I
was impressed with the following evangelism article by Tyler Robbins. You might want to try it or adapt it.
EVANGELISM
AT THE LIBRARY
This
past Saturday, our church did a public evangelism event at our local library.
The West Coast is deservedly considered one of the more leftist areas in the
United States. The Governor of Washington State recently ended an unsuccessful
presidential run in which his platform consisted of climate change alarmism.
Paper straws are mandated in Seattle. The homelessness crisis in urban centers
along the I-5 corridor grows ever worse. Marijuana is legal. The sexual
revolution is in full swing.
Olympia,
WA (the state capitol) is one of the more secular areas in a very secular
region. It’s a small city; not much more than 50,000 people. Together with
Lacey and Tumwater, it forms a modest metro area.
My
experience is that, in the Midwest, your church can grow (albeit slowly) if you
(1) preach faithfully, (2) do a children’s event like VBS in the Summer, and
(3) maybe a few other odds and ends. I also found that many people think
they’re Christians already because they’re Americans.
Olympia
is different. Really different.
I
never saw urban ministry modeled in a healthy way. I come from the KJVO-flavor
of Baptist fundamentalism, where “run and gun evangelism” was the order of the
day. I’ve had to fiddle around and figure some things out for myself. I don’t
have much figured out, but one thing I have figured is that churches
need to be winsomely aggressive with evangelism in this culture.
So,
that’s where the library event comes in. A few years ago, I saw a flyer in the
library for some kind of “intro to Buddhist chanting” class. I thought to
myself, “why don’t Christians do this kind of thing in the public square!?” I
looked up the public meeting room policy, and anyone can reserve and use the
rooms free of charge. You just can’t sell anything. Fair enough.
But,
I’ve been busy. It hasn’t been the right time. Blah, blah. We brought on board
second elder, and he’s been here for about seven months. The time had come.
So,
we did it.
The
format we used was pretty simple:
A
25-minute overview of the Christian faith and message.
A
one-hour live question and answer from the audience.
We
advertised heavily on FaceBook, and gave invite cards for church folks to pass
out to friends and family. Newspaper advertising is dead, and it’s too
expensive. With FaceBook marketing, you can tailor your ads to the gender, age,
area and interest of your target demographic. It’s outstanding. For our next
event, we plan to continue FaceBook ads but fool around with Pandora and
Spotify ads, and perhaps YouTube, too.
We
titled the event, “What is Christianity Really About?” We wanted people with
real questions to come hear the Gospel outside a church building, in a neutral
place. We also wanted to give people a chance to ask questions.
We
tried to partner with the Bible Presbyterians across the street. The pastor
there, who is also the President of the local Bible Presbyterian seminary, is a
cautious guy. A good guy. He hedged his bets and attended the event,
but declined to be part of the Q&A panel or have his church promote it. I
think he wanted to see if we were theological wimps. If we were the William L.
Craig, Mike Licona “mere Christianity” type, then he wouldn’t be interested in
partnering. I think he was happy with what he saw, and we hope to partner with
them at our next event in April or May.
So,
what did we do?
For
the “overview” section, I wanted to do more than a “1-2-3, pray after me!”
presentation. I wanted to present the broad sweep of the Christian story, and
attack the secular worldview I assume most of the audience had. My talk had six parts:
Misunderstandings. I
quickly rattled off some common misconceptions about Christianity, and
explained that the Christian message is really about reconciliation. We’re not
good people. We’re bad people who need to be rescued. I also explained we’re
doing this public event outside the church building because this message is so
important.
Worldviews
and scripts. I briefly explained what a worldview is, and suggested we’re
all handed “scripts” about how to think and live our lives. We edit these
scripts throughout our lives.
Big
questions of life. I suggested that not all “scripts” are true; some of
them are wrong. I challenged the audience to consider whether their “scripts”
for their lives made sense. I asked them to think about how they answered the
so-called “big questions” of life.
