Greg Laurie: “We’re Just No Good at Evangelism”
- Posted on July 06, 2010
- Viewed 1567 times
- (37) comments
According to Greg Laurie, "If there's one thing that Christians and non-Christians have in common, it's this: we're both uptight about evangelism."
Here are some quotes from Laurie from a recent article at The Christian Post:
"Far too often we don't know how to cross over [to our culture]. Far too many Christians today are unnecessarily offensive, hopelessly lame, and generally inept at communicating... We're just no good at evangelism."
"We have something even more significant than a cure for cancer. We have the cure to sin, and guilt and the cure for hell and the hope for heaven...How much more urgently do we need to get this message out?
"How can I be passive about sharing my faith? How can I say I'm too busy to do that?"
"It's fine to try to be cool, it's fine to try to relate ... but the ultimate thing we need to tell them is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, loved them so much that He died on a cross for their sins and rose again from the dead and if they will turn from their sins and put their faith in Him, they can be forgiven. This is called the Gospel."
Do you agree? Are we just 'no good at evangelism"? If so, why is that?
Todd
Comments
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Leonard on Tue, July 06, 2010
I believe we should share the gospel under the leading of the Spirit. I find that the Spirit leads a lot. In some situations the soil requires some work to be ready for seeds and in other cases just plant. Then in the right time… we water. God brings the harvest.
The goodness of God draws men to repentance, I speak of this goodness. Some water and some plant. The water in most cases where I am involved includes relationship and kindness. To this end, I see people come to Christ all of the time.
I am not opposed to speaking the gospel to strangers, but in my experiences I have seen far more people come to Christ because of a relationship that was built.
There are people who do not share Christ under the guise of relationship evangelism… but this who are trained in this, usually do very well.
Christopher, I love passion, can I suggest respectfully you not be so filled with condemnation in your passion. Thanks…
CS on Tue, July 06, 2010
Peter:
“I know you’re not exactly a fan of Willow, but their Contagious Christian course addresses all of those concerns. And then some… “
I’ve read Hybel’s book, “Just Walk Across The Room,” and checked in on some of their evangelistic endeavors. Saying that I’m, “not exactly a fan,” of Willow Creek is an understatement here, like calling an atomic bomb a, “little explosion.” I believe that Hybels is one of the two biggest people in modern Christianity who have done more harm to the church today than almost anyone else, especially in the area of evangelism (you can probably also guess that I’d pick Warren for that one, and you’d be right). The way that he transformed Sunday morning worship into the evangelistic vehicle of choice for catering to, “seekers,” is so wrong.
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CS
Peter Hamm on Tue, July 06, 2010
Yeah, I’ll disagree, CS. And I think we can leave that alone, only to say that the actual course materials for Contagious Christian address these things you’re concerned about.
CS on Tue, July 06, 2010
Peter:
“Yeah, I’ll disagree, CS. And I think we can leave that alone, only to say that the actual course materials for Contagious Christian address these things you’re concerned about. “
Yep, I agree there. And I will not be picking up any of their materials anytime soon. But thanks for the offer.
—
CS
Christopher Fontenot on Tue, July 06, 2010
Peter,
I believe the way the Gospel is presented in every case in the New Testament is the example we should follow. Whether it is Jesus preaching sin and the sovereignty of God in salvation to the synagogue members in His hometown or Paul preaching on Mars Hill, the Gospel is always sin, righteousness, judgment, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Joel Osteen doesn’t speak of sin so he doesn’t preach the Gospel. What happens when you leave out any of these aspects is you preach another gospel. If you concentrate on only one aspect you do the same. So many churches hammer on grace and their members never know the truth. Some hammer on judgment and live a life of expected punishment at any time. Some hammer on righteousness and the result is an “uppity” membership who thinks they are without sin.
