We want to see the campuses in this city transformed. To do that we share our faith a lot. Along the way a couple issues have surfaced for us that we’re doing our best to deal with.
- There is a general sense of skepticism here that was not present in my last location (Montana). It’s not that students won’t talk to you…they’re just skeptical (especially of Christians). For them, Christians are judgmental and overly political. This means more trust has to be built, more rapidly. One of the best ways to do that is to value the people we’re engaging with. This is where body language, listening skills and tone matters. They must know that I care about them and value them and their thoughts.
- This environment can become deadly suffocating when it comes to actually proclaiming the Gospel. If our team wasn’t careful, we could default to have amazing conversations for hours on end that never bring anyone to a point of understanding about who Christ is. We could easily let cultural norms overtake bold proclamation of the Gospel.
- Teaching a student to share their faith here is tricky. Because of the complexity of many of the conversations, modeling an evangelistic opportunity often ends up with Suzy Freshmen wondering if she could ever be skilled enough to share her faith.
Out of these realities has come some action points for me….
- Get Biblical about evangelism. Before I bow to any sort of cultural pressure (or CCC staff pressure) I have to ask myself what the Bible says about it. I’m starting with a look at a few verses on evangelism in context (thanks Keith Davy)…John 1:35-51, Acts 8:26-40, Acts 17:16-35
- ’100% Try’. A while ago I heard someone say that every conversation they’d have with someone they would try to share the Gospel and bring someone to a understanding that they need to make a choice about Christ. Of course, sometimes God would close conversational doors, but they would try. They called this the ‘100% try’. That’s what I want my life to look like.
Any push back? What about your context? What are you learning?
Other LTI posts kinda like this one:
Love your thoughts here. I think you are right on. If we never get to the person of Christ in our conversations I think the conversation just makes us feel good about ourselves but does little for the other person. We need to believe that the message of the gospel has the potential in itself to change a heart when the Spirit is working. The ’100% try’ deal is a serious challenge that would be awesome. I love to know you are proclaiming in PDX and doing your best to Keep Portland Weird!!
Bob!
Thanks for your thoughts on this Bob. May I never forget that there is power in the words of Jesus Christ….and that the absolute most loving thing I can do is to present the reality of Christ and allow them a chance to contemplate it.
But…the complexity of this is that it’s harder to get an audience with people here (there are exceptions)…so we really have to balance our proclamation with listening and valuing people better. Those things can be accomplished in a short amount of time, but still if I “preach’ first and listen second I’ve lost the ability to connect at a heart level with someone.
Lot’s more thoughts swirling around in my head that I’ll try to get written out on this.
The corollary to 100% try is 100% No-Shed (This is Don Mansfields material, born out of experience in beginning movements in Western Europe, the Middle East and now the South Pacific). No-Shed means that you give people the opportunity to hang out with your community of believers, and as long as they want to come, you give them a place to come to. This gives continuing opportunities for relationship, repeated gospel conversations, observation of Christians in action. Does this work in someplace like Portland?
Your blog has great material Matt. I appreciate the thinking and innovation which is serious in its practical theology (and really, is there any other kind? If it really is theology?)
Yes, I think this works for Portland. In fact today we had a student accept Christ after being invited to a number of events.
We try to make sure we’re operating out of biblical convictions rather than the most snazzy new strategy.
Anytime you want to come join our team and work in Portland feel free