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07571 September 11, 2007
The ‘E-word,’ God and the unchurched
Author unbinds mysteries surrounding evangelism
by Evan Silverstein Presbyterian News Service
NASHVILLE — In many mainline Protestant churches the “E-word” (evangelism) has seemingly replaced sex and money as the most unspeakable of terms, according to author and researcher Martha Grace Reese. The E-word makes some pastors cringe and leaves many church members pondering how and why they should share their faith with the unchurched, she said. Reese, a minister who recently directed a four-year evangelism research project funded by the Lilly Endowment, has written a book that encourages and guides churches on how to face the E-word head on. For the recently released Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism, Reese interviewed more than 1,000 people in many of the nation’s most successful mainline churches in an effort to find the motivations and practices of the most effective evangelism. “Most of the people who are really doing the great evangelism are doing it out of so much love, the sense that there really is a God, and it really matters that people know that because that’s the structure of reality, that’s the way the world’s put together,” said Reese, who studied churches varying in size from 50 to 10,000 for her book published last January by Chalice Press. “If there’s a God, and God heals and redeems and changes our lives, don’t we want people to know about it?” Reese, who is ordained in the Christian (Disciples of Christ) denomination, discussed her findings in a workshop at the National Presbyterian Evangelism Conference here earlier this month. She told those attending that a pulsating relationship with God lies at the heart of every evangelistically successful church. These are congregations that exist all along the theological spectrum, she said, whose members are “in love with God” and believe that other people’s lives would be enriched if they were also in a relationship with God. “They have a relationship with Christ that knocks you off your chair,” Reese told workshop goers. “It’s not theological. The thing that’s motivating it is this love of Christ, love of God, love of learning to live your life with the Spirit.” In healthy churches, evangelism emerges from a “trinity” of relationships: Our personal relationships with God, healthy congregational relationships, and caring about people who don’t have a conscious connection with Christ. The heart of evangelism emerges from the intersection of these three sets of relationships, she said. “It’s your relationships with God that interlink with your relationships with other people that interlink with relationships outside the church,” said Reese, who has been a lawyer, a pastor, and a middle judicatory minister. She has spent the last decade coaching more than 150 pastors in spiritual leadership for church transformation, serving as president of GraceNet, a non-profit corporation that specializes in church consulting and coaching. Reese said evangelistic church members work hard to share the gospel with others and are growing in their own faith by doing so. “People who are to share their faith say evangelism changes lives, theirs included,” she said. Reese said she believes that most mainline Christians don’t have a clear idea about whythey should share their faith. Images of a literal Hell, the classic motivator for evangelistic efforts, have faded in most of today’s mainline churches, which stress the understanding of a loving God, she said. Without a clear focus on faith sharing, the mainline has drifted away from evangelistic practices. “What do you do if your motivation is fuzzy in your mind?” Reese asked. “Are you going to do a lot of evangelism? Probably not so much, no.” She said an interesting aspect of her study was that churches doing good evangelism look very different. “How they’re doing evangelism, I mean, it’s totally up for grabs,” Reese said. But evangelism is also relational, she added. “It’s between people. It’s people telling their friends.” She asked workshop goers to consider what difference it makes in their own life that they are a Christian, saying that she believes this a key question for faith followers and the basis for successful evangelism. After all, she said, if we don’t know or can’t articulate what is profound and transformational about Christ in our own lives, how and whywould we tell others? “Many, many, many of our people love God and love the church,” Reese said. “The issue is helping them learn to articulate their faith in any kind of a meaningful way, and that’s really tough.” She said there are not a “million” mainline churches doing great evangelism and overall “we’re doing a really bad job of reaching unchurched people. A very bad job.” Reese said that evangelism has painful connotations for people who have been on the receiving end of brash and desperate attempts by some evangelizers to “grab you by the throat and drag you into salvation.” She said evangelism isn’t about talking people into certain beliefs or ringing someone’s doorbell and haranguing them about religion. That strategy simply does not work for any church, she said. Good evangelism is about community and people talking about their faith. “We’re all realizing that what we need to do is share our faith with our friends,” she said. “You just have to do that and you have to be real friends with people to do it. And you have to be able to articulate your faith.” As much as anything, Reese emphasized the importance of prayer, which she says is important in faith sharing to give others a sense of what it’s like to have a relationship with God. She dedicates many pages in her book to prayer as well as her upcoming guide, Unbinding Your Heart. With that in mind, Reese instructed workshop attendees to break into groups of three to briefly pray about the most powerful moments involving God in their lives and then discuss these stories among themselves. The point she said was to demonstrate that if people started praying and talking about their faith with each other “then they might realize there really is a God,” and help people who think they don’t have a faith story realize they do. She said churches could be a source of great support for people going through life-changing events such as difficult divorces or recovering from abusive relationships. But church members must first to do their part to get these people in the pews. “We are not talking,” Reese said. “Until we do, we’re not going to be able to be as much help to anybody. We need to be letting God crack our lives open. We need to be really there for each other and talking for real. And we need to be praying for each other.” Reese, who interviewed 600-700 pastors, said key leaders in churches doing good evangelism are holding their members to a sharp focus on their growing relationships with Christ and sharing their faith with others. “What the great churches are doing, that are really doing all different kinds of evangelism, they’re sharing their own faith stories,” Reese said. “They’re saying to people ‘Let me pray for you.’”
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