Evangelism: never the first word in a conversation?

Words of wisdom from the ABofC

speaking at a reception for leaders of other faiths in the garden of Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop insisted Christians should not actively “proselytise” non-Christians.

Asked where he drew the line between evangelism and proselytism, he said: “I draw the line in terms of respect for the other; in starting by listening before you speak; in terms of love that is unconditional and not conditional to one iota, to one single element on how the person responds to your own declaration of faith; and of not speaking about faith unless you are asked about faith.

“That’s a shorthand but I could go on.

“I draw a pretty sharp line, it is all based around loving the person you are dealing with which means you seek their well-being and you respect their identity and their integrity.”

Nothing there that you wouldn't find in 1 Peter chapter 3, or indeed in Stephen Coveys 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. There's an interesting contrast to the commentary on last years Talking Jesus survey, whose recommendations said a lot about talking but next to nothing about listening, despite the fact that far more people were put off becoming Christians by our efforts at evangelism than were attracted to it. 

Having said that, there's potential for a real double standard here. Imagine a world where people don't talk about football unless they're asked about football, or don't talk about their political views unless they're asked about them. How come that's fine (though pretty tedious) but starting a conversation about God isn't? 

PS sorry about the formatting, not quite sure what's happened there - you can read between the lines ;-) !

Talking About Jesus - Would It Be Better If We Didn't?

Talking Jesus this week published a survey of just over 2500 'normal' people and 1500 Christians. The findings are going to General Synod later this month.

Here are the questions the research was trying to get at:
What do people in this nation know and believe about Jesus? What do they really think of us, his followers? Are we talking about Jesus enough? And when we are, are we drawing people closer towards him, or further away?

The work was a joint project between the CofE, Evangelical Alliance, and other Christian agencies. Some of the findings:
 - 40% of the general population believe the Bible is God's word
 - 60% think Jesus really existed, 25% of under-35s think he is a fictional character
 - 21% think he was God, the majority believe Jesus was a spiritual leader/normal human being
 - just over 40% think Jesus was raised from the dead

A key focus of the survey was evangelism, how Christians are seen and how we share (or don't share) our faith:
- 2/3 of people know a 'practising Christian', and 60% of them enjoy that persons company. That means 40% don't/didn't know
- When asked to describe their Christian friend/acquaintance, positive characterstics scored much higher than negative ones (hooray!) - caring, friendly, generous, good-humoured were all about 5x more common than hypocritical, narrow minded, uptight and foolish.

Here's the really worrying bit: the majority of Christians feel comfortable to some degree in talking to others about Jesus, look for opportunities to do so, and have done so in the last month. But as for the fruits.....
 More than half of English non-Christians who know a Christian (58%) have had a conversation with them about Jesus. Younger adults 18 to 34 (61%) are somewhat more likely than adults over 35 (54%) to report having had such a conversation. Two out of every five non-Christians say evangelism made them glad not to be a Christian (42%). Another two in five don’t know how they felt about it (42%), while only 16 per cent felt sad, after the conversation about Jesus, that they did not share the Christian’s faith. 

 When Christians talk about Jesus, the response is mixed. One in five non-Christians say they, after such a conversation, felt open to an experience or encounter with Jesus. But almost half say they were not open to such an experience (49%) and six in 10 didn’t want to know more about Jesus (59%). One in five did want to know more (19%); 16 per cent felt sad that they did not share the Christian’s faith; nearly one-quarter felt more positive about Jesus (23%) or felt closer to the Christian with whom they had the conversation (26%).

Whilst Christians who share their faith feel positive about having done so, the clear majority of those on the receiving end are turned off Christian faith, and the one telling them about it, by the experience. Christians think that the effects of their talking about Jesus is positive, but that's not what most of their hearers think. 

The recommendations from the survey don't reflect any of this. They pick up on some of the positives (that there are millions who believe Jesus was real, was God and rose from the dead, but haven't joined the dots, that Christians are generally seen in a positive light), but there is nothing that addresses our inability to share our faith in a helpful way in the majority of cases. Though the full report mentions a goal of (enabling) Christians to have millions more sensitive, positive, culturally-relevant conversations about Jesus that could be deeply effective in evangelism, I don't actually see anything that explores what sensitivity and cultural relevance look like. 

For many Christians, talking with a friend about their faith and about Jesus is a key part of their journey into faith. Sadly it sounds like for many non-Christians, such a conversation could also be a key part of their journeying away from faith. The solution is not to stop talking about Jesus, but to find out how to do it well, in a sensitive and relevant way.

There are many encouraging findings in the report, but I wish that there was a bit more engagement with the discouraging ones. I'm with Andrew Brown - there's no point encouraging more of us to talk about Jesus if we're not doing it very well. It's very helpful research, and the powerpoint summaries are really useful, but there's no point doing the research if we ignore one of the key findings. 

How To Lose Friends and Annoy People

How on earth is this 'outreach'? A billboard addressed to 'all of our atheist friends' (I guessing that totals zero, which makes it a billboard addressed to nobody), telling them they're wrong and directing them to a creationist website. 

This is only 'reaching out to atheists' in order to slap them round the head with a King James Bible. 

Ken Ham, president of AiG and the Creation Museum stated: "In a friendly way, we want to reach out to people in secularized parts of the country and share the hope we have in Christ.

This is 'friendly'? The article says that the billboards have gone up to 'engage' atheists and secularists. I think there's a typo there, it's 'r' not 'g'. It certainly annoys me.