Why Challenging your Church to Be Bolder Isn't Enough
“Trust us guys, 100 percent. We know we’re right here!” James and Emily said as they pointed, incorrectly, to a spot on the map.
I had just chosen our two most confident gap year students to lead the hike for the day, and I knew they had been leading us down the wrong path for the last two hours. The rest of the group had started to grow rest-less and I suggested everyone should put their heads together. Finally, David, the least courageous student (who also possessed the best navigational skills) convinced the leaders of their error and got us back on the right track.
“Didn’t you notice we’ve been walking the same trail we walked on yesterday since we turned left out of the car park?” he said. So we can’t be here (pointing at the map). And this route will never get us there,” (pointing emphatically at our intended destination).
When it comes to sharing our faith, we often hear leaders urge the congregation, “We just need to be bolder!” But what does boldness in the completely wrong direction accomplish?
Continuing our hiking analogy, isn’t it even more important to know our starting point, our destination, and something about the best pathways that can get us there? Furthermore, if we want our church to travel with us, shouldn’t we prepare them for any potential pitfalls that would cause them to give up when the going gets tough?
In trekking terms, the ability to read a map isn’t overly useful unless you can link it to the landmarks in front you. When it comes to evangelism, the ability to read the gospel message isn’t very useful, unless you can communicate it clearly to the culture surrounding you.
The apostle Paul seemed to master this skill as he moved between the Jews and God-fearing Greeks (Acts 13-16), then onto the philosophers in the Athenian Areopagus (Acts 17). He demonstrated very different starting points and pathways to the gospel depending on the audience’s foundational beliefs, felt needs and of ways of finding out what is true. For the Jews and God-fearing Greeks, Paul pointed to the promised Messiah. But for the philosophical Athenians, he started with their own poets, who pointed to clues that God had placed in the human heart.
What about our culture today? At Start to Stir we are uncovering two starting points – two ‘trailheads’ if you will - that church leaders today must grasp if they want to get their congregations going in a good direction, and equipped with the proper gear. We can quickly see that our training needs to include much more simply being ‘bold’ and challenging people to follow a Jesus they’ve never heard of or to ask forgiveness from a God they’re not sure they want to know.
Trailhead 1: Simple Indifference
Sign says: “I’m not bothered. I don’t see how God is relevant to my life.”
Possibly not this Path: Would you like to know Jesus and ask him to forgive your sins?
Trailhead 2: Open to the Spiritual. Closed to the Institutional
Sign says: “I’m spiritual, but not religious
Possibly not this Path: Would you like to come to church?
If we want to encourage people to get going on the right foot, we will need to mark out a few new pathways. The first trailhead will require us to start by stirring curiosity. The second trailhead starts by showing how spiritual longings really do point to a desire to know God and the person of Jesus.
We’ve marked out the starting points. What about the pathways forward? Today, the destination, from either point of origin, will rarely be reached by using the well-trodden tracks of logic and reason. Instead, personal experience of the truth seems to be the route most easily travelled.
So, church leaders, have we caught your attention? Would you like to sharpen your skills? If you’d like to come along with us, we invite you to check out (what call to action?). Here, we answer questions like,
Where is the culture starting from and why?
What questions are people today asking (and often not asking)?
How do people decide what is true?
Is it possible to stir curiosity?
How can I turn spiritual experiences into an encounter with Jesus?
As we inspire and equip fellow Christians to share faith, let’s be bold. But let’s also be bothered to understand the lay of the land. You may find it’s best to take a ‘right’ instead of a ‘left’ next time you leave the car park to go on mission.
Darin Stevens
Darin (MDiv, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) lives with his family in Oxfordshire, England. With over twenty years experience in leading youth ministry and training youth workers, as well as developing and delivering degree-level modules in Theology, Mission and Youth Ministry, he now oversees Start to Stir.