Author: Teddy Ray

Evangelistic interrogation

interrogationI was evangelized this weekend by a well-meaning, young seminary student.

He asked my wife and I if we would like some of his evangelism tracts. We smiled and said no thanks.

He asked, “Are you Christians?”

“Yes,” I confirmed, “we are.”

Someone else nearby came up and chastised us. “You’re Christians, and you wouldn’t even take his materials?” We explained that we didn’t think it was necessary for him to waste his time and paper on us. Better to let him move on. (I didn’t also mention that I know how these things tend to go and wasn’t feeling up for the song and dance again.)

“Did you even affirm him in what he was doing?” he asked. “He’s trying to do something important here. It takes courage.” No, we hadn’t affirmed him. We apologized. We affirmed him.

And then, the person who originally offered us literature asked, “So what do you believe a Christian is?” And here we were, doing the song and dance…

I told him I was a pastor, assured him that we believe in Christ, tried to let him know it was okay to move on. So he asked where I’m a pastor and again asked me to tell him what makes someone a Christian… This is where the kindly offer turns into more of an inquisition. The point where I’m quizzed about exactly what my faith entails to make sure I’m really a Christian.

Now there’s an element of this I can appreciate. I know many people who claim to be Christians mean only that they were raised in the Church and believe God exists, and perhaps even believe Jesus really lived and died and was raised. And I’m sure there are some Christian pastors whose faith doesn’t really meet the standards of what I would consider real Christianity.

But a sidewalk inquisition doesn’t strike me as the best approach here. It wasn’t my first. It won’t be my last. And frankly, I’ve just grown tired of them. Perhaps I’m wrong, but if I weren’t a Christian, I don’t think these uninvited interrogations would do much to sway me.

I generally know the answers I need to give to help people move along: “I have accepted Jesus into my heart, repented of my sins, and have faith in him alone for salvation.” Avoid saying anything about the Church and sacraments – as nearly all street evangelists see the Church and its sacraments as nothing more than functional. Don’t mention holiness either. They’ll start to suspect works righteousness. Your best shot at a quick conversation is vanilla evangelical Christianity.

All of that will help, but I’ve encountered a number of people who want more. They end up wanting to make sure I subscribe to the particular brand of Christianity they subscribe to. This weekend, I somehow ended up with my inquisitor “enlightening” me about the Greek words in various passages to help show me what they really mean. I told him I hadn’t come for a Bible debate and that it was probably best for him to move on, but he said he was very concerned that as a pastor I might be teaching people in error. Oh my…

I really do believe this young seminary student was (mostly) well-intentioned. But what were the odds that he was going to suddenly convince me, there on that sidewalk, that my understanding of God and Scripture and Christianity had been in error all this time? I’m not usually put in a disposition to make drastic change in my life through uninvited interrogations. Especially when they become demonstrations of how I don’t really understand the truth and need to change my beliefs. Especially when they come from total strangers. Especially when the strangers begin spouting off Greek words at me (which were either badly mispronounced or not real Greek words) to demonstrate their understanding and my ignorance.

I’ve begun wondering how common this experience is. And how common my feelings about it. We don’t generally welcome interrogations from strangers. We welcome them less when they move toward showing us our error. The whole conversation, from its very beginning, sets up an inferior (the [likely] ignorant interrogated) and a superior (the knowledgeable interrogator). Is this really the way to share our faith? There seem so many problems with it.

I believe there’s an urgency to share the gospel. I believe we have to find ways to do it – even when they may be uncomfortable. But should we do it in a way that puts the other person on the defensive from the start of the conversation? Is there a way to just as urgently and aggressively share the gospel and yet come from a position of service rather than a position of power?

Let me be clear, I’m not recommending timidity and passivity when it comes to evangelism. I’m asking whether we can do this in a way that doesn’t thrust upon innocent bystanders such a power imbalance. Can we share our faith with confidence and conviction without an air of arrogance and presumption?

And of course, I’d also like a way of understanding and sharing our faith that goes beyond some of that vanilla response I mentioned above. Something that shares with people a Church and sacraments that are deeply connected to the faith. Something that considers discipleship an essential part of our ongoing conversion, not just the cherry on top of it…

I’d really love your thoughts and ideas.

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What I’ve been wanting/trying to say – said very well…

Recently, a few people I like and trust have been saying some of the things I’ve been saying or been planning to say. I want to point you to them.

These links are probably of primary interest to pastors and Methodists. If you’re neither of those, you might stop reading here and wait for the post I’m trying to finish on evangelistic interrogation (a rather unpleasant experience).

1 – Jonathan Andersen asks young pastors, “What’s your top income?” As my many posts on the subject have shown, I think this is a good question to ask. A theological question. A justice question.

2 – I’ve mentioned before some of my issues with the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Kevin Watson shows how Experience in the So-Called “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” has been misused more often than not.

3 – I’ve also been meaning to spend some time showing just how badly the United Methodist Church has undermined its own theology of ordination and the sacraments. Basically making a mockery of them for the sake of pragmatism, yet attempting some appearance of coherent theological reasoning through it all. Wesley Sanders does a great job of demonstrating some of these problems in “The Orders of Ministry in the UMC.” Wesley is one of the brightest young minds I know of in the UMC, and he just started writing. You’ll learn a lot if you start following him now.

I’m sure they’d love to hear your thoughts about their posts there, and I’d love to hear what you think in the comments here.

