Why Is Christianity Outward Orientated?
Series: WHY? Answering the Big Questions of Faith
(no audio available)
There are rumblings of a potential hate-crime being committed in England.
Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, both full-time evangelical ministers
The preachers, both ministers in Birmingham, were handing out leaflets on Alum Rock Road in February when they started talking to four Asian youths.
A police community support officer (PCSO) interrupted the conversation and began questioning the ministers about their beliefs.
They said when the officer realised they were American, although both have lived in Britain for many years, he launched a tirade against President Bush and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Cunningham said: "I told him that this had nothing to do with the gospel we were preaching but he became very aggressive.
"He said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station."
The ministers claim he also advised them not to return to the area. As he walked away, the PCSO said: "You have been warned. If you come back here and get beaten up, well you have been warned".
A similar story came out of Iraq.
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/29/AR2008052903683.html?nav=rss_world)
The Marine, stationed in the western city of Fallujah, handed out silver-colored coins this week that said in Arabic: "Where will you spend eternity? (John 3:36)." The other side read: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16)."
"The claims that the occupation is a Crusader War make sense now."
"Regulations prohibit members of the coalition force from proselytizing any religion, faith or practices," said Col. Bill Buckner, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. "Our troops are trained on those guidelines before they deploy."
Is evangelism a "HATE CRIME"?
This series will tackle the objections many people have to Christianity.
- To help you be convinced
- To help you tell others
Questions like:
- Why is there Suffering if God is Good?
- Why should we trust the Bible?
- Why Does God Send People to Hell?
- Is Christianity an American Religion?
- Why is there Only One Way to Be Saved?
- Do Science and Christianity Conflict?
Today the question is...why does the church reach out?
1. The Problem of Proselytizing
Honestly ... we've made mistakes
- Shannon and the Track Bomber
- Lady on Subway re: DaVinci Code
- Crusades
- Slavery
- Oppression of Blacks pre-Civil Rights
2. What Does "Outreach" Look Like?
Social
The Episcopal Church recently launched an advertising campaign emphasizing community outreach. The "Put Your Faith to Work" campaign includes print ads and videos and emphasizes slicing carrots. They go on to encourage volunteering in shelters, schools, disaster recovery sites, soup kitchens and more. The ads are available free to congregations who can pay for local placement.
-slavery
"Although it has been fashionable to deny it, anti-slavery doctrines began to appear in Christian theology soon after the decline of Rome and were accompanied by the eventual disappearance of slavery in all but the fringes of Christian Europe. When Europeans subsequently instituted slavery in the New World, they did so over strenuous papal opposition, a fact that was conveniently "lost" from history until recently. Finally, the abolition of New World slavery was initiated and achieved by Christian activists." -Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God: How Monothesism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton Univ Press, 2004), p. 291
Quakers:
- The first whites to denounce slavery in Europe and the European colonies were members of the Society of Friends-commonly known as Quakers.
- Quakers believed that all people, regardless of race, had a divine spark inside them and were equal in the eyes of God.
- These beliefs led them in the mid-18th century to take steps against slavery in Great Britain and the British colonies in North America.
William Wilberforce
"When the abolitionists finally had British society poised to abolish slavery in their empire, planters in the colonies foretold that emancipation would cost investors enormous sums and the prices of commodities would skyrocket catastrophically. This did not deter the Abolitionists in the Hose of Commons. They agreed to compensate the planters for al freed slaves, an astounding sum up to half of the British government's annual budget. The Act of Emancipation passed in 1833, and the costs were so high to the British people that one historian called the British abolition of slavery ‘voluntary econocide'." (Tim Keller The Reason for God)
WHY???
No self-interest
"no one has succeeded in showing that those who campaigned for the end of the slave trade...stood to gain in any tangible way...or that these measures were other than economically costly to the country." - Howard Teperley
Civil Rights
Martin Luther King Jr Didn't appeal to a change from Christianity
He appealed to the Bible and God's moral law
"He called white Christians to be more true to their own beliefs and to realize what the Bible really teaches. He did not say "Truth is relative and everyone is free to determine what is right or wrong for them." If everything is relative, threw ould have been no incentive for white people in the South to give up their power. Rather, Dr. King invoked the prophet Amos, who said, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (Amos 5:24). The greatest champion of justice n our era knew the antidote to racism was not less Christianity, but a deeper and truer Christianity." (Keller)
-carrying for diseased (Ministers of Death)
In the year 1665, a deadly plague engulfed the city of London.
Thomas Vincent, in his book God's Terrible Voice in the City, describes how thousands of Londoners died that year from the sickness:
"Now the cloud is very black, and the storm comes down upon us very sharp. Now death rides triumphantly on his pale horse through our streets; and breaks into every house almost, where any inhabitants are found. Now people fall as thick as leaves from the trees in autumn, when they are shaken by a mighty wind . . . Now in some places where the people did generally stay, not one house in a hundred but is infected; and in many houses half the family is swept away; in some the whole, from the eldest to the youngest; few escape with the death of but one or two; never did so many husbands and wives die together; never did so many parents carry their children with them to the grave . . . "
- faithful gospel-preaching ministers who came to London to serve the people
- "Now they are preaching, and every sermon was unto them, as if they were preaching their last."
- The response was electrifying as many people were brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through God's mercy and grace.
