Michael Green, professor of evangelism and New Testament at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, has just been appointed by England’s archbishops of Canterbury and York to give senior leadership in evangelism for the Anglican Church, beginning next fall. He wrote Evangelism in the Early Church, and I Believe in the Holy Spirit, along with numerous other books. His newest book is Evangelism Through the Local Church (to be released by Oliver Nelson in January). He spoke with CHRISTIANITY TODAY associate features editor Timothy Jones about obstacles and opportunities for creative evangelism facing churches and their members.
Is it harder to share faith now than it was in the first century, when the early Christians carried the message to Greeks and Jews and Romans?
In some ways it is. Familiarity—almost two thousand years’ worth—breeds contempt. Add to that our increasingly secular context. And perhaps the biggest snag is the lifestyle of the Christians. Recent research in Canada and the U.S. shows that our lifestyle is not discernibly different from that of anybody else. When Christians talk about the unity that Christ gives but churches split over the most microscopic things, when Christian life shows none of the joy and the resurrection power of Jesus—then people who hear our message say, “Tell me another.”
Still, I’d say we have got it a lot easier than the first Christians. Just imagine trying to start off as a Jew preaching the gospel of a crucified peasant you claimed was God’s almighty deliverer of the nation.
Or try telling a Gentile—who reads Plato and Aristotle, who deals with major concepts like justice and truth and beauty—that all truth is concentrated not in these generalizations but in a particular, and a sordid particular at that, namely, a young man bumped off by the Romans. The obstacles that they overcame were phenomenal. They were homeless exiles with nothing but the Holy Spirit and a fabulous message—and incredible guts.
However hard it is now, I think it’s a wonderful time to be alive and preach the gospel, to see it changing lives.
When we present the gospel, in what ways should we adapt the message—or at least the presentation of the message?
In writing Evangelism in the Early Church, I analyzed the evangelistic speeches and conversations in Acts and was struck by the enormous flexibility. It might involve the proconsul of Cyprus, the guy looking after the prison at Philippi, some poor, crippled man at the temple gate, or the philosophers at Athens, but you consistently get a picture of the apostolic evangelists feeling their way into the culture.
I wish more churches today were reading their constituencies. One of my friends in England has taken over a nightclub, and the people who go to the nightclub all the other nights of the week go there also on Sunday—for church! The whole thing is full of video cameras and high-decibel contemporary music, with none of the things you find in a traditional church. But Jesus is there. It is bringing a totally unchurched lot of people to Christ in the middle of Sheffield, England, people who would be completely untouched by more traditional approaches.
Willow Creek Church is another church that is reading its constituency. It’s got the pagans to say, “Hey, I never go to church, but if I did, this is the sort of church I’d like to go to.” I don’t think these examples are the only way to go, by any means, but I get fed up with our churchly ghettos.
Christianity in Canada—as in America—is receding among almost all the denominations. What happens when you and your friends start to recede? You go into a ghetto. You keep warm. Then every now and then you look around and say, “There are lots of pine benches where there used to be people. Send for an evangelist!” A lot of people think they just need to shout louder in the KJV, all the while keeping well away from where real people are.
As we reach out, what things are essential to our message and witness?
Look at the apostolic preaching in Acts and you see five givens.
First, the apostles always stressed a word. That doesn’t mean a book in black binding. It means God’s revelation, God’s self-disclosure. This is not something man has discovered about God, it is something God has shown to man.
Second, you find that they also always preached a person: Jesus, both human and divine. On the whole, evangelicals have stressed the divine and missed the human. We need both in our preaching and evangelizing.
Third, they always spoke to a need. While the need ultimately always had to do with our alienation from God, sometimes its specific form was loneliness. Sometimes, as in the case of that demonized girl in Philippi, it meant breaking the hold of a demonic power.
Fourth, they offered a gift. You find it on the Day of Pentecost. People said, what should we do? They were told, repent and you will receive forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit. They held out forgiveness to cleanse the past and the Spirit to change the listeners and guide them into the future. Nowadays the church seems to be saying, please come in and give us some money because our building is falling down. But in the early church, it wasn’t come and give, it was come and receive—from the supreme Giver.
Finally, they always included a challenge. They urged a response: Repent, believe, be baptized.
Church-growth advocates sometimes make much of setting goals and adopting strategies. What do we learn from the early church on that score?
