Witnessing - Chapter 4

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Lesson 4

Building Relationship – Dealing with the noise

I want to deal with two aspects of being a good disciple. Paul wrote to his young disciple Timothy in an effort to teach him about being a good disciple and eventually Apostle of Christ. First and foremost, we are about the business of building relationships. We are building lifelong relationships that allow others to see Christ in us through our actions, words and deeds. Being a disciple in the first century meant that you were friends with other disciples who would gladly give their lives for what you believed in. Though I doubt many of us will ever be held to that kind of accountability, developing the relationship for such an event is precisely the important work we are about. As we develop these lifelong relationships we need to keep in mind that our primary purpose is to bring those friends to Christ. Let’s listen in as Paul instructs young Timothy and then in turn us how to be good witnesses to Christ.

^NRS  2 Timothy 2:20  ²⁰ In a large house there are utensils not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for special use, some for ordinary. ²¹ All who cleanse themselves of the things I have mentioned will become special utensils, dedicated and useful to the owner of the house, ready for every good work. ²² Shun youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. ²³ Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. ²⁴ And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, ²⁵ correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, ²⁶ and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

I doubt that it could have been put in better words. Paul is trying to tell us that being a disciple is special. Witnessing our faith to others is a higher call than our vocations here on earth. We are dealing in the spiritual realm here, Kingdom things are at hand as we share the good news of the Gospel. As such we need to pursue righteous things like faith, love and peace with a pure heart. And not allow ourselves to get caught up in senseless controversies that in the end only manage to circumvent the greater task we are given. And it doesn’t pay to become like the world that would rather argue the validity of a thing than accept the truth of it. Lord knows, we are in such a politically correct society today. We are about building relationships with people that they share in eternal life. That’s the promise.

Now this begs us to define a little nuance that we will encounter as we share our stories. There are those who will ask us to share only to use it as a platform to share their own agenda’s about the church. Unfortunately, much of what they throw at you will be somewhat correct. The church does not have the best track record in part because the good news of the church is often overshadowed by the few who bring shame to story. I remember reading the story of Gandhi as a young man and his reading of the Sermon on the Mount. In that sermon he found the embodiment of how to live one’s life and spent the rest of his life living it in that way. In the cross he saw how the world treats those who choose to live for others and for injustice, the crucify them. And he often said that if Christians lived their lives in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount, he would have become a Christian. Now that’s a convicting statement that should compel us to reflect on how we present the image of Christ to others.

My suggestion in this short chapter is that each of you gather some courage and present your story to the class. Let the class give you constructive ideas on how it might be better presented, but remember; your story is yours alone. The questions for this chapter are to help you prepare for those criticisms that will come as you share the Gospel with others. Good luck on your journey.

Questions for Lesson 4

1.              You are approached by a young man who complains that all Christians are hypocrites who judge others and never offer anything in return. How do you respond using one of the biblical stories?

2.              While talking to a young woman, she suddenly breaks down crying about how her life is in shambles and how she cannot understand why God would continue to test her this way. How do you respond?

3.              While talking with a young man, he responds that he is a Buddhist. He then wants to know about your God and your faith. How do you respond?

4.              A young man wants to understand how you can continue to have faith even in the face of adversity. How do you respond?

5.              An older gentleman friend asks you why you continue to go to church every Sunday. How do you respond?

6.              A young man down on his luck asks for a handout. He is hungry and poorly clothed. How do you respond?

7.              A new couple visits your church for the first time and asks you what it means to be a Christian. How do you respond?

Witnessing - Chapter 3

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Lesson 3

Developing Our Story, Learning the Bible Story

Nothing tells a story better than a story teller. The lost art of witnessing is because we have forgotten how to be storytellers. This lesson is about developing your story and using stories in the Bible to respond to questions and to witness to the power of God. In developing your story, break down your life into three phases: Before Christ, Why Christ and Christ in me.

Before Christ is all about who you were before you allowed Christ to enter into your heart. Some of you may have powerful witness about life on the fast lane, taking the road most traveled or just a series of constant bad decisions with consequences. My life was like that. I had grown up in the church because my Mom made sure that I got a religious education. Truth is part of the problem with the world today is that not enough mothers assure their children get a religious education. I’m not talking about the judgmental kind but rather the stories of the Bible told and retold. More on that in a moment! But what will be important to your story is if you are honest and authentic about whom you were before Christ finally entered your heart. Now maybe you were baptized at a young age like me, maybe you confirmed your faith around the beginning of your teen years (also like me) but maybe like John Wesley, your heart was never strangely warmed until much later (like me). And that story of transformation touches people right where they live.

