Inviting people to continue
their conversation with God
PMN 311 & 312
Nyack
College
Prof. Sam D. Kim
Pre -Introduction: Contextualization
I grew up in NYC practically my
whole life. One of the greatest things
about living in New York City is that you get to literally taste a vast mosaic
of all different types of cultures that distingishes the Big Apple as the
world’s epicenter of culture and commerce. The New York Times and the U.S
Department of State have both referred to the Big Apple as “the largest, most
diverse and perhaps the most forward-looking city in the world, with 123
different nationalities represented.” (Friedman, 1). In other words, this means
that there are astounding 123 different types of ethnic restaurants to choose
from! Let me spell that for you; one hundred and twenty three!! Now that’s
exciting: no wonder this is the city that never sleeps; we’re too busy eating!
However, the down side of walking into a legitimate ethnic restaurant is that
no one speaks a word of English, so ordering can be a tricky, almost
frustrating experience because no one understands a word you are saying! And
perhaps that is a perfect picture to illustrate our frustration with trying to
communicate the gospel story to the present emerging culture.
However, many have taken this
frustrating experience as a cultural rejection of the gospel rather than take responsibility
for our own failure to contextualize the story of Jesus to said culture. I
believe this critical issue will ultimately determine the fruitfulness of how
we reach and engage the next generation for Christ.
Introduction: The critical call for Culture
Architects
I believe that more than ever before we are in a critical need of “cultural architects” who possess the unique, eclectic and creative ability to bridge the gap between the pulse of today’s postmodern society with that of the ancient society surrounding scripture. I believe God is longing for believers that will rise up with prophetic vision that will see that the harvest is plentiful, but the workers who speak the language of the culture are few. Consequently, if we’re going to effectively contextualize the story of Jesus to this culture, I believe there are three pivotal keys we must embrace.
First, I believe we must rethink and reexamine our current paradigms of presenting the gospel and learn to “intelligently contextualize” God’s story in a way that is relevant to present postmodern society. Secondly, if we want to engage the emerging generation for Christ, the story of Jesus must be “compelling existentially” and speak to the very heart of where people are. In other words, it must illuminate the definitive reality that life transformation is not possible apart from God’s power and presence in our lives. Lastly, we must learn to be “intrinsically motivating.” Simply speaking, we must learn how to motivate people to surrender their lives to God on their own time and terms, while refraining from the use of manipulation or shame that excessively focuses on merely correcting external behavior.
Chapter one: Fatal assumptions &
Emphasis
First, I believe if we want to engage the emerging generation for Christ we must acquire the eclectic ability to think contextually because taking scripture etymologically, (meaning apart from context) often times yields subjective and distorted interpretations of the truth. Christians, non-Christian Scholars and theologians all concur that we have definitively transitioned from modernity to post-modernity historically (Webber, 18). We all have in a sense exhaled modernity and inhaled post-modernity unconsciously. However, whether we are conscious of this transition or not, it is a definitive reality that the world has changed and it has changed forever. In the midst of this process of rapid change, the church has traditionally treated postmodernism as a dangerous and contagious disease which if you were to catch it, would obliterate your faith, among many other erroneous assumptions about postmodern culture. I believe it is both foolish and detrimental to assume that the emerging generation is not interested in the story of Jesus simply because we live in a pluralistic and relativistic culture and they have already rejected the notion of absolute truth. Well-researched studies show us that record book sales to record box-office numbers in movies all point to a new spiritual awakening, which is ironically the very opposite of that assumption (Falsani, 1). In fact, those studies indicate that people have never been more interested in the story of Jesus in American history than they are right now (Barna, 22). It is now noted that Rev. Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life is now the best selling non-fiction hardcover book in history (Saddleback.com). This definitely proves that God is already at work and engaged in conversations with people all around the globe and it is not that people are disinterested or against the message, but that they just do not understand a word we are saying! Let‘s take a look at some facts.
Section one: The Data - the Brutal facts
Cross-cultural studies show that the vast majority of America, when asked about their religious convictions, will describe themselves as a Christian. A study done in the middle of the year 2000 indicated that there were over 100 million Americans who fit in this category, but ironically, in spite of the presence of 324,000 protestant churches and 20,000 roman catholic churches, not one person went to church in any of these congregations in the last six months except for a wedding or a funeral (Barna, 21-22). I suppose we can take a look at this data, be discouraged and blame it on the rise of religious pluralism, asserting that this generation has been corrupted by postmodern philosophy and therefore is not interested about the story of Jesus.
