Army of Priests

I am convinced that the Cross of Christ is the solution to all the decay in this world. I don’t think it is just the means by which we can escape the earth to the safety of heaven whilst it descends into hell. I think Jesus died to redeem us, to fix us, to cleanse us from sin, heal us from pain, fill us with love, and make us what we were made for – beings that glorify God. This is the “missio dei” or “the mission of God”.

As part of this I have moved beyond thinking of our role as Christians as being merely that of evangelism – to convert people from one idea to another; and have come rather to think of us as participating in what is known as “Kingdom Mission” – the transformation of our lives, our communities, and our worship in real, meaningful ways. This is what being missional is all about and why I have the “friend of missional” link on the side of my blog.

In thinking about Kingdom Mission I have found it helpful to split it into two parts: being in places where it is dark and then bringing light to these places. Contextual and Incarnational Living.

Contextual Living

I have written on this before. Contextual living is nothing more than “being there”. It’s the first rule of evangelism: show up.

I can’t remember where I saw it but I once read a quote that goes: “You can’t change what you don’t see.” It’s terribly true. There is so much pain, loneliness, hopelessness and evil in this world. But it’s ‘out there’. It’s not sitting where it is comfortable for you to reach it. It’s very tempting to sit back and church and wait for God to dump an easy opportunity right in front of us that is nice and easy and doesn’t require any dear grace on our part. In fact, this is what charity does. Charity is great but it is dangerous – it allows us the ability to feel good about ourselves when really we have placed a proxy between us and the people who need us. We must invest with more than money, relationships are needed also.

I grew up in the religious ghetto. I was born into a Christian Cult called Revival Centres (aka Christian Assemblies). They were extremely wary about any contact with anyone outside the church. Fortunately, my parents moved on whilst I was still quite young and we started going to AOG churches. Now there is a very strange thing about growing up in Church – it separates you entirely from the culture around you.

See, when you get heavily involved in Church you end up devoting all your time to Christian activities. I would go to church on Sunday, Have prayer on Monday, Youth Leadership team meeting on Tuesday, Bible Study on Wednesday, might take Thursday and Friday off, and have Youth on Saturday. Many Christians never have contact with non-Christians, and if they do they rarely develop deep, meaningful relationships.

Church’s would do much better if rather than engaging their congregations in endless spiritual activity they cut back and encouraged them to spend one day a week spending time in a ’3rd place’ with non-Christians. 3rd places are where people play. A 1st place is somewhere like home, a 2nd place is work, a 3rd place is a bar or sports field. People relax and open up in 3rd places. It’s where relationships are formed.

We have to be very intentional about meeting darkness head on in this world. Weather that means going next door to confront the loneliness in our suburbs or heading to Africa to fight starvation amongst children. Do anything short of sin to get where it hurts in people’s lives. If that means swearing then swear. If it means disruption then disrupt. If it means giving then give. God came all the way across the universe to live in our gutters and our suffering and the result was our eternity.

Incarnational Living

Then once we are in dark places it is our duty to bring light to those places. To transform these places and drag them into the kingdom of God. Go into darkness and bring with you the light. Go and Do. Heal pain, show love, teach truth. This is where we get to be Jesus and introduce people to Him.

Incarnational Living looks differently in different situations. To the waiter’s union in inner-city Brisbane it means holding problem solving sessions for issues in the community and then revealing to people they chose and successfully implemented where following the principals of Christ. For Mother Teresa it meant serving the poorest and most helpless in the community. For Martin Luther King it meant confronting social injustice head on. For xxxchurch it means going into sex shows to tell porn stars that Jesus loves them. For Shane Caliborne it means holding a juggling act when the kids in the community start a fight. For someone else it may mean cooking a meal for a sick neighbour, taking in a young girl who chose to have a baby rather than an abortion, mentoring a high-risk kid, or daring to pray for a sick work mate.