At some point in your life you decided, truly decided, to let God into your life. That moment may have been at a Billy Graham crusade, a camp meeting or at some group study like this one, but at some moment you opened your heart to God. Now some of us may not remember that exact moment. For some it is a lifetime of progression through study and action that leads you here today. But for all of us there are stories along the journey. And it is those stories that I want you to tap into. There was some compelling reason that you decided to allow God in. What was it? What was going on in your life that caused it to happen? What were the circumstances that led to your decision? For me it was a lifetime journey of seeking answers and never finding them in the places I was looking. In 1981 I almost lost my life in an industrial accident that left me wondering what my purpose in life was. And in that wandering found my way to an Emmaus weekend, a weekend of Christian love and teaching that helped me focus on what God was both doing in my life and calling me to do.

The last phase of your life is after that time of transition when God’s work in your life is bearing fruit and that fruit is evident. Some people keep journals that help with this aspect of their lives. In the journal you might write down a scripture that you are studying today. Or you might write down a particular prayer concern that you have on that day. Leave room to the right of it or below it so that a week or month from now you can revisit that journal entry. As you revisit, remark on how God has used that scripture or prayer concern to impact your life or someone you know. Or how God has responded share with others about how God is working in your life.    

So we have reached the pinnacle of preparation and are now ready to share our stories with others, right? OK, well maybe not so fast. The focus of evangelism efforts by the faithful disciples needs to be centered on the biblical story with a firm foundation on how God is in relationship with you. We have all been brought up to believe that we need to be theological scholars in order to discuss the bible with others and my contention is that we have led down the wrong path for evangelism. Our most important lesson here is that we are about the business of building and establishing relationships. We want to use our own experiences and words to illustrate a relationship with God and relationships with one another in such a way as to present the story of creation, redemption and salvation. My own experiences allow me to share how God has been interacting in my life. In order to do that, we need some tools in our arsenals.

I had shared with you previously that we need to learn our own stories and how to develop that story to share with others. Our spiritual journeys have all been about how we met, developed a relationship with and how we follow the awesome God who loves us unconditionally. Our stories need to be concise and directed to the individual we are talking to. In other words, we need to meet our audience where they are, not expect them to come to us. We need to be focused on listening to what they have to say, explore who they are and where they are in their life’s journey and then interact with them. Part of what I have suggested is that we develop our stories about our own lives and how God has been in relationship with us throughout our lives. That would allow us to come across as genuine people who are human, make mistakes, are then forgiven and continue to grow. Development of your personal story is helpful in learning about ourselves and developing who we are. Then I would suggest that we learn at a minimum five important stories in the bible and be prepared to talk about them in our own language. They are: the story of Abraham including the Isaac Sacrifice (Gen 22: 1-17), the story of Moses including his killing of an Egyptian and his wandering through the desert (Exodus 2& 3), the story of David including his relationship with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11) and two parables, the parable of the sower of seeds (Mark 4: 3-9) and the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 29-37). These stories are great illustrations for interacting with others.

There are no questions for this lesson other than re-reading the Biblical stories and developing your own story.

Witnessing - Chapter 2

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Lesson Two

Evangelism, A Dirty Word

Early evangelism in America originated with the people who immigrated to America, particularly from areas in England, Ireland and Scotland. These were the people who were facing persecution during the early years of the Protestant reformation. The Puritans, Anabaptist, Methodist and Congregationalist made their footprint during this era in American history. Early evangelists include Jonathan Edwards who led a Congregationalist revival in New York and New England in the early to mid-1700. William Tennent led a Presbyterian revival in New York during the same period. Thomas Coke, Francis Asbury and George Whitefield led a Methodist revival throughout the Mid-Atlantic and then into the western regions of the young nation. In the 1800’s we had Charles Finney and then DL Moody who led evangelistic camp meetings throughout areas in New York, the Midwest and even across the ocean in Europe. Probably the most recognized name’s in modern times is Billy Graham whose crusades brought thousands to Christ.  

Much of the evangelistic movement in America is dead! The earliest foundations that grew the churches that now are scattered across the counties and cities of America has been lost to time, culture and our own sense of priority. And yet we now face a reality of life that offers more questions than answers, has more people seeking peace and serenity and a culture that spends more on drugs for depression than on any facet of health care. Is it such a wonder that many seek professional help when our churches stand sadly empty? God wants us to be a blessing to the world and to tell them about the redemptive power of a relationship with God. And yet, we have lost touch with the power of storytelling. We find ourselves strangely frightened at reaching out to another human being with our stories and our witnessing to the power of a God of grace and love. But it has not always been that way. Our earliest memories of our American culture are of evangelistic meetings in every corner of population. Where we go from here depends on what we learn from our last twenty to thirty years and about what we learn about ourselves.

Our understanding of evangelism has been greatly influenced by the evangelistic movement through the median we call television. As a result of much of the negativity associated with televangelists, evangelism in America has become a negative term rather than a positive focus of the church. If we look back at the history of the church, especially the early church and use that as the model we have a clearer understanding of what our role should be.