However, I believe this assumption is perhaps the greatest hindrance to engaging the emerging culture with the gospel story. The assumption that the emerging culture has already rejected the gospel falls flat when faced with the reality that we have never really given them a chance to choose for themselves. Frankly, if we are going to be successful in bridging the divide between the emerging culture and Christ, we are going to have to believe that God is not confined to the walls of our churches or even to our own theological traditions, but is already engaged in conversation with people in this generation who are actively searching for him. Tragically, it is actually possible that not even one person out of the aforementioned 100 million people in America will even get a chance to hear the story of Jesus this year, primarily because we have already assumed they would not be interested. I think we might be surprised by the outcome if we took the risk and invited people to really continue their conversation with God.
Section two: Experience speaks volumes
As a pastor and a church planter of an emerging postmodern church, I had many great opportunities and the privilege of engaging in numerous spiritual conversations with unchurched friends in our community for the last couple of years (www.ancny.net). I am convinced more than ever before that the emerging generation is desperately and at times frantically looking for an authentic connection with the living God but do not know where to go to fulfill that deep desire and need in their lives, the institutional church being last place they will ever look. I think Erwin McManus is on point when he says that, “Church in the previous generation has sacrificed their children for the sake of our traditions” (McManus, podcast). It’s quite ironic that the very mediums that help us connect with God in the past have become the very idols that contend for God’s living presence for our lives in the present. We have become so fixated on the form that we no longer can seem to connect to God without it. Our addiction to the method only points to the tragic reality that we have replaced God with the form, and with it have become existentially obsolete to our culture around us. For the power of the gospel is in the fact that God’s living presence was not just demonstrated in the past, but made accessible and available at this moment to anyone seeking his face. This is what Jesus meant all along when he boldly proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is here”. I believe it is time to tear down the idols of our past so that the living presence and the power of God can once again dynamically be made available to the ones desperately seeking his face even outside of our traditions and paradigms.
Section Three: Embracing change – the voice of a critic
I do realize the process of rapid change can be painful and frightening because it challenges and threatens the security of our own theological paradigms. The truth is that all of us resist change at first because it threatens both our convenience and security. This is why contextualizing the gospel is received with such scrutiny and paranoia; we are afraid of crossing the line and losing the gospel. Many of us in our great paranoia obsessively wonder where to draw the line. Michael Horton disagrees that the church needs to change; in fact he thinks the church has already gone over the line and sold out to the prosperous and consumerist culture of postmodernism. Horton does not believe the church must change its method or contextualize the story of Jesus. Even if there is a historical transition in our culture Horton feels that the emerging church is giving in to the “ultra consumerist culture” consummated in postmodernism. Therefore Horton’s message is to stay away from the change of culture and to hold on to brilliant traditions of the past (Horton, 119). I believe that is precisely the qualitative difference between Horton and the rising emergent communities around the world: latter says to embrace change for the sake of the world around us, but the former chooses to sacrifice people for the sake of tradition. This is precisely why I believe being culturally relevant is critical; because the kingdom of God does not prioritize tradition before people and I think this is what Horton fails to see. In order for the church to be effective in engaging the culture around us, we must always live in the constant tension of engaging the culture without conforming to it.
Section Four: Embracing change for a greater
cause
Truth is that the issue of contextualization makes us all a bit anxious because it threatens our secure theological paradigms. However, it is encouraging to know as Leslie Newbigin asserts that “We must start with the basic fact that there is no such thing as a pure gospel and if by that is meant something which is not embodied in a culture, every interpretation of the gospel is embodied in some cultural form” (Newbigin, 238). The first thing we need to realize is that the question, “where to draw the line?” is not at all a new question but an old one. This should encourage us because every generation of Christ followers have asked the same question, which tells us that “cultural exegesis” was a nonnegotiable element in every generation in Christendom. Even though this is a difficult and inconvenient conversation for most of us, at least we know we are going in the right direction in learning how to effectively engage our culture with the story of God’s redemption.
Section Five: The Legacy: what cultural architects left behind
As Newbigin points out, contextualizing the
story of Jesus in every generation was not optional. The tradition of our forefathers acting as
culture exegetes and cultural architects is deeply grounded in our Christian
heritage and legacy. For the past twenty centuries in almost every part of this
planet, the gospel has been effectively contextualized repeatedly; making the
life-changing story of Jesus accessible to all people around the globe. We must
not forget that this critical challenge before us is not at all new and is
absolutely necessary in order to reach a new generation for Christ. Will we
once again sacrifice the next generation for our traditions? I guess that still
remains to be seen. The futures of those who desperately need Christ are both
our consequence and responsibility. Whether we embrace change or resist it,
what remains unchanged is that the result will be determined by what we choose
to do at this precise moment in human history.
