Most of this last year we have been looking at God’s desire to reach our societies and communities with the gospel and the challenge that faces us as a church in the UK (and, specifically, us at MCF) at this time. As part of this we have just started going through some of Paul’s so-called missionary journeys in the book of Acts to look at how he engaged with the culture and societies of his day. Chris recently gave an excellent message on this from Acts 13 and I just wanted to take the opportunity of posting his 9 points here (with some extra thoughts) as a resource to help us in this process.
Nine Points from Paul’s Strategy for Mission
1. He went to them. The days are long gone when Christianity heavily influenced the lifestyle and choices of people in the UK. Essentially church is either irrelevant or an oddity. In this context we must shift our mindset away from expecting people to come to us to find out and, instead, work on going to the people God longs to reach.
2. He waited to be asked. While, in our culture, if we did this it is pretty unlikely anyone would ever ask (!) two things ring true about Paul’s approach as revealed in this passage. Firstly, he lived out the ‘fruit’ of the Holy Spirit in his life – not barging in, not shouting out angry messages of hell and condemnation but reflecting love, joy, peace, patience etc in his whole approach. Secondly, he took time to build relationships. This is key in our day and requires sacrifice to spend time with individuals – letting them see your Christianity is authentic, has integrity and is 24/7.
3. He established common ground. The benefit of building relationships with people is that you learn what is common between you. Of course, this may also flush out the lack of common ground! But Paul seems to be someone who is prepared to change in order to have common ground as the basis to build a relationship and talk about the truth of Jesus.
4. He spoke their language.This is less about using “Yo Dude !” as a current greeting and more about the language with which we communicate Jesus. Shouting Bible texts for which people have no context or speaking in a King James’ language is completely out of touch for our times. It seems like every industry, hobby, philosophy and religion has their own jargon that those ‘in the know’ understand but, essentially, excludes those on the outside. We need to strive to rid ourselves of Christian jargon and find current language to convey the timeless truths about Jesus Christ.
5. He explored their hopes and longings. What were the things that made these people tick? That’s one of the things that Paul laboured to understand so he could start from where they were. In the world at large and our locality, in particular, what are the driving forces behind people’s lives today? Real and imagined. Explicit choice and unconscious action. You might think about the endless pursuit of pleasure as an end in itself, the cult of the individual, people’s desire to be ‘in control’ and to have choice, to be a consumer or the pursuit of wealth. There are many others but what’s important is, like Paul, take time to understand the society around you – watch the TV they watch, read the local papers – ask what is God saying in all this?
6. He introduced Jesus. Paul didn’t talk about church, or his home group, or how ‘modern’ the worship was (or not!). The crux that needs talking about always was and always will be - Jesus. We need to introduce people to Jesus – and talking about Him is just the start. But here’s the rub! What is Jesus doing in our lives? What are our stories about Jesus? What have we got to say about the effect of Jesus in our own lives? Bizarrely it still seems a struggle to talk about Jesus even among Christians but we need to get past that – what is Jesus doing in my life? What purpose has he given me? What challenges is he helping me to overcome. How does he make my life different? If we can’t get to this even among Christians – how can we seriously expect to talk about Him with everyone else?
7. He made it direct and personal. We see this time and again with Paul. He moves from the conversation being about something – about Jesus, about what happened 2000 years ago, about his life story etc to being about you. The message of Jesus is hugely personal – in it’s simplest form you were born cut off from God, you need to respond to Jesus, your eternity (starting now) is dependent on your decision about Jesus. (if we struggle to talk about Jesus and what He’s doing in our own lives then to talk to someone else about this will seem like some clanking gear change). We need the winsome ability to present this challenge to people today.
8. He emphasized the importance of the choices made. Paul did not shy away from explaining the repercussions of the choices made – whether you choose for Jesus or against (there are no other options!). Neither should we. But notice, as above, this is not a ram-it-down-your-throat “choose Jesus or you’re going to hell” approach – that basic content was there but the manner in which Paul delivered it, and the manner in which he reached a place to deliver it, demonstrated the fruit of the Holy Spirit in his life. It should in us too.
9. He understood where they might have doubts and talked about the facts behind his faith. This is really important. There’s a huge tendency in western society today to perceive faith (any faith) as some sort of blind faith – a vague hope and trust in something that can’t be proven just but “it’s your thing and that’s ok”. We need to emphasise the substance behind Jesus. Can you talk about the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus – from a historical perspective as well as from your own personal story? Can you talk about the historical validity of Scripture? Books like “Evidence that Demands a Verdict”, “Who Moved the Stone” and the Alpha course session on this are a great help. We should personalise these and bring them into our discussions – let people be faced with the historical evidence of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
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