All these actions shine light into dark situations. They deal with the real problems and effects of sin in practical ways. None of them are easy but this only serves to make them more significant. Whilst the ways God works are various can think of a few things we should all be doing: Praying, Sharing, Fasting, Teaching, and Celebrating God’s work.

Incarnational Living serves to introduce people to a concrete, present-day Christ, not an abstract, 2000 year-old, dead guy. As lives are transformed they’ll be swept up into the arms of God as well. Let’s “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:12)

Reach into the Darkness

“Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light.” – Norman B. Rice

We’ve been told to be in this world but not of it (John 17 – Contextual and Incarnational Living), but so often I feel like we Christians are of the world but not in it. Like we have wrapped the world’s addictions to safety, comfort, greed, pride, dishonesty, and loneliness in new religious garb whilst also retreating to safe spaces surrounded by holy walls. I’m as bad or worse than anyone.

Yet I believe that the Cross of Christ is the solution to all the decay in this world. I believed that God, the king of history, reached into our darkness – even surrendering himself to the disgrace of death by torture just to give a hand that pulls us into the light. I look at much of the darkness in this world – the hunger, the wars, the greed – both right in front of me and a million miles a way. But Christ died to give us hope of something more and it is our duty to share that hope with people who need it most.

God created this universe. He flung stars into space. He spins galaxies on His finger tips. There is nothing He cannot do, no life He cannot save. Our arguments and fears mean nothing in the light of His glory. He merely needs us to go. Go and be Truth and Love.

Change the world.

In my previous post I discussed how I felt contemporary Christianity’s popular gospel message had reduced the good news to just another consumer product. I also pondered how to evangelise a gospel which was much more demanding and, I believe, true to the original message. The next few posts are my fractured part-answers to my questions.

The Cross of Christ

I think Christians often underestimate the power of the cross. Many times I have heard people ask “Why did Jesus have to die?” If you believe He died only to provide for us a means of forgiveness from sins it is a valid question. God doesn’t need blood to forgive. He is absolutely in love with you. He begs to spend every moment with you. If He slept He would dream of you. He is your one true father. He wishes to lavish you with attention. He isn’t looking over you waiting for you to stuff up so that He can punish you. And He certainly doesn’t need payment to satisfy Himself (the oft-taught dogma that God’s wrath needs to be satisfied before His love can forgive does not appear in the Bible; God justice is not vengeance). The son did not come to save us from the Father.

But if Jesus died for our redemption we have a different story. You see, God didn’t need Jesus to die – we did. Whilst God would forgive us in a second without Jesus I doubt we would turn to Him. And sin has done much more damage than just to put a few black marks against our name. It has consistently and cruelly destroyed the image of God that was once in us. Over the centuries it has turned us from glorious beacons of God into awful monsters. It is this fate – being monsters – that hangs in the balance. I believe God came to redeem us from this reality and to turn us into fulfilled, living people who will glorify Him the way we were made to.

How does the cross do this?

The Cross reveals our Sin

The Pharisees accused Jesus of blaspheme against the temple for His statement that “not one stone will be left here upon another” (Matthew 24:2). Jesus was telling the truth. They taunted His majesty by giving Him a crown of thorns. Jesus is the king of the heavens. With whips they tore the skin of His flesh. Jesus comforted the poor. They spat on Him. Jesus feed the hungry. They shamed Him before crowds. Jesus healed the sick. They nailed His hands to the cross. Jesus never sinned.

Christ’s death represents the greatest injustice of human history. Jesus let himself – the only truly pure and righteous man – be killed upon a roman torture device. In so doing He proves once an for all that we are evil. The fact that my sins resulted in the death of the most beautiful thing in the world teaches me how far I have fallen. And His death exposes for once and for all the prince of this world for what he is – disgusting. As Colossians 2:15 says, “having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Christ, by His death exposed those powers and authorities, and their exposure is God’s victory.