Chapter one: First pivotal key -
Contextualization
The story in Luke 5:18-26 illustrates our frustration in reaching this generation for Christ and at the same time gives us the first pivotal key of becoming cultural architects who can engage and effectively penetrate the culture with the gospel story. Let’s look at the story together and go from there.
“Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried
to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19When
they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the
roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd,
right in front of Jesus”.
The story tells us clearly that they could not find a way to Jesus because of the large crowd that was blocking the entrance. I am sure they were just about ready to throw in the towel. They were probably sweating profusely while their legs were just about to give out and felt they could not go on any further emotionally or physically. However, it should encourage us that these men keep pressing on and accomplished their goal. This gives us hope and aids us to continue in our journey of getting people to Jesus. We will never know whose idea it was to actually dig a hole in the middle of the roof and lower their friend down to Jesus but what an incredibly innovative and ingenious idea this was! This story dynamically illustrates the power of thinking intelligently in context. We need to learn that these men were not successful in getting their friend to Jesus merely because they worked harder but rather because they worked smarter. They were able to think contextually, and as a result, their friend in great need experienced God’s redemptive power that changed his life forever. I believe this speaks volumes of wisdom to us serving in a postmodern context.
Becoming more committed to evangelism or simply laboring harder will not get the emergent communities to Jesus because it is not our heart for evangelism that is flawed, but rather our methods.
Section one: New Methodology - New frame for
a growing faith
Suzanne Johnson says that faith must be renewed and renowned in every major transition of our lives in order for our faith to genuinely grow. However, if we do not transition our faith in every new season of our lives our faith will grow incompatible with our life experience and thus become obsolete to our lives (Johnson, 103, 117). Just like that, in a postmodern world we must also renew and reframe our methodology of presenting the Gospel in this major historical transition of postmodernism or face the deadly consequence of our story becoming obsolete to our culture. These men were successful in getting their friend to Jesus because they realized that going through the front entrance was no longer a possibility. Even though the first approach failed, the critical reason for their success was because they created an innovative contingency plan. In essence, I believe these men were “cultural architects” because they were able to successfully adapt to the culture around them. Therefore, if we want to be effective in engaging the next generation with the gospel story we must acquire the creative and eclectic ability to think in context. In others words, don’t just work harder, get smarter!
Chapter two: Fatal emphasis – Death & Eternity security
Secondly, if we want to engage the emerging generation effectively with God’s love, the gospel story must be “compelling existentially” or directly speak to the heart of where people are in their lives. In other words, we must illuminate the definitive reality; that life-change is not possible apart from God’s power and presence in our lives. Muhammad Ali once said during his prolific professional boxing career, “Christianity is like mud pies in the skies, but I want my pies right now.” Tragically, Ali felt that Christianity did not possess the power to change the areas in his life that needed real transformation. In other words, the gospel was not compelling existentially for it had nothing to offer him that he wanted. The great tragedy in the church today is that we have greatly deterred from the revolutionary message that Jesus proclaimed in the New Testament: the reality that God’s living presence is accessible and available at this precise moment to turn our world upside down for the better. Brian Mclaren agrees with the reality that the church has greatly deterred from the revolutionary message of Jesus when he says:
“In the message of Jesus, I
think there is a balance between how the message relates to our world in
history as we know it and how it relates to the experience of people beyond
death, outside of history. For many Christians, their faith is primarily about
what happens to people after they die. That distracts them from seeking justice
and living in a compassionate way while we're still alive in this life. We need
to go back and take another look at Jesus' teachings about hell. For so many
people, the conventional teaching about hell makes God seem vicious. That’s not
something we should let stand” (hyung, 1).
We have allowed our compulsive obsession with eternal security prevent us from really following the revolution that Jesus is still leading today. In agreement with Mclaren, I believe that if we are going to successfully engage the emerging generation we must take our eyes off the life hereafter and start focusing on the life we have to live today, because ultimately, this is what makes the gospel compelling existentially.