WHY????
It is because they did not fear death, and they saw London as an opportunity to preach the riches of Christ, the one who has gained victory over death.
- Robert Murray McCheyne made it a habit to visit the dying in his city of Dundee on Saturday afternoons
- "Before preaching he liked to look over the verge."
- Spurgeon once commented "To be often where men die will help us to teach them both to die and to live."
Truth Based Academic Work
Missionaries
On July 18, 1738, two months after his conversion, Charles Wesley did an amazing thing.
- He had spent the week witnessing to inmates at the Newgate prison with a friend named "Bray," who he described as "a poor ignorant mechanic."
- One of the men they spoke to was "a black slave that had robbed his master."
- He was sick with a fever and was condemned to die.
Wesley and Bray asked if they could be locked in overnight with the prisoners who were to be executed the next day. That night they spoke the gospel. They told the men that "one came down from heaven to save lost sinners." They described the sufferings of the Son of God, his sorrows, agony, and death.
The next day, the men were loaded onto a cart and taken to Tyburn. Charles went with them. Ropes were fastened around their necks so that the cart could be driven off and leave them swinging in the air to choke to death.
The fruit of Wesley's and Bray's night-long labor was astonishing. Here's what Wesley wrote:
They were all cheerful; full of comfort, peace, and triumph; assuredly persuaded Christ had died for them, and waited to receive them into paradise. . . . The black . . . saluted me with his looks. As often as his eyes met mine, he smiled with the most composed, delightful countenance I ever saw.
We left them going to meet their Lord, ready for the bridegroom. When the cart drove off, not one stirred, or struggled for life, but meekly gave up their spirits. Exactly at twelve they were turned off. I spoke a few suitable words to the crowd; and returned, full of peace and confidence in our friends' happiness. That hour under the gallows was the most blessed hour of my life. (Journal, vol 1, 120-123)
Two things amaze and inspire me in this story.
One is the astonishing power of Wesley's message about the truth and love of Christ.
All the condemned prisoners were converted. And they were so deeply converted in one night that they could look death in the face (without any long period of "follow-up" or "discipling") and give up their spirits with confidence that Christ would receive them. O, for such power and witness!
The other thing that amazes me is the sheer fact that Wesley went to the prison and asked to be locked up all night with condemned criminals.
It was a huge risk. These men had nothing more to lose if they killed another person. Wesley had no supervisor telling him that this was his job. He was not a professional prison minister. It would have been comfortable and pleasant to spend the evening at home conversing with friends.
Why did he go?
God put is it in his heart to go. And Wesley yielded. Wesley believed in hell and heaven. He believed that what these prisoners believed from their hearts on that night would determine forever their eternal destiny. It was worth risking his life for. O that I might discern the leading of God when something outside my usual path is called for. (John Piper)
3. Why Do We Risk Comfort, Wealth, Health and Life for Outreach?
"In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord" - Fear of God
Isaiah 8:12-13 - "Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread,
Matthew 10:28 - Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Barnes' Notes: "In your hearts, or in the affections of the soul, regard the Lord God as holy, and act towards him with that confidence which a proper respect for one so great and so holy demands. In the midst of dangers, be not intimidated; dread not what man can do, but evince proper reliance on a holy God, and flee to him with the confidence which is due to one so glorious."
Great Commission
Matthew 28:18-21 - Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
We worship a missionary God
"Just as we are invited to step into the worship of the Trinity in which the Son glorifies the Father in the Spirit, so we are called to share in the mission of the Trinity in which the Father sends the Son by the power of the Spirit to redeem the world. The word "mission" is derived from the Latin verb for sending. The Church is missionary because it is sent by God who sends his Son. The Church does not have a choice about being involved in mission any more than it has a choice about being involved in worship. Worship and mission belong in the very being of the Church. We cannot be otherwise than a worshipping community and a missionary people because we have been adopted into the life of God. God's life is a life of worship overflowing into a life of mission." - Christopher Cocksworth Holy, Holy, Holy.
4. Practical Steps We Can Take
"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect"
To give an answer. Greek, An apology, (apologian) Apologetics
Living in 3 D (from http://www.willowcreek.com/wcanews/story.asp?id=WN17I32006)
Develop Friendships (1 Thessalonians 2:8)
Block Party Challenge
Discover Stories (Philippians 2:4)
Non-Christians are eager to tell their stories, once they find a Christian willing to stop talking long enough to listen to them. Ask your neighbors about their stories, and then listen, really listen. Ask follow-up questions. And then listen some more. Understand where they're coming from first. Only then will we earn the right to share our stories ... and God's.
Discern Next Steps (Colossians 4:5)
Through prayer and the guidance from the Holy Spirit, figure out what's needed next. Determine ways to compassionately serve your neighbors, meet their needs, and encourage them. It may be good to invite your neighbors to church - or maybe not. It might be better to invest more time in developing the friendship and discovering their stories - or offer to pray and supply a helpful resource. It's really a matter of discernment what to do next based on the friendship you develop and the stories you discover.
Conclusion
"The question that has to be asked bout the church and about every congregation is not: How big is it? How fast is it growing? How rich is it? It is: What difference is it making to that bit of the world in which it is placed? Is it actually functioning as a first-fruit, sign and instrument of God's new creation for that bit of the world? - Lesslie Newbigin