Why don’t we see more conversions? A common explanation I’ve heard over the last 20 years is that churches become too inward focused, too insular. The vast majority of Christians don’t have non-Christian friends, and they also spend a large portion of their spare time in church-related activities. The result is that they have limited opportunities to contact non-Christians, and hence limited opportunities for evangelism. The remedy is to get Christians equipped to share the gospel, then get them “out” of the Christian ghetto and “out” into the world to evangelise. We need to get off our turf, and “out” onto the unbelievers turf.

This model always seemed to make a lot of sense to me, and it is almost conventional wisdom in some circles. But I want to point out the elephant in the room - the “out” model just doesn’t seem to work terribly well. My own experience, and that of dozens of other Christians that I’ve spoken to, is that we have limited evangelistic opportunities in the workplace and other places (such as sporting clubs). No-one really likes to admit this, of course, because someone will just turn around and say, “Oh, it’s because you are not trying hard enough.”

What’s the alternative to the “out” model? I am very interested in the alternative model that is being discussed in some circles, and also in the “Total Church” book. The essential idea is that you create a very healthy Christian community and draw people into that first. Opportunities to communicate the gospel will then naturally occur. People will start to “belong” first, and after that they will start to “believe”. You might call this the “in” model, as it seeks to draw the unbeliever “in” first.

What are the advantages of the “in” model? Firstly, I have to say that in my experience this is the way people become Christians. What I’ve seen in our church is that if an unbeliever starts to regularly attend related social gatherings, then it is almost certain that they will do Introducing God with us at some point. And a good number of those will go on to make a profession of faith.

Secondly, the “in” model allows us to evangelise as a community rather than as an individual. The “out” model depends upon lone rangers bravely going into the world and standing alone against the horde. But most people just don’t have that kind of courage. I’ve heard many sermons berating Christians for not having that kind of courage, but I think such sermons are misguided (I take it as beyond dispute that they are largely ineffective). The “in” model means you don’t have to do it alone - much easier.

Lastly, the “in” model allows the various gifts of the “body” to work together. In the “out” model, you have to do everything yourself. With the “in” model, you are operating in partnership with the other members of your community, so you can focus on those areas that you are gifted at.

What do we need to do to implement this model? We need to start functioning as healthy communities. This is facilitated by hanging out together, sharing good times together, getting to know each other. I’m not sure what this will look like in the suburbs. But in the childfree portion of the inner west, it means going out to dinner, having bbqs, having parties, dancing, just generally organising social stuff. We are making more of an effort to do that sort of thing at church this year.

“Let me get this straight - you’re telling me that to advance Christ’s mission, I need to hang out with my friends from church, having a good time?” Well, yeah. Part of the trick is that these have to be “open” communities, not closed, cliquey communities. A closed community wont do much. But a healthy, open Christian community will draw people in, and some (many?) will come to Christ.

More to say, but I welcome your comments.

What excites me about the Total Church model is that breaks down this dichotomy between ‘out’ and ‘in’.

Thinking of my own distant past, the reason I gave up some of my key non-Christian contacts (eg playing in a football team) as a young Christian was because I found it too spiritually damaging to maintain them by myself. I felt like a weak isolated Christian within a fierce pagan culture, more at risk of being corrupted than anything else.

Ideally in the TC model older more mature Christians would have joined the football team to support me and make friends with my friends. They would have made playing in the football team part of the ministry of the church.

Trust that makes sense.

Craig,

I probably prefer Jeremy’s model of Christians joining ‘secular’ gatherings together to the model of inviting
non-Christians to ‘Christian’ gatherings (although obviously both models have their place, and both are mentioned in the TC book). My reasons are as follows:

1. It somehow seems more Christlike and servant minded to place ourselves in a situation where we are in the minority (albeit a minority together with others) than to expect non-Christians to come into a situation where they are in the minority.

2. My experience of non-Christians being invited to Christian gatherings outside church (eg men’s golf days) is that its easy for to such gatherings to lose their missional edge and de-generate into a case of ‘let’s prove to them that Christians are normal people’ - which always strikes me as somewhat self-conscious and odd.  When the Christians are joining the group together it would seem more likely to me that the missional imperative could be maintained via prayer oustide the group etc.

3.  Jeremy’s model means that Christians are spared the extra time involved in setting up and maintaining the group in question - although they may wish to share in its leadership one they get involved.

Cheers,

Mark.

Jeremy, I fully agree that having another Christian join up with you would have been preferable to dropping out. I think the “buddy system” is a good approach here.

Mark, my experience is that people come to Christ in the context of the Christian community, rather than in their existing communities. In the real world, it’s hard to imagine Jeremy and his Christian mate sitting down in the locker room going through 2 ways to live with a sweaty group of footballers. Things like that just don’t happen. Or if they do, they are exceedingly rare and should not be held up as the ideal.

It’s much easier to imagine Jeremy and his mate inviting one of their teammates to a BBQ, also attended by some of their Christian friends.

Hi Craig, I just noticed your post. I’ve got to say I agree with you 110% - “it takes a community to communicate.” Many of the newer approaches to church that you allude to fail to recognise that even in our post-Christian culutre random people will drop in to churches for various reasons, and these are the most likely to be converted. We had at least four such people at our services just yesterday.

In terms of mission strategy what you have described is one arm of my approach. What I call our “life of love”, where our compelling communal life shows people what a gospel community looks like and what being a Christian looks like.