Section one: A Postmodern case study
As a church serving the emerging generations of mostly X and Y, we have the great privilege of engaging in numerous spiritual conversations with unchurched friends in our community. One interesting encounter we had with one of our unchurched friends was with Chris Hermus. Chris is a university student in New York City who asked one of our members if he could attend and observe one of our services because he was doing a case study on “religious experiences” for his sociology paper. Here is Chris in his own words about his experience:
“The
music was so powerful that it had me in tears a number of times, I did not
expect that to happen, but I welcomed it. I have felt so numb for some time now
and I liked feeling alive for little bit. I loved the fact that I truly felt
something, that this void inside of me, this emptiness and fear that I have,
were being treated”
(
Hermus, 7)
Even though Chris could not describe what he was feeling, I believe what he felt was the presence of God tugging and working at his heart. More than anything else I think that if we are going to reach the postmodern generation, we need to listen to what Chris is saying here. Chris does not even mention about the life hereafter in his paper but rather focuses on his life today. He speaks of his emptiness, fear, the void inside and the overall numbness that was alleviated and replaced by something else. From the conversations we had with Chris as well as some other unchurched friends in our community; we see that they all have one commonality: They all just want to feel something real. I believe that if we want to be effective in engaging the mosaics with the gospel story, we must learn to tell the story of Jesus to the core of people’s existential experience. In others words, if we want to engage the emerging generation we must learn to shift our focus from our unhealthy obsession with the life hereafter and start focusing on the fulfilling life that God is offering today. Chris and others like him want to know if God can existentially satisfy their longing for hope, meaning and purpose, all of which God is offering in the person of Jesus Christ.
Section Six: New methodology – compelling existentially
Let’s go back to the story of the paralyzed man and his friends to unlock the second pivotal key of becoming “cultural architects” who can engage the culture with the gospel story. A critical question I believe we need to ask in this story is, “what motivated the paralytic and his friends to so desperately want to get to Jesus that they actually dug a hole in the middle of the roof!?” You might think the answer is pretty self-explanatory: they wanted their friend to be healed. However, though the answer may be very simple in and of itself, the ramifications behind it are pivotal in reaching the emerging culture for Christ. Like I said before, the great tragedy in the church today is that we have greatly deterred from the revolutionary message that Jesus proclaimed in the New Testament which is the reality that God’s living presence is accessible and available at this precise moment to touch and change people’s lives. If you really think about it, was this not the very reason that motivated these men to go tenaciously after Jesus? They heard that Jesus had the power to liberate people from things and conditions that had tragically taken them hostage and had no control over. However, I would like to allude to the definitive reality that this was not just something that this one helpless paralytic had to go through, but rather, his paralysis is an amazingly accurate reflection of the actual human condition. In essence, we are all helpless and paralyzed in certain areas of our lives and we all know it. This fact is precisely why so many people, especially outside of the religious system of his day, were drawn to Jesus; because his message was revolutionary in the sense that it directly spoke to where people actually were: Lying helpless and powerless over situations in their lives and wanting badly to change. I believe that the only logical explanation of why the movement of Jesus was so efficaciously contagious, even being one of the main causes of the great Roman Empire’s demise was because so many people directly encountered the living presence of God and could not remain silent about how God had changed their lives (Gonzales, 102). If we want to be effective in reaching the emerging culture with the gospel story we must speak to the very heart of where people are and become compelling existentially.
Chapter Three: Fatal emphasis: The imperialist gospel
Consequently, if we want to actually lead the emerging culture to fully surrender their lives to God I believe we need to take one step further and learn to be intrinsically motivating. In other words, we must learn how to motivate people to surrender their lives to God on their own time and terms while refraining from the use of manipulation or shame that focuses on external behavior rather than the heart. Leighton Ford, an internationally known evangelist for the last 35 years with Leighton Ford Ministries and Billy Graham’s Evangelistic Association, agrees that it is an indisputable fact that God and his people have a serious image problem. This is a problem that has been brought about to a large degree by people who advertise themselves as Christians but by their way of life and their witnessing style betray the lifestyle and witnessing style of Christ himself. As a result, many people in our culture are hindered from receiving the gospel because of their mental image of what Christians are like; that Christians are a bigoted, narrow-minded, insincere, judgmental lot that enjoys making other people feel guilty, afraid, and uncomfortable, all the while trying to convert by emotionalism, manipulation, and outright harassment (Ford, 100).
As Ford says, the
emerging generation in a postmodern world will always tenaciously reject
extrinsic religion. It is a natural human tendency to reject anything that is
intrusively imposed or forced on us. In the postmodern culture anything that
threatens to violate our freedom to choose will not only be rejected, but also
come against with much fury and animosity. The age of imperialism is not only
diplomatically no longer tolerated in our global community, but perhaps even
more so in our global community of faith. The freedom to worship is no longer
an accessory in the postmodern world, but rather the golden standard from which
everything is held together in our civilization. And if we have learned
anything from history in the last century, we have learned that when you threaten
a people’s freedom you are only asking for a fight. No wonder we have such a
difficult time engaging our culture with the story of Jesus. We are so busy
arguing and fighting with people about what God is against - we lose the great opportunity to genuinely
present who he is and what he is for.
