most of the world thinks you should be. I can be friendly, but true friendship is rare and should only be given carefully.
In a prior post I talked about the need to love the lost and those in the church unconditionally with agape love. I gave a great number of examples.
The problem is that Christians impose on themselves the burden of thinking they have to love sinners and even one another with Philial (Brotherly) love that is equivalent to being a blood brother born of the same mother and father. That is impossible and not scriptural. Spiritually it works. Spiritually when we are born again we become brothers.
First, lets talk about IN the Church. One of the reasons burnout among pastors is so high in this day and age is that they try hard to be everybody's friend. Go to dinner. Go out, wash their car, fix their plumbing etc. If you are a pastor and you are in this trap I can help.
God has put you in the place of an under shepherd. You have seen a border collie that nips around with the sheep on TV. The Over shepherd tells him, go there, do that and he does. But the over shepherd doesn't expect the collie to befriend the sheep.
That doesn't mean he can't have a sheepling for a friend but few. That's why I said earlier, we should be careful who we call "Brother". Yes, it's true, that we are brothers positionally with Jesus and with each other. But, if you take the word Brother and do the research most of the time it is a warning about someone who calls themselves a brother. There is little scriptural mandate for treating a fellow believer as a brother.
I think the catholic church and the whole monastic environment has caused many people in the protestant church to think we should be like that. Live in unity and brotherhood without any dynamics of relationship. Somehow anything that is less than smiley faces all the time is sin. I don't read that in my Bible. Neither do you.
Oh, and by the way, I have spent time in Monasteries. They don't get along all the time either. Not everyone of the brothers likes each other. It's not sin.
I have a brother. I speak into his life. He speaks into mine. I get upset and impatient with him. He does the same with me because he knows we are devoted to one another. Our love for one another is unconditional and irrevocable. If you choose to have me as your brother or be my sister in Jesus, I will speak into your life, let you speak into mine, get impatient with you and even holler at you. If you become upset and push me away you weren't really ever my brother. I will still love you with the Agape love of God. I must and he empowers me to do so. But I must protect my heart with most of the brethren. Even the word brethren is badly translated here.
So, stop thinking evangelism is tossing gospel grenades. They don't work. Start thinking of evangelism as infiltrating the culture and earning the right out of respect and acceptance of unbelievers without endorsing or participating in the lifestyle they have to lead them to Jesus when they ask. They will.
As a pastor, if you want to avoid being burned out, love all of your congregation with the Love of God (Agape) and have a very few true spiritually blood brothers. Those must be ones you would trust with your very life. Because you are. They will watch out for you and you must watch out for them.
More tomorrow.
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