This is the approximate text of a webinar I shared in on 19th May 2020 on "Give me some good news: Evangelism beyond COVID-19.
I want to reflect
on re-purposing principles of Evangelism and drop some words in that I will be
cover.
Principles
(Re) – Purpose
Practice
Partnership
Prophetic
The central Principles of Evangelism remain the same.
In Matthew 28, Jesus
said “Go and make disciples”. This
reminds us in the Church we should be outward facing and looking. The principle remains even if we are more
confined in lockdown. Give me some good news! – It’s still about “Go”.
Going is not just
about physical travel but about “going” in the mind to understand people and
the context around us. Paul in Athens
(Acts 17) was like this. He got the
context. He understood their religious
background and uses it as a starting point when he talks about the altar to the
Unknown God. He refers to the local
poetry, “In him we live and move and have our being” and “We are his offspring)
Give me some good
news! It is still about understanding
the people and context around us.
Then the Mission of
God, the Missio Dei. One of the things
that has come to the foreground more and more in recent years is the acknowledgement
that we are invited to join in the mission of God rather than inviting God to
join in our mission. Give me some good
news - It’s still about God’s mission not ours.
Let us re-purpose these principles so they inform
our Practice in the present situation of COVID 19 and beyond They are
relevant and they work. So, if it is God’s mission, where is God at work? That picks up the context emphasis again from
Athens and is essential. God is at work. We will have identified various ways and
places and there will be more. Look at
what is going in in society,
Rainbows everywhere.
Prayer spoken about
more freely.
People engaging
with online worship in greater numbers than when we were meeting in church
buildings.
An emphasis on the importance
of Community as people struggle with isolation and lockdown.
A longing for
freedom when our freedoms have been taken away in lockdown.
Creation where
pollution levels are falling because so much air travel and other travel is
reduced.
Health, Life and
Death issues are to the fore
Mental Health
challenges.
Domestic abuse
challenges.
Those who are involved
in extra marital relations will find it more difficult to pursue them and
relationships may become even more strained with the hidden undercurrent.
The Church has
something to speak into all these areas and having reflected that it is still
God’s mission we can look and listen and discern where God is at work as we
seek to apply the same principles of understanding the context and “going”. We move to join in with what God is doing in
his mission.
What else might
help with our “Practice” then?
The good news is we
have an opportunity to speak and act into the present situation, lifting our
eyes up from the most familiar and usual routes of evangelistic practice and
taking account of what is real to people at the moment. We can do that by learning
from those around us. Too often we might
seek to re-invent the wheel in the Church.
Learn from
the lockdown Church (that
is prison, perhaps more like lock up church).
I was a Prison Chaplain for a number of years and saw how powerfully God
can be at work in that environment. What
can we learn from those who have experience in a place where people cannot
freely move around and meet? I
discovered Prison Ministry encourages a recognition that many are Biblically
illiterate and we need to respond to that.
There is great Biblical illiteracy in modern society. Prison Ministry
enables us to be more aware of spiritual hunger that exists within human kind.
Prison Ministry encourages ecumenical co-operation and teamwork rather than a
spirit of competition. Prison Ministry encourages the discipling of people one
to one as well as in small groups.
Learn from
the Dispersed Church Look how the Early Church grew. We may not be physically moving around under
lockdown, but we are moving into different ways, mind sets, encountering people
in different situations. Perhaps we are
getting to know neighbours in different ways, e.g., WhatsApp groups. We may be
more aware of who we might meet via social media or the telephone. We might
reach out through foodbanks and home deliveries to the vulnerable. The dispersed Church really can be like salt
being shaken out across communities.
Learn from the
Persecuted Church It is not that we are being persecuted, but we
are not able to meet openly. The persecuted
Church might remind us of the thirst for the Bible, the encouragement into
deeper prayer life and holiness, an emphasis on quiet communication of the good
news of Jesus through one-to-one situations, and growth in perseverance. Oh, what lessons we can learn from our
sisters and brothers in the persecuted Church.
Maybe you know someone who had to live their faith out under
persecution. Ask them what we can learn
to sustain us today.
Into this I want to
bring an eschatological angle which was important for parts of the Persecuted
Church, just as it has been in other groups and times. Slavery would be another example. Working for life before death (a Christian
Aid slogan) is really important and part of the outworking of the Gospel. In some parts of the Church, maybe more so in
a relatively comfortable West, the Church has been a little more circumspect
about mentioning things like assurance of life in Christ (now and eternally) and
sharing insights about death, judgement, heaven and hell. There are a lot of uncomfortable people
around at the moment who feel frightened and vulnerable and some who are dying, We have a message of hope and assurance for
them. For some who have suffered under
persecution and who have suffered in other ways the realisation that in the end
God holds them for eternity is central. Of
course, that does not and should not stop us working for change now.
I am reminded in
some of what I have just shared that it is good to learn to Partner with others. Prison, Hospital and Forces Ministry and the global
church are all examples of where such partnership is seen. We should make a point of partnering with God’s Church which is bigger that the Methodist
Church. We should partner with communities and local government, with para-Church
organisations in order that we might “seek the peace and prosperity of the City
for when it prospers you too shall prosper” (Jeremiah 29:7). Burst the bubble of Methodism and live on a
bigger map.
Another element to
inform our practice is the Prophetic
voice. What is God saying to us? It is good to ask that question. It is not always easy to answer. I have been trying to listen to others and to
prayerfully reflect myself. Maybe God is
saying Stop, to the World and the Church
Our normal routine
in the life of the Church is not something I am keen to go back to and I wonder
if God might be speaking into this time saying to us Stop! Stop your struggling and die. Because it is through death that we enter
into life. Think differently, act
differently. Do not start the same
meetings up, do not use Preaching Plans in the same way. Look past the boundaries of your
buildings. Listen to the concerns of the
world. Put mission at the centre. Do not start or restart anything unless it
has a missional edge.
Finally, there is no
lockdown on love and no lockdown on the Holy Spirit who still brings the living
Christ to us. They tried lockdown on
Jesus once, on a Friday in a tomb. It did
not work. It does not work. The essential thing is to keep Jesus at the
centre. That is the uniqueness of what
we bring. I heard a radio interview
several days ago. Two people were being interviewed
and one of those was a Church Minister.
The Minister was asked whether this be a moment of spiritual
revival. My own view is that it could be
with the many questions and concerns that are being expressed across society. The minister was asked about what the Church
offered into this and shared that we can encourage people to be kind. Now I do not want to encourage people to be
unkind, but if that is the best we can offer……
Give me some good
news! I want to say what we have to
offer is Jesus – nothing more and nothing less.
That is still good news.