Two people you will always encounter….the humble or the proud. I don’t beat people up with the Law who are broken over the sin in their lives. I don’t preach God’s grace to someone too hard-hearted to understand the severity of their sin. But it is truly amazing to watch the Holy Spirit move someone by using the Law to bring about the knowledge of sin. You see it in their eyes as the tears well up. It is a sweet experience. They understand their destiny before a holy God if they stand before Him today. When the cross is explained grace becomes truly amazing. It would be a shame to wait until I build a relationship before sharing the true love of God to a total stranger when I have the time right now to do so. What good will the relationship do if their reaction to the truth of Scripture is the same as the crowd in Luke 4? or the ridicule of Acts 17? Do you really think you can preach a Biblically sound gospel message in such a way that eliminates all possibility of the offense? If Jesus or Paul or Peter couldn’t do it then what makes you think you can? Is there something you can teach God about presenting the Gospel that dispels the notion Jesus had when He said they would hate us for His name sake?
Peter Hamm on Tue, July 06, 2010
Christopher, I don’t think I said that I think we should preach in such a way that we “eliminates all possibility of the offense”. However, we need not seek to offend, either. We need not work at trying to offend. Many, unfortunately, do indeed intentionally offend. I don’t see Jesus, Peter, Paul, et al, doing this.
Leonard on Tue, July 06, 2010
Please forgive me, but isn’t this conversation tired yet? It seems we have it every time we talk about the gospel. CS and Christopher, I get what you think and you certainly get what Peter and I think…
This feels much like chasing our tail… God bless you guys for your passion to share Christ. I really do appreciate that.
Christopher Fontenot on Tue, July 06, 2010
Peter,
Forgive me if I implied that you said or meant that. My statement was to refute the idea that we must first get people to like us before we can take the risk of telling them about God’s salvation. I read an excerpt from the book “Contagious Christian”. Bill wrote about a guy who lived life to the fullest. He raced sailboats if I remember the story correctly. Over a period of a year, Bill managed to insert a conversation about God but only after this man had gotten into a bar fight and hurt his arm. The idea that he would wait this long is shocking! What is he afraid of? What would have happened to that man’s soul had the bar fight ended in his death? To promote a method of evangelism that is NOWHERE in Scripture and that risks the very soul we are trying to see saved is both heretical and heartless.
I agree that we should NEVER attempt to be offensive. The hearer should hear our tears in our presentation for we know his destination apart from Jesus Christ. Compassion for the lost should spill out as we risk persecution for what we know to be true. Creative and inventive?...sure, I am all for it but not to the compromise of the message nor the immediacy of eternity.
Peter Hamm on Tue, July 06, 2010
Thanks Christopher.
yeah, I’m not gonna have this debate here again, so I’ll just say I strongly disagree with the conclusions you reach. Leonard is right, we’ve been here, movin’ on…
Michael on Tue, July 06, 2010
1. A lot of Christians don’t know how to articulate the Gospel. That’s a problem, but…
2. The church has seemed to lose, water down, try to imitate, replace, or ignore the true power of God which Paul and the Apostles had when they preached. It’s not just our ‘words’ it’s God’s WORD which the Spirit confirms with signs following… gifts and anointings that the whole body possesses.
1 Cor. 2:4-5 I didn’t speak my message with persuasive intellectual arguments. I spoke my message with a show of spiritual power so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power.
1 Thess 1:5 our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.
Romans 15:19 by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have FULLY proclaimed the gospel of Christ. (emphasis mine)
Acts 10:38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil.
You can take people to a ‘plan’ of salvation all day long… but people aren’t saved by a plan, they are saved by a man. Jesus. And wherever Jesus showed up, the power of God was present and it changed lives.
CS on Wed, July 07, 2010
Leonard:
“Please forgive me, but isn�t this conversation tired yet? It seems we have it every time we talk about the gospel. CS and Christopher, I get what you think and you certainly get what Peter and I think� “
None of us have any idea how truly bad Hell will be. And I can’t even fathom of how bad it will be for someone who never receives the Gospel because Christians are unable, unwilling, or unresponsive to preaching the Gospel. So, yes, there is some fire in my bones about this topic and that’s why I keep coming back at it.
