Another Way: Respect

Here is a good definition of relational evangelism.

Here is a great article on maintaining the message of salvation in Christ while reaching and changing the minds of others.

Wouldn't it be great if everybody just listened to what we have to say? If you're one of those bible teachers who people just listen to everywhere he goes, that's something pretty neat. For the rest of us, reaching the point where a message can be carefully considered by its audience, requires that familiarity be established.

Maybe you once held the captive audience of others and have lost it. Maybe the reason why it was lost was your fault, or maybe it was a misunderstanding, or maybe it was their fault. Regardless, the trust can be, and must be, reestablished.

Jimi Pitts, a friend of mine who loves to present the gospel to Mormon people, has gone for several years to a big, famous annual pageant presented by the LDS church in the small Utah town of Manti. They would traditionally hand out tracts and talk to people gathered in the town for the event. The townsfolk did not take kindly to their presence, and one year they were not only harrassed and persecuted (as they'd been for several years running), but the police even handcuffed and arrested Jimi. It was plain the community felt threatened and outraged as these traditional Christians stuck to their practices and kept handing out the tracts--quite admirably, I must say. Of course, very few gave them a serious hearing.

The next year after these incidents, they tried something very different. The group was made aware of a poor single mother living in town, a Mormon lady with five children, who needed her house painted. In the group came with their brushes, rollers, tarps and paint that she got to pick out herself but the group paid for, as well as lots of hands and feet to do the job for her as a simple gift of love. Soon the word got out across the small Mormon community about what they'd done, and suddenly they were practically hailed as people who walked on water! Now it was as if they could do no wrong! Even though they continued to hand out tracts and talk to LDS passersby, they were now not only tolerated but in some cases even admired.

In the years to follow... the single mother became their friend, began to trust her kids to them for tending, and one of her daughters even, as Jimi reported, "got saved!" More than one county law enforcement officer later told Jimi with heartfelt apology, "We were wrong to do what we did to your group," and a good, open friendship has been formed with one of those officials in particular who is now open to their message.

[1]

This is an amazing example. This group has earned the right to carry around a persecution complex, because they truly were being treated unjustly by sharing their beliefs.... But they didn't do that. Instead, they were amazingly lowly and humble. They listened and obeyed the obvious requests by the town to stop offending them by that method.

So long as the town was being offended, nobody in it was listening to the message.

When the group changed their method, and respect and care was indeed received by the town, then various townspeople felt the freedom to be honest. Honest with the Word of God. Honest to confess their sins against, or in the presence of, the evangelists.

Which brings up another topic, on the sins belonging to those with whom we are sharing the message.

Is it a big deal when those whom we are sharing with, act poorly?

It shouldn't be, at least in my thinking.

First of all, which way is this ministry going, anyway?? -- Do I really believe they are ministering to me? Do I really believe in their message as true and something for me to receive? If so, then I should definitely care about the way in which they live their life as they hold their beliefs. But, I am afraid that this is merely my own excellent standard, my own conscious devotion to not hinder my message, that I innocently assign to them.

Second, should we be surprised that the deceived or the lost are having trouble treating us kindly? I mean, it would be nice, but....

If I am the one with the true message, then the ministry is from me to them, and, their poor example in my presence... is irrelevant.

Once again, the old Calvinist fruit-introspective tradition, lingers on. I want to nip that thing in the bud. It's like we're trying to prove to others they can't possibly be seen as righteous in Christ by faith, unless they are dragged through an endless assortment of any of 613 commandments.

In conclusion, unless you remain unconvinced that your ministry is true, I don't want to hear anything more about what the other guys are acting like. This is your ministry, not theirs.

I understand that it is truly unpleasant. And unfair. And a bad indication. And gross because at this point you and I are emotionally involved. I too went through a phase where I tried to get the other guy to clean up his act. I'll tell you: Perhaps I could get a man to clean up his act, but I might lose his soul. Which is more important? That he stop sinning, or that he believe the message? What will come out of my mouth?