The other two arms are (1) “words of love”, such as you running your “Introducing Dom” course, and other events that verbally proclaim the gospel. And, (2) “deeds of love” which are signs of the coming kingdom as we demonstrate generosity, hospitality, seek to alleviate poverty, befriend the mentally ill and so on.

The three arms actually work together to form a missional whole.

Isn’t this a matter of personal giftedness? Why ask people to choose between ‘out’ and ‘in’? If you’re good at gospelling solo, you should get out there and do it. If you are good at inviting people along to church events, you should do that, especially if the gospel is going to be preached. If you’re good at both, you should do both. As long as people have the Holy Spirit, they will be good at something, and our churches and church leaders should encourage them to work to their strengths.

In the end, it will be the gospel that converts, not feeling that they are part of a community (which feeling you can get by joining a biker gang or a choir, without all the religious claptrap).

If you’re good at gospelling solo, you should get out there and do it.

I agree 100%. But my experience is that such individuals are rare, and they mostly head off to Bible College pretty quickly anyway.

In the end, it will be the gospel that converts, not feeling that they are
part of a community

False dichotomy. My whole point is that it is through the community of faith that people are most likely to hear the gospel.

In my reading of the TC model, rather than doing 2-ways in the locker room, they would normalise Christian behaviour. ie the 3 Christians pray together before the game… over time this could reasonably expected to illicit queries I would think.

Craig Schwarze - 28 April 2008 09:21 AM

If you’re good at gospelling solo, you should get out there and do it.

I agree 100%. But my experience is that such individuals are rare, and they mostly head off to Bible College pretty quickly anyway.

Sure! But the point remains, we mustn’t force people to choose

In the end, it will be the gospel that converts, not feeling that they are
part of a community

False dichotomy. My whole point is that it is through the community of faith that people are most likely to hear the gospel.

No, it’s not a false dichotomy, it’s what the Bible actually teaches, for example in Romans 1:16. Or, if you believe Luther, it’s what Luther teaches. The word does the work.

The gospel produces a church that testifies to the gospel. But the gospel comes first, unless you accept the Roman Catholic view that the church must interpret the gospel before it can be understood by others.

[quote author="Jeremy Halcrow"]illicit queries

Jeremy, this sounds dodgy ;-)

unless you accept the Roman Catholic view that the church must interpret the gospel before it can be understood by others.

Yeah, *clearly* that was what I was saying… ;-)

So Gordo, what does evangelism look like in your neck of the woods? Last person to become a Christian at your church - how did it happen?

I don’t know!

It happens quite a lot. We had an Iranian guy turn up to church, no idea how or why, and our resident Iranian MTSer just happened to sit next to him, and evangelized him over the next little while. So that’s one example that just popped into my mind.

That has happened more than once, however, and has been the basis of a new congregation here at St Paul’s.

Hey Tim, always good to hear from you mate. I know you’ve been saying some of these things for years…

Tim you said that

it ‘takes a community to communicate’

Gordon you said

The gospel produces a church that testifies to the gospel. But the gospel comes first, unless you accept the Roman Catholic view that the church must interpret the gospel before it can be understood by others.

Leslie Newbigen wrote in ‘the Household of God’ (1953 )

“It is surely a fact of inexhaustible significance that what our Lord left behind Him was not a book, nor a creed, nor a system of thought, nor a rule of life, but a visible community. He committed the entire work of salvation to that community. It was not that a community gathered round an idea, so that the idea was primary and the community secondary. It was that a community called together by the deliberate choice of the Lord Himself, and re-created in Him, gradually sought - and is seeking - to make explicit who He is and what He has done. The actual community is primary; the understanding of what it is comes second.” (p.20)

much later in ‘ the Gospel in a Pluralistic Society’ (1988?) he gave a whole chapter to ‘the Congregation as Hermeneutic of the Gospel’

I think it relates to what Craig initially raised and would be a good discussion point so I will quote a good chunk

How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it. I am, of course, not denying the importance of many activities by which we seek to challenge public life with the gospel‚ evangelistic campaigns, distribution of Bibles and Christian literature, conferences, and even books such as this one. But I am saying that these are all secondary, and that they have power to accomplish their purposes only as they are rooted in and lead back to a believing community.

what do y’all think?

Heh Tim,

Why don’t you give the $20m issue a rest and answer Shane’s excellent question?

Shane Rogerson - 28 April 2008 03:14 PM

When the gospel comes - it seems to be more than just a word - like when Paul talks of the Thessalonian mission as gospel and life (2:8) or as proclamtion and conduct (2:9-10). in other words, can we say that the gospel community in its teaching and life declares God’s glory.

I’d want to be cautious indeed about asserting that the gospel ‘seems to be more than just a word’. A similar argument would see us arguing that because works accompany faith, works are a part of faith.

I don’t think either the Paul quotes (or the Newbigin quote for that matter) is saying that the gospel is more than a word. The 1 Thessalonians argument, including the verses you mention, teach that when God’s Spirit works through his word, you see the response of changed lives, both in preacher and preached-to. And, that the works back up the words and testify to their power.

But the works are not the words, and I think the Bible makes quite a big thing of that.

I see that Archie Poulos has some relevant thoughts in his latest article on attractional church

Arch says

But to think that people are drawn to the Christian community merely because we do our meetings well is naive.

along with a few other provocative things.

I think his idea of ‘pack evangelism’ is pretty good, and his theological reflections underlying them even better.