Thursday, May 9, 2013

What if?

I've been thinking about evangelism a lot since becoming a pastor again. My biggest struggle is the way we present "the gospel" to people. We have such an individualistic approach, and most evangelistic resources reinforce this. Central to almost all evangelism tools I have seen is a focus on the individual's sinfulness - most especially seen through a ludicrously comprehensive and airtight application of the 10 commandments (will I really go to hell for not keeping the Sabbath holy?). Firstly that hardly sets us up to understand a God of grace, but secondly it makes sin a problem of petty nit picking. What if instead of starting with all the little things that you have done wrong (that mean a 100% pure God will throw you into hell even though he loves you really) we started with that fact that our world desperately needs a saviour. What if instead of starting with the little things I have done we start with human trafficking, globalised greed and injustice, violence against women and children, war and gross inequality? What if we presented people with a saviour of the world instead of a God who can't handle my petty lapses? What if sin was a global issue and not a primarily personal one? What if the challenge to repent and believe was not first about getting our ticket to heaven but about joining in Jesus' subversive movement to destroy the works of evil?

What do you think would happen?

Jesus treats the Syrophoenecian Woman as a Disciple

[This is an extract from my essay "Breaking Bread: The Power of Hospitality in the Gospel of Mark" which you can read in full and ...