The Ministry of Proximity
From the Series—My Story
March 18, 2003Next week we’ll begin a three-part series of evotionals titled God @ the Box Office. This evotional concludes our two-part series My Story. To check out old evotionals, visit our evotional archive @ http://www.nccdc.org.
When Saint Patrick was forty-eight years-old, already past a man’s life expectancy in the fifth century, he had a dream. That dream changed the course of western history. Patrick heard the voice of his former captors who had kidnapped and enslaved him when he was sixteen. They said, “We entreat Thee, that thou come, and henceforth walk among us.” Patrick did just that. He returned to Ireland as a missionary. By the end of his ministry, he had planted 700 churches, ordained 1,000 pastors, and baptized 120,000 new believers.
How does one person have that kind of impact? The answer is simple: Patrick walked among the Irish. The theological word is incarnation. Incarnation is entering another person’s world--walking in their shoes and learning their language.
When it comes to evangelism, God’s game plan always has been and always will be incarnation. If you want to impact someone, you’ve got to enter their world. You’ve got to walk in their shoes. You’ve got to speak their language. I Corinthians 9:22 says, “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”
Jesus set the example. Philippians 2:7 says Jesus “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Hebrews 4:15 says, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin.” John 1:12 says, “The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.”
The Ministry of Proximity
In Acts 8, God orchestrates a divine appointment between Philip the Evangelist and an Ethiopian Eunuch. The Spirit says in Acts 8:29, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” You don’t need to be a gifted evangelist or studied theologian to share your faith. You just need to be nearby! One of the most important things you can do in reaching your friends and family is to simply be there for them. Evangelism is all about availability and approachability.
The word “proximate” doesn’t just mean nearby in a geographical sense. Etymologically, it means “approachable” in the relational sense. No one was more approachable than Jesus. In Matthew 19, the disciples rebuke parents for bringing their children to Jesus to be blessed. The disciples thought Jesus was too important to be bothered. Jesus said, “Let the little children come unto me.” Jesus had a ministry of proximity.
Listening Evangelism
Francis Schaeffer, one of the most respected Christian philosophers and theologians of the 20th century, was once asked what he’d say if he had ten minutes to share the gospel. Francis Schaeffer said he’d listen for nine minutes and talk for one minute.
The way we learn someone’s language is by listening to their story. Evangelism is as much about listening as it is about talking! It’s as much about asking questions as it is giving answers.
George Hunter says, “Faith is about three-quarters caught and one-quarter taught.” One reason we don’t have more impact than we do is because we try to do evangelism without incarnation. We try to share the gospel without sharing our lives!
I Thessalonians 2:8 says, “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives well.”
There are two fundamental mistakes that most of us make. We share the gospel without sharing our lives or we share our lives without sharing the gospel. We’re called to do both/and. Sharing the gospel isn’t good enough--we’ve got to share our lives. Sharing our lives isn’t good enough--we’ve got to share the gospel.
Irrelevance is Irreverence
The Ethiopian Eunuch was reading a passage of Scripture that he didn’t understand. Acts 8:35 says “Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.” Incarnation is about starting where another person is at.
Let’s be brutally honest. Most churches are great at answering questions that no one is asking! They’re talking about things that people aren’t thinking about. And then we wonder why 95% of Americans believe in God, but 40% of Americans attend church on any given Sunday. It’s because God is Relevant, but a lot of churches aren’t.
There is an old conundrum: if a tree falls in a forest but no one hears it, does it make a noise? My question is this: if a church is talking but people aren’t listening, does it make a noise?
When Jesus spoke people listened. The gospels say that people were “amazed” at his words. People would sit for days on end listening to Jesus. Why? He was relevant. He talked about things that mattered, things that people cared about and thought about. If we’re talking about things on Sunday that don’t make a difference Monday through Friday then what difference does it make?
No one is more relevant than God. He knows the number of hairs on your head. He had a plan for your life before you were even born. And He knows you better than you know yourself. God is Relevant. To be relevant is to be reverent.
Epiphany
I was studying at Starbucks several months ago and some song lyrics got my attention. I’d never heard the song before and I’ve never heard it since. I don’t know the name of the song or who sang it. I only remember one line of lyrics: “There’s a church on the periphery, Lady of our Epiphany.” Maybe I had too much caffeine, but what a juxtaposition! A church on the periphery called epiphany.
Epiphany is what we’re after--a manifestation of God. That’s what we want people to experience. Periphery, on the other hand, means irrelevant or unimportant. I think a lot more people would experience epiphanies if a lot more churches didn’t just sit on the periphery.
From day one, our dream has been to create a church where people could confidently invite unchurched friends. We have committed ourselves to creating an experience on Sunday mornings where people can connect with God via music and message.