Section one: Old methodology – Imperialistic faith to intrinsic faith
Therefore in this stage of human history, we no longer can afford to approach our postmodern society with an imperialistic approach to faith because our emerging culture will no longer tolerate it. We are not trying to get people to say the right prayer or know the right answers but we are rather inviting people to discover their own story in Christ. I believe that the most effective way people will come to follow Christ in the emerging generation will come through their own experience of “spiritual convergence” rather than the traditional “spiritual conversion”. The idea of “conversion” is extrinsically imperialistic in its approach and still faintly embraces the spirit of the crusades and colonization of North America; which enforces belief by force and violence (Fox, 30). On the other hand, the idea of convergence is more intrinsic in the sense that it respects people’s ontological identity and does not try to eliminate their culture or ethnicity, but rather uses them illuminate and enlighten the hope and wholeness we found in God’s redemptive story.
Section two: New methodology – Intrinsic motivation
I
believe that there is a pivotal lesson we can learn from how Jesus himself
motivated people to fully surrender their lives to God without using any form
of guilt or shame in the process. Look with me in John 8:3-1l and we can learn
together how to motivate people intrinsically rather than extrinsically.
3The
teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery.
They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus,
"Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In
the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?
Sometimes I think we are so consumed in correcting behavior that we neglect to give people the hope and grace that is needed for true transformation. The great irony in this story is that while the Pharisees do everything in their power to strip this woman of all her dignity, Jesus does everything in his power to rather preserve it. Jesus focused on the latter rather than the former because he truly understood the great fallacy of our humanity; we wear our sins even better than we actually do them. In other words we as people have the fallen tendency to allow our mistakes and failures to determine our identity and value to ourselves and to others. If we really want the emerging generation to fully surrender their lives to God we must learn to motivate each other gracefully, and this is precisely what intrinsic motivation accomplishes.
Look at what Jesus says in verses
10-11, “‘has no one condemned you?’ ‘No sir’, she replied. ‘Then I do not
condemn you either. Go now and leave your life of sin’”.
In essence Jesus was showing this woman the deepest need we all have: the reality that nothing can disqualify us from being totally forgiven and loved by God. The great mystery of this story is that we do not know if the woman left her life of sin as Jesus instructed her to, however I believe that is the beauty of intrinsic motivation; instead of harshly telling people the obvious need for change we’re simply showing them how to, and thus, totally leaving it up to them to make that decision for themselves. This is precisely what Jesus does; Jesus does not place much emphasis or focus on the past but instead instructs her to look forward. The Pharisees did a great job of forcing her to look back already! Jesus rather spends his time focusing on the potential alternative of change and transformation. I believe this is intrinsic motivation at its best: helping people to see a way out and giving them a choice to move forward when they’re ready to do so. And I believe this is precisely the third and last pivotal key in engaging the emerging generation with the gospel; pointing to a door that will liberate them from shame and guilt rather than pointing a finger that will keep them there indefinitely.
Conclusion: The moment of Decision
Like I asked before, will we again sacrifice the next generation for our traditions? I suppose that still remains to be seen. The futures of those who desperately need Christ are both our consequence and responsibility. Whether we embrace change or resist it, the result will be determined by what we choose to do at this precise moment. In their award-winning Album, “The Beautiful Let Down,” by Switchfoot, there is a song entitled; “I Dare You to move” and the lyrics go something like this:
“Welcome to the fallout, Welcome to resistance, the tension is here, between who you are and who you could be, between how it is and how it should be, I dare you move”.
This simple song beautifully illustrates the precise challenge we face as a church today. We are always caught between the tension and twilight of what the church is and what the church could be. However, I believe that the prophetic punch line of this song is inconspicuously hidden in the five little words in its title, “I Dare You to Move,” because the bottom line is: tension without resolution changes nothing. In fact, tension without resolution results only in the loss of momentum you worked so hard to build. We must go beyond the conversation of our problematic situation or our hypothetical solutions, because a generation’s eternity is at stake. What will determine the outcome is ultimately what we choose to do at this very moment. Diction is not a strong enough reaction to the situation at hand; only action will suffice. So, as the song says, “I dare you to move” and change eternity forever.
RL
Warren, Rick. www.Saddelback.com. An article written
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