This revelation leads to conviction which leads to humility and fear which leads to repentance. A deep, life changing form of repentance birthed in brokenness before God. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) This form of brokenness is a far cry from the usual consumerist response we often try to use to get people to convert.

The Cross reveals our Beauty

The fact we killed Christ proved we are ugly, but the fact Christ let us proves we are beautiful. Jesus, the king of the 160 billion galaxies in the known universe, made Himself nothing – even going so far to submit himself to our scorn and death on the cross (Philippians 2:6-8)! And He did it entirely because of love (John 3:16). That shows just how valuable we are.

There are two types of value an object may have. Firstly, it may have instrumental value – we value it because of what it can do for us. Secondly, it may have intrinsic value – we value it because of what it is. If a fire burns in your house you would grab your birth certificate and drivers license because they have instrumental value. But you would grab the family photos because of their intrinsic value.

One of the great problems with sin is that it emphasizes people’s instrumental value at the expense of their intrinsic value. Lust, for instance, is the focus on a person’s ability to bring you pleasure whilst degrading their instrumental value as a person with their own needs and feelings. So often do we make this mistake. How many times have you become frustrated with the slowness of a checkout chick, as though she were just a machine, without ever considering that perhaps she is having a bad day herself.

By exposing our evil Christ’s death strips us of our instrumental value – we are worth nothing to Him for what we can do for Him. But it elevates our intrinsic value to new heights. The fact that even though we can never repay Him, but He still died for us shows that He did it just because He values us for what we are. That is true love. And where conviction brings us to our knees, His love brings us into His arms. Without Christ’s death we would never truly know how much we mean to Him.

The Cross reveals our Option

I remember in a sermon hearing the story of a solider, who after several battles in a hard war collapsed in a church – hopeless and depressed. As he lay there he saw a spider trying to climb the glass, yet constantly slipping to the floor. But each time it would fall it would try again, and again, and again, and again. The determination of that spider inspired the soldier to get up and march off to war once again.

It seems no matter how hard we try we continue to sin. We continue to be that monster formed more by sin than by love. Inevitably the situation can seem hopeless. Christ’s death however gives us hope.

There is something about the cross which is more than symbolic. Love is not just a nice feeling. It means something. When you love someone you change them. And as Christ loves us absolutely, so we should be changed absolutely.

When we are in the gutter the cross tells us that God’s hand is there waiting to lift us out of it. When we are ready to give up being disciplined in our holiness the cross urges us to go just a little bit further. When we think we are lost the Cross shows us there is a way, there is always a way, to follow God and be the person we were made to be.

The Cross reveals a greater reality than we can see with our eyes. It shows us an option: either we can reject Christ’s help in serving Him, or we can follow Him and learn that redemption has arrived not on the back of a war horse but on the back of a cross. It shows us another way. It shows us a kingdom way. And by showing us these things it empowers us to make this choice.

I’ve looked at the message of the cross here more than its power. But through the cross Christ does for us what we ourselves can never do – He pays our ransom and washes away our sin (expiation). The fact that God’s option exists is revealed in the fact that He died to make it happen.

If we are going to reach the lost without selling them a commodity I believe our message must focus on the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is a story, which through its own power, transforms people’s lives.

I have an evangelical background. As such my zeal to ‘change the world’ always brings me back to conversion, or salvation, or my zeal to change a world. But as I have grown more committed and have come to understand the real cost (and joy) of following Christ I have become increasingly uncomfortable with a gospel message and presentation that, I feel, sells out on God.

I feel like we are coming to a generation of people addicted to comfort and security, who are literally dead on the inside for all their self serving motivations, and saying “Hey, for only a little faith you can spend eternity in this really cool place called heaven, and if you sign up now we’ll be sure to make your church experience as unchallenging yet entertaining as possible.” And whilst it is true (for us salvation is cheep and it is the best ‘product’ in the world) there is a greater truth: Your salvation – your relationship with God, your healing, your transformation into Christ-likeness – is the most expensive and difficult and disciplined thing you’ll ever work for. Your life after death will cost you your life before death.

