Blog.

In my last post, we looked at the importance the Kingdom of God and why it is integral in discussions with those of the Islam faith.  In this post, I want to examine the traditional view of Christian “evangelism” and why I believe outreach to the Muslim community (and many other backgrounds) as a whole has not been very effective.

First of all, I really dislike the word “evangelism”.  It brings to mind memories from my fairly conservative upbringing of gospel tracts, door knocking, and awkward, forced conversations that consisted of trying to shove the “good news” down the throats of some poor unsuspecting neighbor. (who was probably a member of the local Baptist congregation anyway)

Ok, so I didn’t really do much door knocking and handing out of tracts, but I know a lot of people who did.  And I’ve had conversations with people who have a distaste in their mouths from having those conversations forced on them.  I’ve even been the guy on the receiving end of those conversations, and they’re never fun.  Who wants a stranger to approach them uninvited, only to insist that you’re a sinner and a terrible person, and that if you hear/believe/repent/confess/be baptized you will be saved?  Heck, that’s hard enough to do if you have an actual relationship with the person, but to a complete stranger it’s pretty ludicrous.

The main problem with this model (and variants of this model) is it divides the world into those you consider “saved” and those that are “lost”.  The goal is then to somehow get the “lost” group into the “saved” group.  In order to do this, churches throughout the years have developed all kinds of formulas and methods on how to “reach the lost”.  My issue with this is that it tends to produce a mindset that views the “lost” as a project to be won.  When people start thinking this way, they tend to be so devoted to “saving” the “lost” person that they often forget to love them.  They miss the matters of the heart, the needs of the individual, they often fail to see that instead of forced theology, the “lost” person might just really need a FRIEND.  After all, the greatest commandments (according to Jesus – Matthew 22:34-40) were to ‘Love God’ and ‘Love others’ (my paraphrase), NOT ‘go force your beliefs on people so that they might be saved’.

Now, I’m not condemning all those that believe in this model, have handed out tracts, etc.  I don’t think anyone who decides to engage in outreach of any kind goes into it thinking that people are “projects”.  I’m sure that God, despite some not-so-friendly evangelistic models, still changed hearts through those efforts.  I owe much of who I am today to these very people who were extremely passionate about evangelism, and I have the utmost respect for their dedication and love for God.  But…

I believe there is a better way.  to be continued…