With time I learned to pick up that cross, and bear it with the joy set before me in trusting God that He will help them to see. There is no freedom for them to confess and reconcile, if there is no grace being extended by me. In the relationship with our Heavenly Father, we can come boldly into the throneroom and stand and confess before the King. By that same Means we can do this with each other, too.

Sorry for the blatant condescending attitude on my part, above... That's not Christ-like of me. I feel like a mom who has been trying to keep her two kids from fighting over nonsense all day long... oh wait, I am and I did.... :)

These "sins" of the others oftentimes have a lot more to do with the culture of religion, which will be the next topic.


[1] I Love Mormons, by David L. Rowe, pp. 156-157. 2005, Baker Books.

Some interesting connections??

Connection One:
This may seem silly, but it possibly might be true....

David L. Rowe wrote a book called "I Love Mormons" which I have been quoting frequently from lately. I suppose the hangups of us evangelizing the LDS are the same no matter if it is in the realm of cyberspace or in real life like Happy Valley. So then maybe it is small of me to think this way, but, when Rowe writes characteristically about the interactions between LDS and evangelicals, it feels like he is speaking directly for the specific events and threads that have taken place at the LDS forum. What's to think he hasn't been there anyway, I asked myself? How many LDS forums are there, after all? He does mention the official LDS website, so he has looked around on the internet for at least some kinds of information. Maybe he sees the need for his message to reach the online evangelicals more than anyone else, because we don't have flesh and blood and tones of voice, and things get so much more ugly than if we were able to see one another in a conversation.

In his book, there were not too many times where Rowe mentioned specific examples of *better* ways to share the gospel instead of the bible bash. But here is what he says in one of those few:

"Briefly for now, let's say by way of example it may mean we begin to converse with our LDS friends much more (and more characteristically) by telling them about a recent answer to prayer or a stunning act of God we've experienced or a gospel-like image from a film than by reciting a bible verse or sharing a great doctrinal "insight" we got in last Sunday's sermon." (pg 124)

Okay, for those of you who have been reading my blog from the beginning, can you recognize anything I've done in those examples???

Hahahahahha.

Yes, I know this might be arrogant of me. But when it comes to the internet what permanent easily accessible record can there be of an evangelical sharing a gospel-like image from a film? What are the chances?

Visit 2005 May 28th's blog entry, to see the candidate I am thinking about.

It even has a comment from a friendly LDS associate attached, whereas not many other entires get such attention with comments.

His book was published sometime in 2005.

The chances?? I know, I know, dumb of me; but there you are.

Connection Two:
Before I even understood that I was a Christian, Kathleen Fast was there for me. She was a missionary to my college campus when I moved out of my parent's home. Almost immediately as I got tempted with the diverse choices of campus living, I also had much opportunity to ask all my questions about God. Kathleen was specifically moved to minister to the fifty women living in our university co-op. I learned to confide in her, and she challenged me out of the Word of God to think twice about the decisions before me. Over three years she was there for me, like the sister and the mother that were very much emotionally removed from me. When I told her that I had found someone I wanted to marry, she had known Ben longer than she had known me, and told me that he was a wonderful man to commit my life to.

A few years later, last spring, I looked in my church bulletin and the speaker for the women's retreat was none other than Kathleen. After she gave her talks during the retreat we would hang out and picked up right where we left off. It was neat to reconnect with her.

I also went on that mission trip with Kathleen and our church at the time to Salt Lake City, getting our feet wet evangelizing the LDS.

I recognized the name "Craig L. Blomberg" when I saw it on the cover of the book that came in the mail for me three days ago. He is a professor at Denver Seminary. He was Kathleen's mentor and teacher for her graduate studies, Kathleen having graduated from Denver.

Blomberg co-authored the book "How Wide the Divide: A Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation," which I have also been quoting from recently.

Perhaps God sowed a spiritual seed from the tree of Blomberg into my life.

http://kathleenfast.com

Why do we bible-bash?

One of several reasons why traditional Christians "bible-bash" (a LDS term meaning us using the bible to degrade their faith and therefore, themselves), which may or may not apply to any of us on an individual basis:

"Some traditional Christians simply don't have much romance with God going on in their lives, and therefore they have little or nothing to say about their feelings and experience. And they may even, beneath it all, be rather afraid, perhaps even ashamed, to admit there's no real fire in their souls. Instead of rekindling that fire, it may seem a lot safer to stay on the level of memorized verses and intellectualized arguments. In short, it's easier to become a "Bible answer man" than a Bible based man, easier to be correct than contrite, easier to master content than character, easier to be informed about Christ than formed by Christ. ... I've always loved what Thomas a Kempis says in 'The Imitation of Christ:' "I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it.""

-- "I Love Mormons" by David L. Rowe

Indeed, I saw that same conflict in me beginning shortly after I joined a LDS forum community! Discussion forum participation sweeps me away, so that by practice if not by premise, I am undividedly honing my skill to talk about what I think I know. If knowledge is comfortable to a man, then forums are a nice place to drift. There was little cause to focus on the more challenging things of being a follower of Christ. The only way I could counterbalance that tendency was through those long periods of being unconnected to the internet, and also my effort at blogging to focus on where I was with God for my own sake.

Rowe seems to perceive that same weakness in the evangelical (traditional Christian) mindset that I identified while at that forum of which I labeled "The Legalism of Belief:"

"A long and practiced legacy of traditional Christian church culture has cultivated an aversion to romantic orientation in dealing with gospel truth. This is our entrenched culture, especially we Western Protestants, tend to be oriented toward tightly rational, verbally textual statements as the normal way of conveying truth about spiritual things. We are more at home with words and linear arguments than with images and experiences.... This is especially true for the part of "we" who are theologically educated in the West, and often it filters down from the church leaders so educated. We've been trained to deal more on the cognitive level than the affected level.

"Now, the real problem here may not be our training so much as our assumption, usually unquestioned and unexamined, that this is indeed "the *normal* way of knowing and conveying truth" for everybody. Perhaps it doesn't even occur to us that our Mormon friends may not find this mode of operating normal at all! For my first several years of living in the Salt Lake City area, it certainly did not occur to me. As a result, I did what many of us do: I treated my LDS friends as two-dimensional information processors. I figured that if I just blathered away at them with enough well-argued Bible verses, they would automatically get enlightened, fall to their knees, and repent. When neither their minds nor their knees seemed to comply, I found myself roundly disillusioned, again and again."

-- "I Love Mormons" by David L. Rowe

We "resounding gongs" described in 1 cor 13 need to admit that it's not enough to just know what is right.

"I Love Mormons"

As I was doing my Christmas shopping at the Bible Book House, I noticed a new book that I very much wanted to purchase, but didn't. I remember it fairly clearly.

Just the picture on the front was enough to make my heart leap and my eyes to do a double take. Here, in the midst of skimming a shelf-full of thick texts published within the last year meant to apologize against the latest LDS stances in order to demolish the strongholds of LDS doctrine and to explain the real truth of the gospel, was a thin book with a simple title and a big color photo.

The photo was of a man sitting with his back to the camera, wearing one of those big white "I [red heart] NY" - style shirts, but it said across his back "I [red heart] Mormons" -- he sat there on a little knoll overlooking the expanse, relaxed, and peacefully confident of purpose.

The solidarity I had with the man in the photo as he captured the subject's passion could have been seared with just as big letters across my own chest.

I don't think I will ever forget that image as long as I live. Nor will I forget how it stood out on the shelf of thick books with scary-fonted, dry titles.

Maybe that cover is just good marketing.



I hope not. I hope there is content that will affirm my own discoveries. One day I hope to buy it and then I can read to be sure I am not the only one who has had a revelation in my heart and mind about how to accomplish by a different or maybe theologically zany road, the Love of Christ displayed to and poured out upon these.

We'll see.