I Corinthians 14:25 describes a church where the spirit is moving. It says that unbelievers will “fall down and worship God.” They will exclaim “God is really among them.” NCC is a place where people can test-drive a relationship with God. And eventually, our prayer is that people would give God the keys and let Him get in the driver’s seat.
Jesus said, “Go into the highways and byways and compel them to come in.” There is nothing passive about evangelism. You’ve got to go for it. If you don’t invite someone to church there’s a pretty good chance they won’t come. If you don’t share your faith there is a pretty good chance they won’t accept Christ. You’ve got to compel them to come.
Several of you sent me stories last week. Tony Snesko gave me permission to share part of his story. “For two years, a friend invited me to a Baptist retreat in the San Bernardino Mountains where he led worship. I lied about being busy those weekends to avoid going. In November of 1979, for the third year in a row, he invited me once again to the retreat, but this time I actually did have a function that I was committed to for that weekend. On the Friday that my event was to begin, it was canceled and Larry learned of my open weekend and renewed his invitation. I had no excuse this time and reluctantly made the two-hour trek with him. On Saturday night, November 29th, after a wonderful convicting sermon on Christ’s sacrifice, the pastor led the men’s group in the ‘sinner’s prayer’ and, for the first time, I prayed it from my heart. Praise God for Larry who didn’t give up after my rejecting his offer twice before.”
According to our most recent survey, 7 out of 10 NCCers are here because someone invited them. This isn’t rocket science. This is about friends inviting friends. It’s about word of mouth and word of mouse. That’s why we design invite cards. That’s why we send out evites. We’re trying to compel people to come to church and come to Christ because their eternal destiny could be determined by it.
Belonging Before Believing
I think for most churches, believing comes before belonging. If you believe what they believe then you can belong. And that seems to make sense on one level, but I think we’ve got it backwards.
All Jesus says at the beginning of his ministry is “follow me.” Then after sharing his life for three years he pops the question in Matthew 16:15. “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus didn’t give the litmus test at the beginning. He gave it at the end.
I think one reason we put believing before belonging is because then all we have to do is share the gospel. We don’t have to share our lives! It’s easier.
Jesus shared his life 24/7 for three years--blood, sweat, and tears. What if we share our lives but they don’t end up believing what we believe? One of the twelve disciples didn’t believe. In fact, he betrayed Jesus to his death. Sometimes you get burned, but we’ve got to follow the example Jesus set.
C.S. Lewis said, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap is carefully round with hobbies and luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…the only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all dangers of love is Hell.”
Tag-Team Evangelism
This week I had a tag-team wrestling match with my kids. We’ve got a six by eight foot rug in our family room and we turned it into a wrestling ring. The way tag-team wrestling works is simple: if you want to get in or get out of the ring you’ve got to tag your partner.
Church is a tag-team event. When you invite someone to NCC you tag my hand and say, “Go for it.” When you leave I tag your hand and say, “Go for it.” We are a tag-team. We partner in our efforts to reach others for Christ.
Joe Aldrich says, “I visualize the gospel flowing down webs of relationships, reaching individual after individual who know and are somehow related to each other.”
NCC has a unique web of relationships. According to one study, the average person has 68 people in their circle of influence--acquaintances, colleagues, friends, neighbors. That means the NCC circle of influence is over 40,000 people! We can make a significant impact if we partner together.
Paul and Apollos were a tag-team. I Corinthians 3:5 says, “What after all is, Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, though whom you came to believe--as the Lord has assigned to each his task.”
Verse 6 says, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.”
You can’t convert anybody! You can only plant and water. Instead of counting conversions you ought to count conversations. Saint Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the gospel everyday, if necessary, use words.” Most conversions don’t happen suddenly. They happen gradually. You’ve got to keep sharing your life and keep sharing the gospel.
Opportunity Knocks
The key phrase in I Thessalonians 2:8 is “delighted to share.” Paul didn’t just see evangelism as an obligation--something he had to do. He saw it as an opportunity--something he got to do. Too often we feel obligated to share our faith because of external pressure. Evangelism happens from the inside out. It starts with a God-given love for others--"we loved you so much that we were delighted to share.”
Evangelism is really as simple as sharing. You don’t have to sell anything. How can you sell something that’s free? Salvation is shareware. All you have to do is share what God has done in your life--the difference He has made.
A few years ago there was a commercial on TV that showed a Mercedes-Benz crashing into a cement wall during a safety test. After the crash, someone asks a company spokesman why they do not enforce their patent on the Mercedes-Benz energy-absorbing car body--a design that has been copied by other car manufacturers because of its success in automobile accidents. The spokesman says, “Because some things in life are too important not to share.”
Some things in life are too important not to share. And a relationship with Christ is right at the top of the list.