Although there were some signs of strategy—Paul, for example, went to the Roman provinces, targeting community leaders—nobody sat down and said, “Let’s have a five-year plan and get this thing organized.” The real strategist was the Holy Spirit. There was an openness to the Spirit’s guidance, which led them into hot places. I rather covet that for the modern church. You see, a lot of the mainline churches aren’t going anywhere. I’m an Anglican. My church doesn’t have any discernible strategy—not in Canada. It’s almost a matter of “How do we keep ourselves from going out of business?”
Often churches have no strategy, not because they are trusting the Holy Spirit and are open to new options, but because they are concerned only about keeping the people in them happy. I want to be part of a church fellowship that has a strategy of being open to where the Spirit is putting them. Their strategy should arise from their location and gifting, with guidance from the Spirit.
What should a church do when it becomes newly awakened to the need to evangelize?
Such a church needs to know what the good news is, and have a passion to share it. That passion will lead to compulsive prayer. That is vital because we know there are principalities and powers around that hold people’s hearts in thralldom, and we’re not going to get through by human activity alone.
You can’t have evangelism without renewal, and if you’ve got authentic renewal, it’s going to overflow into evangelism. If people have the love of Jesus bubbling up in them, they are going to get out into secular society—and spread it.
This will ultimately mean sacrifice. It means the pastor has got to be willing to have many fewer meetings, and that some of the ones the church has will not just be designed to entertain the faithful.
Practically, this means we may ask the people in our churches to give one night a week (apart from Sunday) to the church—only one. An office holder might give two nights. So you have five nights for church members to be human and to join the bowling league or gardening club or to go salmon fishing. (I’ve done a lot of talking for Jesus while salmon fishing.) You get in amongst unbelieving people. Wherever we’ve got friends, wherever we’ve got contacts, we can be ambassadors for Jesus.
The local church is the main place where evangelism takes place, and not just in the official meetings. It’s all the activities through which the church reaches out to meet the needs of society. Things like that give you a marvelous entree for the gospel. In response to anything you do to be of service to your community, people will be driven to ask, “Why do you do this?”
What are practical things a congregation can do—as a congregation?
The church can have major occasions three or four times a year when members really do invite their friends, and the preacher really does explain the gospel. Perhaps half the people present are not Christians. Everything is gauged toward them: the tasteful invitations, the music, the testimonies. You use drama, you use dance, you use music that is appropriate. You don’t expect them to follow worship service books. You expect everybody in that church to come and bring one person with them. If some can’t, they go down in the basement and they pray while the service is going on. Then you have an evangelistic address, and you draw people to Christ.
Or you can have evangelistic supper parties. You might have 60 to 80 people to dinner. I’ve done it on a ranch; I’ve done it in all sorts of places. The atmosphere is relaxed. You talk about Jesus, who loved to meet people at parties, and tell them revolutionary stuff. And often your listeners tumble into the arms of the Savior. You can do it at businessmen’s lunches or with street presentations. I have done a good deal of evangelism in the streets—dramatic sketches, for example, that we bring to an evangelistic challenge at the end. I’ve seen people kneeling down on the streets entrusting their lives to Jesus Christ. It can be done.
Methodology is not the problem. Motivation is the key. Once you’ve got a passion for Jesus, you’ll figure out the means. Once you fall in love with a girl, you’ll find a way to propose. You don’t need heavy courses on how to propose.
What about traditional evangelistic meetings held by local churches?
North Americans are growing increasingly allergic to hearing people preach. Nevertheless, we recently took a team of 120 from Regent College and did a citywide mission with over one hundred churches involved in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. It was not simply built on evening meetings at which a prominent evangelist preached. That was an element, but we used drama, dance, question-and-answer times, testimony, and scores of home and restaurant meetings.
What have you found effective in your own personal evangelism?
Well, the things I do vary enormously. I’ve got a settee in my house that is holy ground because many people—whom we’ve invited at different times for a meal—have come to Jesus kneeling at that settee.
They are people that I have gotten to know who have gotten intrigued by how I live. One of them said, “What makes you so happy, even when you are coming out of a dentist’s chair?” I said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” and she said, “I would love to know.” So I said, “Come and have supper with me. I’ll tell you.”
How would you answer someone who says, “You have an outgoing personality. But I couldn’t talk with the guy who pumps my gas. I’m not—nor is my church—that dynamic”?
I would say that evangelism, like preaching, is truth that is spoken through personality. The reality of the living Spirit is manifest through our very different personalities—whatever they are. There are plenty of people who say of me, “That guy is too dynamic. Give me some peace.” And so those people will go to a more reserved character, such as my much more contemplative wife. God wants each of us not to be somebody else, but ourselves, with Jesus just beneath the surface. That’s what he wants, for us and for our churches. And he will be sure to use us if we are willing.