The
Christian script. I presented the Gospel with the framework of “creation +
fall + promise + redemption + restoration.” I explained how the Christian faith
answered each of these “big questions” with this framework. I was able to
explain the Gospel fully and completely.
What’s
your script? I then suggested that a secular, materialist script could not
answer the “big questions” of life. I presented the implications of this
worldview, and challenged people to consider whether they actually lived in light
of these depressing implications. I worked in the teleological and moral
arguments for the existence of God along the way.
Evangelistic
invitation. I then urged the audience to believe the Christian message,
because it made sense of who they are and of our world. It answers questions
their worldview cannot. I referenced Augustine’s City of God, and his
contention that moral degeneracy destroyed the Roman Empire, and his plea for
the Romans to choose Christ. I asked people there to do the same.
The
overview went to 28 minutes. I was hoping for something like 20-25 minutes;
preferably closer to 20. Next time, I’ll cut out some unnecessary material at
the beginning and the end. But, all told, it was good enough. I’d give the
presentation a B+ for content.
The
live Q&A was outstanding. Our church has two pastors. We took turns
fielding questions, and helping one another out. I haven’t had so much fun for
a very long time. I was a bit disappointed we didn’t get any questions about
homosexuality or transgenderism. I suspect people were too polite to ask. Among
these present, a few interactions stand out:
A
young Jewish woman and her friend were there. She asked about the problem of
evil in Genesis, along with some other questions. I was able to discuss compatibilism,
and only used examples from the Tanakh that highlight this dilemma. I
suggested she read Isaiah 53 and ponder whether Jesus is the promised
Messiah. I also encouraged her to get Michael Brown’s five-volume set Answering
Jewish Objections to Jesus, even if she only wants to figure out how to
argue with Christians!
One
man asked about the Old Covenant law and its relationship to the New Covenant.
The other pastor handled that one, and I followed up by directing him to the
appropriate section in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
Another
man, who appeared to be from the Middle East, asked what core beliefs a person
must have in order to be a Christian. He also seemed to believe Christianity
was a performance-based religion (i.e. you become a Christian by performing
certain rituals), and I did my best to correct that. I directed him to read
Romans and James.
Another
man asked if he had to believe in the Trinity in order to be a Christian.
One
lady, clearly a Christian, asked about how to deal with bitterness in her life
in light of what Christ has done.
I’m
not aware of another church doing something this aggressive in our area. There
might be one; I just don’t know about it. Many churches seem to do evangelism
by doing service projects. They want to let people know they’re nice. That’s
good. I’m convicted that we ought to do more. Everyone else is pushing their
narrative in the public square – even the Buddhists! The Christians ought to do
the same. This event is one small way to do that.
All
told, it was a great time. We should have advertised more. We packed the place
with church folks so it didn’t look quite so dead. We had seven visitors, but
they didn’t realize they were the only ones! We’ll do a few things differently
next time. But, it was a great success. As we partner with other churches and
pool resources, we’ll attract more people for our next event. I can’t wait!
Your
church can do something like this. We aren’t a large church. By that, I mean
we’re well under 100 in attendance on Sunday morning. We didn’t do
PowerPoints. We just showed up and talked. We had tracts and other literature
available. This was a minimalist event. It’s easy to do.
The
audio for our event is below. The overview presentation goes to 28:00; the rest
is the Q&A. My voice is the one you hear at the beginning; the other pastor
doesn’t chime in until he opens the Q&A session after 28:00.
-Tyler Robbins is a
graduate of Maranatha Baptist Seminary and a pastor at Sleater Kinney Road Baptist Church,
in Olympia WA. He’s also an Investigations Program Manager with the
State of Washington. He blogs as the Eccentric
Fundamentalist and is the author of What’s It Mean to be a Baptist?
See
original article at SharperIron:
(Used here by permission)
-David
R. Brumbelow, gulfcoastpastor.blogspot.com, February 25, AD 2020.
Articles:
