by Frank Turk
From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs
turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland --
usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers
and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of
the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words
and pictures whole.
This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.
The following excerpt was written by Frank back in July 2012. It was the third of a three-part post on evangelism, derived from an transcript of a talk that Frank gave at the 2012 Call to Discernment Conference.
As usual, the comments are closed.
Let me say this as plainly as possible: as human beings, we have a great
eye for the faults of other people’s way of doing things, and not much
of an eye for what we ourselves are doing poorly. The challenge in the
balance of our key passage from the book of Acts is to see that all
kinds of evangelism falls so far short of the first act of evangelism
that we ought to be embarrassed by all of them rather than justifying
our way over another method which, obviously, gets so much wrong.
True evangelism is going to get people convicted of sin and get them
grateful to God – and draw them into a community of believers. The problem we as believers face is that we don’t act like these things
go together. And this contributes to the problems that exist in the
church today.
Here is what I am not about to say: I am not about to say that there is
no value in personal evangelism or open-air preaching. I am not saying
you ought not to declare the Gospel, and also never to be prepared to
give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope
that is in you. Evangelism is necessary and important. But Evangelism
that saves people to a solitary life of independent Bible reading and no
connection to other believers, no way to mature in the faith, no
accountability to Elders and to other people who love them and Christ is
a recipe for failure – and a model found no where in the New Testament.
When Peter evangelized the Jews in Jerusalem at Pentecost, he did not
save them to some kind of smug and solitary lifestyle. Peter preached
to them so that the following things must happen:
• Those evangelized must repent and be baptized be baptized into the
family of God. Look: there is nothing magical or metaphysical about baptism. It is
utterly right to say that the thief on the cross was saved and entered
into the kingdom of God without even a mere sprinkle, let alone a proper
full-body submersion in water. But unless you are evangelizing on
death row just before someone is executed, your message ought to be
Peter’s message: repent and be baptized. Get added to the assembly of
God’s people – not in theory, or in your head, but into a real body of
local believers. If Christ’s commands are commands and not requests,
you yourself ought to belong to a local church, and the goal of your
actions ought to be to add people to a local church. Getting a
confession of sin from people without turning them over to local elders
and pastors for the care of their soul is spiritual malpractice.
• Those evangelized must be devoted to the apostles' teaching. I guess I
don’t understand how any activity is called “evangelism” or can pose as
“obedience” when what it does is cause people to be accountable to no
one and set up for failure rather than success. Think about this: if
you hire somebody at work, you don’t tell them, “well, thanks for you
application: we accept you! Now you set your own schedule, you define
your own work, you tell me when you’re successful and when you’re
slacking off.” The very least you do for someone new to a job is to
train them in the basics and give them a schedule so they know when and
where they need to show up. We can’t expect someone who knows nothing
about Jesus or the Bible to do self-service discipleship.
• Those evangelized must be devoted to corporate worship. Acts tells us
those Peter evangelized did this: “And day by day, attending the temple
together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food
with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all
the people.” That is: they spent time together making God the most
important thing. It also says they were “together and [had] all things
in common -- They were selling their possessions and belongings and
distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.”
Look: that’s a commitment to other people bigger than an intellectual
commitment to the idea that God has an invisible church of truly-saved
people which (you hope) you are adding people to. It means that in some
way Christ dying for you doesn’t simply give you a right to call God
“Father”: it gives you a role in a family, a place in a close community
where we ought to be willing to suffer for and suffer with each other
through the challenges in Life. It paints a picture of worship which is
greater than the temple, a kind of worship which is both in Spirit and
in Truth.