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Some help for your church’s communication problem

announcementsA while back, I wrote about why “Your church has a communication problem.” I said that I feared I didn’t have solutions for this problem. In fact, one of my best solutions right now is just to help everyone understand why the problem is occurring.

But I also promised a second post with some suggestions and tools that I’ve found helpful.

I’ve found that post more difficult than expected. I’ve given it two or three shots. One time it sounded cynical and condescending, the next time it didn’t actually seem helpful. And it was a little embarrassing each time because I recognize how badly my church and I have failed at some of these, and I felt ashamed to put out any suggestions as if I were any expert.

What I want to try to show the frustrated, under-communicated-with church member:

1 – Leaders aren’t trying to hide things from you. I’ve never seen something done that the leaders were intentionally trying to hide from the congregation. I’m sure it happens, but I don’t think it’s often.

2 – Leaders also aren’t trying to exclude you from a decision you should be part of. As I mentioned in the previous article, the lines for decision-making aren’t all clear-cut. And sometimes they are clear-cut, and we just make a mistake. I received a very kind e-mail from my lay leader earlier this year telling me she was thrilled about a decision I had made, but also stating that it was the kind of decision she should be in on from the beginning, not learning about after the fact. She was right. I should have known better. That kind confrontation was helpful.

3 – Some of the most damaging things I’ve seen have come when people who didn’t have the correct information began making assumptions, getting emotional about those assumptions, and sharing both the assumptions and the emotions with others. That just hurts us all. If you don’t understand something or you’re not sure you have the whole story (i.e. any information that you only have second-hand), you’ll do everyone a favor by going to someone directly involved.

4 – An announcement from the pulpit usually isn’t the answer. For almost every new program or event, the magic bullet for awareness is the pulpit announcement. But you don’t really want them all announced from the pulpit. Here’s why:

a) If everything was announced from the pulpit that people would like announced, it would likely consume 15 minutes of the worship service.

b) With that many announcements, people zone out. They may hear your announcement, but most of them aren’t listening. [See my suggestions to leaders below.]

c) You’ll think that announcement was the magic bullet you needed and that you’ll get a great turnout for whatever it is you’re doing. You’d probably be much better to focus energies on personal invitations.

See Phil Bowdle’s great post: “7 Reasons Why You’re Not Getting a Stage Announcement”

For most of this, you can replace “pulpit announcement” with “bulletin insert” or “prominent spot in church newsletter” or whatever mass media your church uses. In my experience, at least, though these are the first answers for communicating about events, they’re not all that effective.

5 – Go easy. I’ve seen a lot of anger and animosity in the church because people wanted more communication. I’ve hopefully shown why communication in the church is so tricky. Why part of it is our leaders’ fault, but why part of it also is beyond their control. And at the end of the day, communication isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the top priority for pastors. It’s not their primary area of training, and it’s not truly what you most need them doing. Top priorities need to be preaching well, leading a faithful worship service, being with people in times of need, and equipping people as disciples. There are times that those priorities will need to squeeze the others out.

What I want to try to show the frustrated, blamed-for-under-communicating church leader:

1 – You probably are under-communicating. You live in church world. You talk to lots of people. Something that you’ve known about for days, weeks, and months is still news to most others. You must keep communicating it!

2 – You need a decision-making structure. Do you have a clear structure in place that helps your leaders and your congregation know who should be in on which decisions? Are there guidelines you’ve established about when a decision requires a larger group’s input? (e.g. You make the call on the $80 repair, but your building committee wants input before the $800 repair.)

3 – You need a system for communication. A helpful starting point: take notes/minutes at each meeting. Leave a section dedicated to “decisions made” so that you can clearly see what decisions you have made. Whenever you make a decision, then ask, “Who else needs to approve this before it’s finalized? Who needs to know about it before it goes public? Who needs to know after the fact? How should we notify them all?” Put your answers to all of those in the “action items” portion of your meeting notes. Then follow-through.

For a lot of great help on church communications systems, let me refer you to Phil Bowdle. He’s doing this in a pretty large setting, as a full communications director, but you can still implement a lot of what he’s suggesting.

4 – Keep it simple. Have you found yourself giving 20 announcements each Sunday? If so, your people are hearing so much that they’re probably listening to almost nothing. Worse, they may be giving attention to the things that you’re less interested in them hearing (e.g. they take note of the scrapbooking party next week and miss your core discipleship groups, as if the two are equal a la carte options).

What are your top priorities? One or two or three. Keep those consistently in front of people. That means axing a lot of the rest. Which will not endear you to the people who want their bake sale announced for a month leading up to it. You can cave, but it’s more for your own benefit, not the benefit of the church. Or you can find ways to help people use other channels and preserve the pulpit announcements for only the top priorities.

5 – You’ll never be perfect. You’re probably going to continue being criticized for under-communicating. You’ll hear “we didn’t know about that” for things that have been announced in newsletters, worship services, board meetings, on Facebook, etc. It’s just the nature of church communication, I’m convinced. Don’t get yourself too worked up about it. And please, don’t forsake your pastoral duties to spend all your time ensuring that everyone is receiving the communication they want. Ultimately, your pastoral duties are more important. Forsake those, and you’re just the communications director for a social club.

Okay, there’s my attempt at a helpful, non-cynical set of suggestions for church leaders and members. How’d I do? What questions do you have? What would you add?

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