Death of a Salesman
"The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell."I've been known to say it before, and more and more Christians are beginning to realize it. The concept of Evangelism has been deteriorating into pure salesmanship. The greatest news, the most perfect message humankind has ever heard, and it is relegated to little more than Girl Scout Cookies. And it doesn't even seem to be concerned about the here-and-now... only the afterlife. Do you know if you'll go to heaven when you die? Let's say a prayer and secure your place there right now, ok?
"After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive."Is a man or a woman merely a soul wrapped up in flesh? Are these bodies and brains simply tools to make sure the soul ends up in the right place? No... God created all of it to glorify him... to express, innovate, create, love, communicate, challenge, dance, rest, laugh. Can you 'love your neighbor' and only care about his or her soul?
"You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away--a man is not a piece of fruit!"But the modern state of Evangelism is dangerously close to this kind of dichotomy. Ask them if they go to church anywhere. Tell them your testimony... they can't argue with that. Make sure they realize they're a sinner. Then ask them if there's any reason why they shouldn't pray for salvation right now. If that doesn't work, try just being their friend, and keep praying.
Is friendship a stratagem now? Is it the secret weapon in our evangelistic arsenal? To reduce relationship to a step in the three-step plan is to cheapen people... to deny their holistic value.
"I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman!"If we don't come to our senses... if we don't change our course quickly, many of us are in danger of waking up and realizing that all the conversions under our belts have amounted to nothing.
"Nothing's planted. I don't have a thing in the ground."Because we haven't loved. We have set our minds upon a task... a commission, but we have made the very mistake Paul warned us about in I Corinthians 13:
"If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."Jesus commanded us to love everyone... and simply that. It is the highest form of human interaction, and the most complete way to be Christ-like. Everything we do, including (or especially) sharing the gospel, has to be governed by authentic love for people, not by strategies or sales pitches.
I am so passionate about this, I want everyone to have an opportunity to come together and help each other rid themselves of the proselytizing instinct... to let the salesman in each of us die a sudden death. I want us each to devote our lives to true relationship, to caring about people no matter what they believe, and ridding ourselves of the hidden agendas. The times we spend with people in this capacity will communicate the truth far better than any four spiritual laws.
"There's more of Willy in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made."In the fall, we're going to start getting together on a regular basis to work through the evangelistic misconceptions that have built up in each of us over time. We'll call these gatherings "Death of a Salesman", and we'll have them as often as necessary. If you have any interest in helping The Core build authentic community, or in providing hospitality at the Front Porch on a regular basis... I can't stress enough the importance of this gathering. Go ahead and e-mail me if you would like to take part.
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind... and love your neighbor as yourself."
Posted at 8:48 AM
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12 Comments:
AAAGGHHH! You were right, dead-set, smack-dab on the money!... until you said:
"Jesus commanded us to love everyone... and simply that."
OK... so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that by 'simply' you aren't denying his repeated commands to "make disciples" of people from every, tribe, tongue, and nation--that is, to help people to begin a relationship with Christ and then consistently grow in that relationship and in his likeness. You're simply saying that approaching every person as an evangelistic target is interpersonally unethical and is ultimately ineffective in doing the work Christ has called us to do. Right?
Pray for me this coming semester. I am taking a class on 'missions' and one on 'evangelism', the latter of which I am especially anxious about. My undergraduate 'academic' experience with evangelistic 'field work' was traumatic (both for me and undoubtedly for my 'human specimens'). I know that a certain amount of 'real life practice' is going to be required of this course, and I am going to be evaluated on the reports of my experiences. This seems so utterly contrary to every ounce of my conscience--it was back then and it still is. Pray for discernment as I simultaneously: (a) try to suppress my cowardly, faithless nature than generally chokes during opportunities conducive to sharing the Good News with people, and (b) share with my professor my ethical qualms about 'witnessing under compulsion'.
Again, RIGHT ON, with that one caveat, which I am anticipating is actually unfounded.
P.S. I really like the new website. NICE WORK!
You're correct that your caveat is unfounded. We've got to stop dichotomizing the call to "love" and the call to "make disciples". If we are not helping people become disciples, we are not loving them, and we are not loving God... Simply that.
Love is so much bigger than we make it out to be... stop thinking in English.
I sympathize with your upcoming classes. Make sure you're blogging those experiences.
False dichotomies... bad... very bad.
Thanks for the clarification.
Will keep you posted for sure.
We get to be Christ's representative wherever we go. That, in and of itself, is worth living for (not to mention the other facets of the Christian walk). We might be making the great commission more complicated than it is. We might have skipped the step of being so in love with Christ that we want to share it with others. I was talking on the phone with a friend and he was telling me that the real problem with the church lies with the leadership of the churches in our area. I kinda disagreed. I think that there are too few of us lay people who really seek to be all that God can help us become.
As for evangelistic strategies. There might be some times when someone creatively comes up with a way to spread the gospel. I know you wern't criticizing this. However, it seems the church is known to take that great strategy, sell millions of books on that strategy, and turn it into church law. Jesus told us to be as clever as serpents. But a certain serpent has slipped in and made evangelism into another ism that is fake and lifeless. I don't think we realize how wonderful it is to be apart of showing Christ to those around us. We are told to do certain evangelistic practices and they seem lame. We tell ourselves we are suffering for Jesus or something like that. Those strategies might work real well in certain circumstances but are they a really that smart a thing to do all the time. I got to hear a girl I know explain how much she is really into letting others see Christ in her at her work place. For me, I think having that type of enthusiasm is the first strategy I need to implement.