It’s like the atheist in a YouTube video said. If we truly believe what we believe, we should be crawling over broken glass on hands and knees to share it with everyone. We should be like mad men. And when I hear that the numbers are so abysmal on how many people actively share their faith (less than 2% according to some surveys), it makes me mad.
—
CS
Peter Hamm on Wed, July 07, 2010
CS,
The danger is that we think that only our efforts will spread the Gospel. God will get his word out. We get to be part of that or not. I want to be part of it. God’s Kingdom doesn’t depend on us and whether we get it right or not, and if we get it wrong, we are no threat to God’s kingdom. He’s God. He has all times and seasons in his hands.
And some Christians share their faith in ways that are not straightforward evangelism.
Case in point: The very mousy, but faithful, man or woman who just can’t speak to people much… but lives a consistent humble Christian life in front of everybody he knows. Then when somebody who knows him hears about what Christ did and who He is, they respond… because… they have seen the life lived out in practice, not just theory.
Too many people would say that only the person who “preached the Gospel” evangelized. This is not the case, the other person did, too.
CS on Wed, July 07, 2010
Peter:
“The danger is that we think that only our efforts will spread the Gospel. God will get his word out. We get to be part of that or not. I want to be part of it. God�s Kingdom doesn�t depend on us and whether we get it right or not, and if we get it wrong, we are no threat to God�s kingdom. He�s God. He has all times and seasons in his hands.”
You’re absolutely right. And, it’s a miracle that God has chosen us to be the vehicles to share His message with the world. I also temper this thought with Spurgeon who said that if sinners should go to Hell, let them have to leap over us while we try to hold onto their legs.
“The very mousy, but faithful, man or woman who just can�t speak to people much� but lives a consistent humble Christian life in front of everybody he knows. Then when somebody who knows him hears about what Christ did and who He is, they respond� because� they have seen the life lived out in practice, not just theory.”
Right, but the confusion in modern evangelism here in America is that the life being lived out is the equivalent of sharing the Gospel. It’s not. It applies in a Matthew 5:16 sense and does lend credence to when the Gospel is shared, that the life is in harmony with the words being spoken. But to say, “I share my faith by living a godly life,” is not evangelism. Nor is simply praying for someone or saying, “God bless you.” Evangelism requires the act of evangelizing, which is sharing the Gospel.
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CS
Leonard on Wed, July 07, 2010
CS, I get that. What I say in response is do something about it. I just finished a pastors conference in Swaziland, Africa. These dear brothers had little to no training at all. I spent three days teaching them about making disciples and studying their bibles, preaching… It was awesome! I just received a call from a church in Ohio wanting to use my discipleship materials. I am training 30+ people tonight in discovering and using their gifts…
I also share Christ with others too on a personal level and have seen several hundred people come to Christ in my church these last couple yeas as well.
Peter wrote a great blog that I read today… The gist? go do it. Get busy and do it.
I say again, I love your passion and I am sure if we ever sat and ate a meal together we would have much more in common than we know here on a blog.
I just get tired of the conversation becoming Warrens bad, Hybles is bad, pastors are afraid to preach the word, everyone has it wrong… Except for those who write such things. I do not grow from such conversations and my hunch it others do not. What these conversations do is feed the negative that so easily grows inside of us. To have this once or twice… I get it. but we beat this horse all the time.
MMI to me is a place to discuss ideas for ministry but it has degenerated into a place where we discuss what people do wrong in ministry. This is why I stay away more and more.
I would rather hear what you are doing to make disciples. I would rather hear your plan to present everyone mature in Christ and how you live that out.
The article is correct… were not very good at it. Possible because we fight so much over how it is done few people want to actually do it.
God bless you my brother!
Peter Hamm on Wed, July 07, 2010
CS writes [but the confusion in modern evangelism here in America is that the life being lived out is the equivalent of sharing the Gospel.]
Although not a complete equivalent, it indeed is sharing the Gospel.
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