How do you get people to sign up to that?

How do you preach a gospel that goes something like this: You must stop trying to save yourself, to make yourself the god of your life, to find meaning in fruitless things, to compete with your brothers and sisters over trivial things, to seek comfort and security over love or courage. Because you’ll never find fulfillment in anything when your first motivation is yourself, and you hardly know what you want anyway. Instead there’s this guy from Nazareth, an outcast, who was killed on a Roman torture device, who said dangerous things about giving all our money to the poor, praying for our enemies, becoming last to be first, and taking up our cross so we can join in His suffering. And, despite it being completely backwards, following this guy (the son of God no less) is the only way you’re going to get the satisfaction (the salvation) you’ve been looking for all along. He died to make this possible. But you can’t make that your primary motivation – because even if (impossible as it is) following Christ does not lead to the fulfillment and redemption of your life it is still the right thing to do…

When it comes down to it, that is the gospel. But it doesn’t sound too appealing. So we want to tone it down and split it into a few points and make it about us getting something from God as opposed to giving back to God what we stole to begin with. Jesus never lowered the bar like that. He told a rich guy he had to give away all he had and when he turned to leave Jesus didn’t run after Him confessing it was just an allegory. And if you think James is big on the action-accompanies-faith thing you should read 1 John: “No one who lives in him [Christ] keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.” (3:6) The early Christians had the bar so high we protestants would call them heretics! The bible seems to make it clear enough that discipleship is a part of salvation, not an optional extra that comes after it.

My question is: how do we effectively ‘evangelise’ that?

I have a collection of haphazard thoughts that I have been collecting but certainly nothing even approaching anything the 3-point-plan which I would love to have (even if I know it doesn’t exist). That makes things challenging, but challenge is what moves us forward. I’ll be posting more of those ideas as I have time (much sooner that the time since my last post I promise!)

But in the mean time how have you presented the gospel in a way that lead to long term meaningful transformation as opposed to offering just another spiritual good? There are people who get ‘born again’ every year yet never change, and there are people who see God and never look away again. How have you worked to see the later kind?

I figure I have talked to roughly 60 people so far this year about God. That sounds impressive, but it is actually incredibly humbling. The fact that the almighty God of the universe would use a sinner like me to do such work is purely miraculous. I thank him for the privilege often.

But one thing I have learnt as God has used me is that evangelism isn’t all that difficult, nor should it be considered the domain of those who make money to do so. I often say that not everyone is called to place themselves in situations for the purpose of evangelism, but everyone is called to evangelise in the situations where they are placed. I just so happen to be placed on a university campus and God has been using me here. The great news is that if God can use me, than He can use you to. The great commission is for all of us and it is an amazing privilege.

I am no expert on this subject, merely a faithful no body. But allow me to share what I have learnt on my journey with God.

The Purpose of Evangelism

There is a common misconception that the purpose of evangelism is to get people saved. This results in a lot of frustration and loss of hope as people believe that God is not using them. In actual fact evangelisms success can be measured by only one thing: faithfulness. We are commanded to spread God’s word, if we do this than we have been obedient to God. Obviously we want to be as effective as possible, but it is our obedience and not our effectiveness that determines if we are following God.

There is another reason not to be discouraged by poor results from evangelism. Allow me to draw you a “salvation meter”:

People to the far left of this meter do not know God. They may never have heard of his name. As you move towards the cross you find people with some understanding of Him, people who are searching for Him, and people who are ready to accept Him. Then you have salvation. Heading into the red you have religious yet uncommitted persons, involved Christians, and passionate followers of Christ. Now the purpose of evangelism and discipleship is merely to move a person up that metre – for someone who has never heard the name of Jesus before that means telling him about Jesus; for the uncommitted Christian that means getting them involved.

