Why "Nice" is Not Enough
Why "Nice" is Not Enough
Attempts to shape the Gospel into a more culturally palatable message will only result in a faster decline. Removing the supernatural to appear more reasonable will only hasten our irrelevance.
For the last fifty years, the American church has expended a lot of hours and dollars trying to keep Christianity relevant in a rapidly changing culture. The project has taken on various forms—some relatively effective, others radically compromised.
From the beginning, Christians have had to reckon with this challenge of communication. We have always been bridge-builders, helping people understand, “cross over” and enter the Kingdom. We see Peter doing this with the Jewish community in Acts 2. Paul models it with the Greek philosophers in Acts 17.
There is nothing inherently wrong with attempting to be better at communication. Finding points of contact with people outside the Kingdom is the only way to get them into it!
But there are certainly dangers in the process. I think these dangers can fall into three general categories. My bet is you can think of contemporary examples for each:
MODERNISM: We modify Truth to make it easier for people to retain popular ideas or behaviors and “add” Jesus to their lives. The early church faced this challenge in the heresy of Gnosticism, which attempted to blend Greek philosophy with the Gospel.
CONVENTIONALISM: We fail to “connect” because our traditions are assumed to be “essential.” We cage the Gospel in our own religious preferences. The apostle Peter struggled with this challenge when he pulled back from the Gentiles and attempted to retain Jewish dietary practices in Galatia (Galatians 2:6-21)
ISOLATIONISM: We forgo the communication process altogether, content to celebrate the Gospel behind the walls of our churches. This has been a perennial problem for Christians!
I’m sure there are others, but I think these three are general categories that help us understand the challenges that come with communicating the Kingdom message in contemporary culture.
By any objective measurement, the American Church has a communication problem. Our declining numbers and increasing irrelevance in contemporary conversations are revealed in statistic after statistic. But we hardly need to make a case for this with stats. Most of us can feel it in our bones, hear it on the wind and feel it in the air.
It’s not an exaggeration to say this concern has dominated my life and thought for years. A few years ago, I came to realize a blind spot in my perspective.
What if the communication problem is about something more than the words we’re speaking?
Nothing communicates like experience. A real, first-person encounter with reality grants something an explanation can never give. I can try to describe how delicious the taco al’ pastor is at Pancho Tacos on Division in Grand Rapids, but taking you there and letting you taste one would convince you it’s worth the trip.
Could it be that people are not hearing and then consciously rejecting the Gospel? Might it be that people haven’t been given a real encounter with the Gospel?
What if our communication problem springs from a stripped down version of what it means to share the Good News?
If we survey the landscape of outreach, it seems to be dominated by words. Many seem to have reduced the Gospel to a verbal message, an appeal to reason. The “Good News” is a matter of content presentation:
We’ve tried to find more and more creative ways to communicate that message, making it more convincing.
We’ve worked hard to create events and programs that give us a chance to present people with this message.
We’ve done our best to draw people in with “nice.”
We’ve run focus groups.
We’ve built worldview camps.
We’ve printed millions of words on apologetics, systematic theology, evangelism techniques, personal testimony, etc.
Our Gospel communication, by and large, has been a matter of words. But Jesus ministered a different kind of Gospel.
Jesus ministered a Gospel of words and power. Jesus’ Gospel was proclamation, invitation and demonstration. These were the three irreducible elements of his ministry.
I’ll never forget coming to this realization a few years ago after a careful study of the Gospels. It was shocking. It was surprising. It was deeply convicting.
For years, I had believed supernatural signs and wonders were possible, but I never would have thought that they were essential elements of communicating the Gospel.
But they are.
The Gospel Jesus brought never left things the way they had been. People who were sick got healed. People who were possessed by demonic entities were delivered. Mental health and physical wellbeing were restored.
These supernatural manifestations drew crowds. These crowds came and experienced healing and deliverance. These direct experiences of God’s power validated the message: “The Kingdom of God is here. Repent and believe!”
Jesus final instructions to his disciples not only required them to speak a message, they required demonstrations of that message—doing what Jesus did. In essence, Jesus’ didn’t just provide us with stories to form doctrine. He modeled actions that should be our pattern.
And we can’t miss this: These signs and wonders were not simply “attractors” to hear a message. They were the message in action. “If you enter this Kingdom, God will bring restoration, healing, freedom! You will live a different kind of life here and now, and you’ll inherit eternity!” The healings and deliverances were aspects of salvation that made the good news so good!
Our current communication problem is that our view of communication needs to be expanded. We’re not called simply to communicate a message. We’re called to communicate a real experience of God’s power.
It might come through healing or deliverance. It might come through a word of knowledge. It might come because we, sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s timing, say the right thing to the right person. It might come as someone witnesses the supernatural activity in a Spirit-filled worship service.
This kind of communication is required for people actually to be given a choice: Do I want to be part of this or not? Am I willing to set aside my old way of life to follow Jesus?
I do know one thing: These kinds of experiences will only come if we humbly ask the Lord to show us how to walk in this kind of power. He promised that if we do this, he will!