More Ready Than You Realize
07/10/2005 - Evangelism as Dance
Last month we had a group of about twenty people in our home on Wednesday evenings for a little four-week course that we call "Discovering Your Mission in Life." And on this particular night I asked the group to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word "evangelism."
And it didn't long before I started jotting down their responses on a white board. They said things like television and televangelist and high pressure and money and scandal and big hair and then my favorite, one guys said pinky rings. What surprised me was that almost every one of their responses was negative. So much so that I asked, "Can anyone give me one positive image of evangelism?" And somebody said, "Billy Graham." Yeah! We got one.
I'm not sure what to make of all that, but it seemed such a shame to me that evangelism, even among believers in Jesus Christ, has come to have such a negative image. It's tragic because the word evangelism is a good word. It comes from the Greek word evangel, which means "good news." Evangelism is the process by which we proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to others. As Greg Aikins said last week, evangelism is bringing the message of hope to a hopeless, hurting world. Christ in you, the hope of glory.
What is the evangel? What is this good news that we bring to a hopeless, hurting world? The good news or the gospel as we call it, is that God loves us more than we can ever imagine and wants to enjoy a personal relationship with us and wants us to enjoy a day to day friendship with him.
But there's something blocking the way. There's something that interferes with that relationship. The Bible calls it sin. And that shouldn't surprise us. After all, it's sin in its various expression that often breaks down our relationships with one another. But God's perfect justice demands that sin be punished. And the punishment for sin is serious. It's death, the Bible says.
But the good news, the gospel, the evangel is that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross, in my place for my sin. He experienced death for me and then rose again and by trusting him alone I have eternal life. By grace I enter into this dynamic, life giving, forever friendship with the God who made me. And it's wonderful. That's the good news and without it there would not be a Valley View Community Church.
Two weeks ago we heard one person after another describe for us how they experienced that good news, some out of church backgrounds and some out of unchurched backgrounds and some out of a prison of drugs and alcohol and some on the verge of suicide. And it was wonderful to hear story after story about the power of the gospel in their lives. That's evangelism!
Then we celebrated all this life change the way Jesus intended us to celebrate it, with baptism. And it was wonderful. It reminded me of the mission of Valley View Community Church. And that mission is to be a biblical community that helps seekers become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. And baptism is a significant step in that process. That's one of the main reasons that we exist as a church to provide an environment where all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds can meet and follow Jesus Christ. That's evangelism!
Our Valley View community is driven by five core values. The value of worship. The value of the Word of God. The value of loving one another. The value of serving one another. And the value of reaching out. We simply state that value this way, "In a biblical community people reach out to others with the good news of Jesus Christ." That's evangelism!
It's one of our core values because it's one of God's core values. God was the very first one to reach out. And I'm glad he did. Jesus' very last words before he went back home to heaven found in Matthew 28:19-20 were, 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. That's evangelism!
Evangelism need have nothing to do with high pressure and money and scandal and big hair and pinky rings. And the best evangelism I know of doesn't take place on television. It takes place in real, live face-to-face relationships. Did you listen to the baptism stories that were told? In every one of those stories there were people influencing people with the good news of Jesus Christ. And I know of no greater thrill than to be an influencer in someone's story pointing them to Jesus Christ. It doesn't get any better than that for me.
In our core value on outreach we say this, "In a biblical community believers that the initiative to reach out to others with the good news of Jesus Christ. The most effective witness for Christ takes place in the context of personal relationships for it is in those relationships that the reality of Christ, the hope of glory, can be seen in our lives."
So that's what we're going to be talking about this summer, during the months of July and August and a little bit of September we're going to be camping out around the core value of outreach here at Valley View. And we're going to be doing it with significant help from a pastor and an author named Brian McLaren who recently wrote the book that's become the title for our series, More Ready Than You Realize.
You are more ready than you realize to share the song of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And others around you are more ready than you realize to listen to the song and start singing it with you. And this morning I just want to introduce us to the concept of evangelism as a dance not an argument not a debate not a sales job. In fact that's the subtitle of the book, More Ready Than You Realize: Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix.
McLaren introduces this concept in his introduction when he writes, "If you know anything about Jesus at all, you probably know that he was an amazing conversationalist. Unlike the typical evangelist-caricature of our day, Jesus was short on sermons, long on conversations, short on answers, long on questions, short on abstractions and propositions, long on stories and parables, short on telling you what to think, long on challenging you to think for yourself, short on condemning the irreligious, long on confronting the religious."
"This is the kind of evangelism we're going to explore in this book, evangelism in the style of Jesus. Evangelism that flows like a dance and begins with something beyond yourself. Think of a song that comes to you somehow from somewhere. At first you may catch a note here, a phrase there, and it may sound strange. But once you really hear it, once you pick it up, once it finds its way into your soul and begins to play there, it feels so familiar, so natural, that you wonder if you have made it up yourself. Yet the song's splendor and grandeur and mystery convince you that its origin lies beyond your own imagination. You find yourself humming the song, tapping your finger to it, whistling it ... and you wonder 'Where did this come from? Who wrote this song? How did it get into my head?'"
"So the gospel comes to you not like a commercial on the radio or TV or like a political slogan in a campaign or a scientific formula in a classroom, but like a song. It sneaks up on you, and then sneaks inside you. Somewhere in your journey through life, you begin to hear this song whose music captures your heart with its rhythm, melody, ambience, and glory, and you begin to move to its rhythm. Thus you enter the dance."