A person’s salvation is usually the result of the long term work of God in their lives. Therefore, it is unwise to measure success in evangelism as being the point where people are pushed across the salvation line when many “unsuccessful” evangelists were required to get them to the point where they were ready in the first place. Personally, I derive great joy from planting small seeds in people deep into the blue, knowing I will never see the results of my labour, yet hoping that God will use my small effort as a part of a chain of action.

The Focus of Evangelism

Last year when I started talking to university students with one of my mentors I was very self conscious. I kept my distance from the action and was very nervous that people I know would see me. This is a typical response for someone new to what I was doing. The general progression of peoples focus during evangelism looks like this:

Self Conscious -> Message Conscious -> Other Conscious

As I suggested, when most people start talking to people about God their overwhelming thought is “I hope I don’t look like an idiot.” They are very much focused on themselves. Eventually their focus shifts however and they become more focused on their message. This is where they learn about the 4 spiritual laws, or improve their apologetics. I used to be involved in a lot of Christian discussion on a primarily atheist internet forum. In this challenging environment the logic and wording of my message was extremely important. I learnt a lot about how to challenge my own beliefs and also improved my apologetics remarkably.

Yet as time continued I found my focused shifted from this, and onto others. I am cursed with eyes that can see pain in people everywhere I look. My concern is no longer about how I look, or if my message is good enough, but rather on whether I am making some small difference, and giving some hope to the person I am talking to. My message and appearance are unimportant compared to their brokenness and the fact that God loves them. I am less interested now in saying the right things as I am in showing them love. Not because words are unimportant, but because words are simply an extension of that love.

The Prime Mover

You cannot save someone. Only God can do that. In fact, you cannot even make a dint against a person’s sin. Only God can call people to himself, you are merely a small, yet vitally important, tool He is using as part of that process. God does not send people on errands to do something under their own might. Rather, He uses us as His hand in this world and works through us.

If you can understand that you are merely a small tool of God, unable to save anyone, it becomes easier to accept you also cannot screw up and prevent God’s plan for someone. You are too small. You could, by inaction, paralyse God’s body and thus make it difficult for Him to act (God almost always works through His people) but I doubt that God would allow you to act, seeking to glorify Him, and then ruin someone’s chance when you say the wrong thing. Therefore, the only way you can prevent someone’s salvation is through inaction. It is better to do something than do nothing.

Methods

The how of salvation is very situation dependant, but here are some ideas to help you get started:

1. Tell people about your Christian activities. When someone asks “How was your weekend?” tell them you had a great time at Church. Don’t hide your faith. It is sad when I find people are Christian only after I have approached them about God. We should not be ashamed of our God for He was not ashamed of us. Who knows, maybe they are interested.
2. Have some conversation directors ready. Most people who study at my university come from Christian schools. When I talk to people I often ask “What school did you come from?” when they reply with some Christian private school I ask, “Really? Does that make you a Christian?” It takes a while to have some tools like this handy for your context, but they are very useful.
3. Have some materials on you. The knowing God personally booklets has a very useful summary of the gospel (essentially the 4 spiritual laws: God loves you, you sinned, Christ died for you, and you have a choice). Having this handy always means I have something to give to someone to talk through with someone. This gives me extra confidence. Similarity, I often use surveys as a way to start a conversation about God.
4. Learn from others. If there is someone you know who is passionate about evangelism spend time with them and learn from them. Also spend time with as many people as possible and tell them about who you have talked to this week. Become accountable and support one another.
5. Multiply. Once you are confident begin to teach other people. I have just finished taking someone out weekly to talk to people and they are now ready to take someone else out and teach them. By the end of this year I will have multiplied myself from 1 to 4. Even Christ did not aim to reach the masses, but rather train just 12 (or 11) people who could then multiply themselves among others.
6. Give it a go.

This is very brief, but I hope it offers some understanding of how God can use you. It truly is a privilege for God to use us in any of His pursuits and I pray that you will get to experience this privilege. I encourage you to reply here about anything you do as a result of this post.