There are two models for evangelism that have been promoted and used since the 1970’s. I would suggest that neither is the appropriate biblical standard by which we are to spread the Gospel of Good News. The first is what I would affectionately call the model of fear. This model has been promoted by several groups using fear tactics as the way to get people’s attention. The focus of this model is on where you will be in eternity if you are not brought to salvation. Many terms such as the fiery pit, hell and fire and eternal temptation, saved, and born again are thrown around as if they are biblical terms. The term “born again” appears once in the Bible when Jesus talks to Nicodemus and suggests that we must begin anew with the Holy Spirit. The truth is that even this is a modern day translation. The actual Greek suggests instead that this term should be “born from above.” But at no time does Jesus focus his attention in a fearful way; rather the ways of grace, compassion and love are his tools to restore relationships with God and the people.

The second model suggests that as a church we are to be servants. Our whole focus has been in the last 40 years to become a serving church reaching out to the folks who are in need, who are hurt and who could use compassion and support. This is the model that is presented as living in the image of Jesus. And yet, I would suggest that not once did Jesus heal someone, teach someone or feed someone for the singular purpose of the healing, teaching or feeding. Rather, Jesus singular focus was always to evangelize to the person about restoration of relationship with God and the focus was and is always on the Kingdom rather than on the individual. Not surprisingly then, we have evolved into a church whose purpose becomes missional outreach where we work hard not to impose our religious beliefs or ideals on those whom we are offering financial, emotional or physical support to.

And last but certainly not least is the focus towards individualism in the world we live in. Today it is more likely that families will not even know who their neighbors are, much less interact with them. In this technologically advanced world, we find ourselves interacting with humans less and less. I would suggest that we are becoming a world of lonely people fixated on increasing the loneliness by eliminating the need to interact at all.

Lesson Two questions:

1.   Where have we come from, what have we learned?

2.   How do we incorporate witnessing into a revival of the church?

3.   How do we incorporate witnessing into service and outreach?

4.   What would we need to do to create a resurgence of evangelism in the church?

Witnessing our Faith - Chapter 1

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Lesson 1

God decided you should witness

The very first thing that we must focus on in a study about witnessing is what God said. In order to fully appreciate our need to witness, we need to understand the order of things. I always begin with the story of Abraham (Gen 12: 1-3) and the blessing that God gave to Abraham if he would follow the desires of God. He blessed him and his descendants who would be as numerous of the stars (Gen 15:5) and said that they would be a blessing to the families of the world. Now we can get into a theological discussion about what that means, but for the brevity of time, let me simply say that I believe that God is blessing Abraham so that he would become a spokesperson through his actions, words and deeds to the power of God in the world. And by doing that the world would be blessed because all would come to know the love and grace of God. We can also argue that by virtue of our descending in faith from first Abraham, then the Hebrew people and through Jesus as Christians, we are all descendants of Abraham and therefore part of this covenant of God. And so we too are to be both blessed by the power and grace of God and then be a blessing to the world.

We then follow that line of thinking into the prophets where Isaiah answers God’s call in Isaiah 6:8, Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!" I truly wonder how each of us might respond to God’s call on our lives. Are we prepared to sacrifice what we have and what we know for what God would have us do? In the Gospels we receive further instruction about what it means to be a follower of God through Jesus. Let me share with you some scriptural reference from none other than Jesus as he talked with the disciples about their role in the world.

^NRS  Matthew 10:27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.

^NAS  Mark 1:17 And Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men."

^NRS  Mark 16:15 And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.

There can be no doubt about what Jesus expected of the disciples. And once you stood before the congregation and before God and professed your faith, at least in the Methodist understanding, you took a vow to follow God’s commandments, God’s desires and God’s direction. So on that day, each of us in fact became a disciple until such time as we are called to glory or lifted to be an Apostle. I think that the mandate then for God’s calling on our lives is very clear, don’t you? Now before we put the cart before the horse, an expression I have always enjoyed, let me caution you about what priority God puts on that witness. In one of the lessons on the Gospel about Jesus calling disciples to follow is the lesson of “I can’t go because…” We find it in the Gospel of Luke.

^NRS  Luke 9:61 Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." 62 Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."  

Clearly Jesus believes that our first priority in life, before family and vocation is to be a disciple. Anything else excludes us from heaven. Now that is a powerful statement but it goes straight to the concept of faith, belief and our hearts. If we do not believe then we are lost. If we believe and yet hold back, we are lost. Only complete submission to the will of God is acceptable.

I want to share two more scriptures with you about our witnessing journey. One is a commandment and the other provides strength and direction. The first is the “Great Commission.”

^NRS  Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."  

Jesus directed us to first “GO” and the make disciples in all nations. Clearly his desire of us is that we witness to the power of God to all of creation so that all may know about the grace and love of God. And in Acts before his ascension he tells us:

^NRS  Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

So what are we supposed to do? Witness through our actions, words and deeds!

Questions for Lesson One

·       What is God’s purpose in the world and how can we be a part of that?

·       Why were the people building a tower in Babel and how did God’s reaction make our job more difficult?

·       What is the blessing that God gave to Abraham?

·       What did God expect in return?

·       What good news should we the people want to share?

·       What does God want us to do in the Great Commission?

·       Can we do one part without the others?