"Over time, your whole life begins to harmonize to the song. Its rhythm awakens you. Its tempo moves you, so you resonate with its tone and flow with its melody. The lyric gradually convinces you that the entire world was meant to share in this song with its message, its joy, its dance. If more people heard the music, their hatred would give way to reconciliation. Their greed would melt into generosity. Their grumbling would transform into gratitude. Their mourning would be turned to dancing. People would stop polluting and start planting gardens, if they lived by the song. They would stop fighting and start playing hilarious practical jokes on each other, throwing joyous picnics and parties, playing raucous games, dreaming wild dreams, and enjoying a good laugh every chance they got."
"Anyone who hears the song - truly hears it - must dance. And all dancers seek to share their joy. So let's talk about how. You are more ready for this than you realize. Get ready for something fresh, something new, something unexpected. Let's dance!"
Do you know the song of the gospel? Have you heard the music? Is it inside you? I first heard the song when I was a young boy, seven years old. I heard it in the backyard of a neighbor's home at a little Bible club for kid's. That's when I first heard that God loves me and that Jesus died for me and that if I believed in him I could have my sin forgiven and construction would begin immediately on my eternal home in heaven. That's when the song first entered my soul.
Two weeks ago, in the spirit of that little Bible club for kid's where I met Christ we held our own Kid's Klub in our backyard for the children in our neighborhood. And they packed our patio. It was the seventh summer in a row that we've had a Kid's Klub because Jennifer and I want others to share the song with its message and its joy and its dance. And every year it's a highlight of our summer to see these kids - four, five, six, seven, eight years old - discover, some for the very first time that God loves them and that Jesus died for them. And it would give me no greater joy than to know that one day some of these kids will also be singing the song.
Last week, Valley View sent a whole host of teenagers and adult leaders to Young Life Camp in Lake Champion, New York, to sing the song. Three weeks ago it was twenty volunteers from Valley View that went to the camp at Old Mill for a week to serve and to love and to sing the song for 75 inner city kids from Coatesville. Do you know the song? Is the music in your soul? Are you inviting others to sing it with you? That's what this series is all about. That's what's at the heart of God and at heart of Valley View Community Church.
Evangelism is all about relationships. It's not about arguments or having all the answers. It's about genuinely loving and caring for people and getting close enough to them so they can see Christ in you, the hope of glory, so they can sing the song.
One of my favorite evangelism stories in the New Testament has to do with a reject named Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector, which in Jesus day was like being connected to the mob. He was a Jewish man who had sold his soul to the Romans and was employed by them to collect as much money from his countrymen as he could. And once he satisfied the tax obligations set by the Romans he could extort all the extra money he could get and keep it for himself. He was a licensed thief. And he was hated for it. Then he met Jesus.
And Jesus shared the song with him. And Matthew heard it and he embraced it and it filled his soul in a way that money could not and immediately changed his life. So he wanted to share the song with his friends who were other tax collectors and "sinners" and mobsters just like him.
His first thought was, "Maybe I can take them to church." But "church" in his day meant going to the Temple or to the synagogue and listening to a robed rabbi read long, rambling sections of the Old Testament law. Not the best idea, at least not for the crowd that Matthew ran with.
But then he had another idea. He'd throw party. He was good at parties and his buddies loved to party. But this one would be different. He'd still put out a spread of food with plenty to eat and lots to drink and crank up the music, but he'd also invite Jesus and a few of his followers to show up and to rub shoulders with his crowd. And maybe some conversations would take place and some relationships would be birthed out of that. Maybe some of his friends would hear the song.
And sure enough, Jesus showed up at the party along with his disciples and they had a great time. But apparently they were having too good of a time because Jesus came under fire from the religious types who were looking through the window.
Listen to how Matthew records the evening in his gospel. Matthew 9:10-13 says, While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Matthew took a risk and invited Jesus and his disciples to a party. Jesus took a risk and went. And the religious types were offended because rabbis shouldn't hang out with riff raff. But Jesus said that's exactly where I need to be. I need to be playing the song at parties and on hillsides and on beaches and at ball fields and in neighborhoods and at schools and in offices and at shops. The song needs to be played for people who don't know it yet. Not for the healthy, Jesus says, but for the sick. And all summer we're going to be encouraging one another to play the song and we're going to talk about how we do that in our skeptical, cynical, postmodern matrix.
After shooting down some stale and offensive ideas of what evangelism has become in the 21st century. McLaren challenges us to think of it this way, "What if there really is a great and good and kind God, and we humans really are God's creatures, though we lose our way sometimes? And what if our deepest dream is really true, that the God who really exists really loves us? And what if one of the best ways for God to get through to those of us who have lost our way is by the kindness and influence of those others who have been brought back to a good path? And what if for every obvious and sleazy religious huckster there are in fact a dozen subtle but sincere examples of spiritual authenticity and vibrancy whose influences would do the rest of us a lot of good? What if there really are "angels" out there -- not of the wings-and-halos type, but of the flesh-and-blood, laughter-and-tears type -- people who are literally sent by God to intervene, to help those of us who have mucked up our lives, to give us a taste of grace, a "rumor of glory," as songwriter Bruce Cockburn says?"
"And what if you and I, who begin as wandering and confused people, could be so helped by our caring God-sent and love-filled friends that we could join them as messengers of grace, carriers of good news, secret-agent angels, case studies in God's power to change, enrich, fill, and rescue lives that were being wasted, ruined, self-sabotaged? What if evangelism is one of the things that our world needs most?"
Are you ready for the adventure? Are ready to dance? I think you are. In fact, I think you're more ready than you realize.