Caleb, you nailed it! Our efforts to share the good news with others are only as genuine and effective as our personal walk with Christ. I used to butt heads with ministry profs at my university (and later with other evangelism training-type folks) about this. I'm convinced that the reason most 'Christians' have a hard time sharing their faith in Christ with others is that they aren't madly in love with Christ themselves. A couple days ago I was reading in Acts, and in chapter 4 vs. 20 Peter and John, under fierce persecution, confess that "we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard". The question then remains for those of us who call ourselves Christians, Have we truly seen him? Or have we been sold a counterfeit?
What is the greatest commandment? Evangelize till you've prostlyzed everyone. Oh crap, that isn't it? We aren't called to win arguments and convince people we are right? We are called to love God and others? That's it? Well I wish somebody would of told me that. I guess, maybe, I should of been paying attention.
Lying in bed pondering, that is what I'm good at. Asking and seeking God's will, wanting to feel him, that is what I do. It stopped around a month ago, maybe only momentarily. It stopped because of the greatest commandment, the 1st and 2nd. All I can think about right now is trying to love God and others more. That, I know is God's will. No reason to ask him what it is or what I'm called to. I just need to start there.
"Love" is such a cheap word. Since we're talking about what the Bible says, how does the Bible define love? A variety of ways, obviously. But what are some things "loving others" includes? It's certainly not God's will that we pick and choose which ways we will love people, but rather do all we can to love everyone in all the ways he teaches us in his word.
Keep in mind also that we can 'love' people all the way to hell if we limit the ways we love people simply meeting physical, social, and emotional needs. Certainly we can earn the right to share the Good News with people by meeting these needs, and we ought not seek to meet them only because we want to earn that right. But sharing the greatest gift which meets the greatest need in their life--that is, the Good News of Jesus--ought to always be a driving motivation, if we truly love them. Otherwise, what little compassion we might feel for them drowns in a sea of our own cowardice and cynicism.
As Ryan already said (though not in these words), "Damn false dichotomies to hell." It's not "evangelize OR love", it's both. Sharing the Good News out of dutiful obligation or an attempt to climb the spiritual ladder (God is not fooled) breaks the rule of love. Meeting felt needs at the exclusion of the verbal witness to the Gospel breaks the mandate of the Great Commission. If all God wanted us to have from His Word was the "Greatest Commandments" in summary form, he would've just given them to us--one sentence, two clauses, one small sheet of paper, a lot less hassle. However, the rest of Scripture fleshes out those two commandments, and therefore they cannot be ignored, not by a long shot.
yes, I would have to say that goes without saying. In the end, if we love right we follow scripture right. We are Christ to others right. You love right and everything else is thrown in.
Wow... this is a great discussion.
I just want to ditto all that, and say that 90% of following Christ is understanding what love truly means, and doing it.
NBA legend David Robinson once said, "Love isn't just saying 'I love you', love is saying, 'Hey you got somethin' hangin' off your nose, there.'" It might be an awkward moment, but you have loved your brother by being willing to convey uncomfortable news in order to help him in the long run.
Love does not exist in simplistic form. It doesn't come into being until it it recognized as complex and multi-faceted. It is not love to simply convey good news to a hungry person, while denying them food. It is not love to feed a hungry person, while ignoring obvious opportunities to convey the good news. And that's just the beginning.
And beloved... you talk about striving to love everyone in all the ways love God teaches in scripture. Does that include EROS?
:-)~
The Great Commission says nothing about making converts. It says that we are responsible for making men and women into disciples. One cannot become a disciple unless one first becomes a convert, but there are many converts who never become disciples.
When it comes to evangelism, the problem with the sales mentality isn't necessarily that it's wrong. The problem is that it's very incomplete. Making "the sale" is important, but it's only a small part of the total picture.
We do new converts a great disservice if we proceed to treat them as if they are no longer important to us, since their salvation is assured.
Jesus said that people would know that we were his disciples by our love for one another. Therefore, one of the greatest evangelistic "strategies" is simply to love people (particularly our brothers and sisters in Christ) as Christ loved us. If we truly love people, then that will affect the way that we approach people, both before and after the "sale". We will treat them as whole people, not as two dimensional sales prospects.
One can talk endlessly about love, but it doesn't mean much if it doesn't translate into tangible and meaningful acts of love.
Hungry people need food. Homeless people need homes. Jobless people need jobs. Poor people need financial help. Sick people need medical care. Lonely people need friends. Uneducated people need education. If we treat people with indifference to their material, emotional, mental and social needs, then why should we expect anyone to believe that we genuinely care about their spiritual needs?
One of the most destructive false dichotomies of the modern church has been the one involving the conflict between the "saving gospel" and the "social gospel". It's absurd to think we should have to choose between the two. If we genuinely care for people, then we should attend to all of their needs to the best of our abilities.
Sometimes that means speaking harsh truths, as Ryan just pointed out. But we have to earn the right to speak such truths.
True love is risky business. One of the biggest problems in the Church today is that there is such an emphasis on being "safe".
A Christian radio station here in Chicago once advertised itself as "the safe alternative". I thought that was sad. It suggested to me that the Christian community was on the defensive, when we ought to be on the offensive.
If we are unwilling to take risks on behalf of others, then why should we expect them to take any risks on our behalf?
Right on, Phil... and Ryan.
And Mark... YOU TOTALLY GET IT! How awesome. Amen, amen, and amen (...and amen?). I'll add to that that we aren't responsible at all for actually 'making converts', nor are we able to. God does the converting. We simply till the ground, fertilize it, sow seeds, and then water them. God bears the fruit and does the saving. Knowing that sure takes a lot of the pressure off that we evangelicals seem to feel when sharing the Good News. And whaddya know... when the pressure's off, we share more honestly and naturally, and that becomes obvious to the person on the other end of the conversation.
5,000 amens to you guys. You make me smile.
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