In reading through the Summer 2021 issue of the Australian Oikos magazine, I came across an excellent article by Alan Hirsch, a well known author, coach, advisor, consultant and mentor in the field of (and I’m struggling here!) of home churches, house churches, evangelism, and no doubt a lot more. He is the author of a number of books, including ‘The Forgotten Ways’. The article is in twelve parts, but what really struck me was part seven, which was for me an eye-opening and revolutionary insight into personal evangelism. With Alan’s permission, I have reproduced part seven below.
I understand (from someone in our small group) that C.S. Lewis said the same sorts of things in ‘Mere Christianity’ a long time ago. I read ‘Mere Christianity’ as a very young Christian in the early sixties, but have no memory of it at all, other than that it was incredibly helpful at the time.
Here’s Alan’s article.
It is false to say that only Christians can experience God.
One of the most basic assumption of the incarnational missionary is to assume God is already involved in every person’s life and is calling them to himself through his Son. Our mindset should not be the prevelant one of taking God with us wherever we go. Instead our minset should be that we join God in His mission.
This means that the missionary God has been active a long time in a person’s life. Our primary job is to try to see where and how God has been working to and partner with him in bring people to redemption in Jesus.
Understanding that all humans are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:27) and in the deepest possible way made for God, we can assume every human is motivated by spirituality and search for meaning. Even idolatry indicates people are searching for something beyond themselves. It is deformed spirituality to be sure, but it is spirituality nonetheless — and you can work with that. Recognise that behind many of the things not-yet-Christian people do lies a search for something else. C.S. Lewis once noted that all our vices are virtues gone wrong. If we take this as a clue, we can develop new missionary eyes to see what God is up to in people’s lives.
Let’s take a deeper look at this: Consider Las Vegas, the consummate sinner’s town. And it is that — a deeply broken place where people get really messed up. But can we put aside our moral misgivings and choose to look at the gambling dens with more missional eyes. We might ask, what is the person who is sitting at the slot machine really searching for? Perhaps it is the search for redemption but in the wrong place. It is the belief that to win the jackpot means to be be changed and transformed into a new life. This search might also be driven by a now-pathalogical need to take risks because life has lost its sense of real adventure.
We can literally work our way through any type of event or activity in the following way.
GAMBLING
What is really being sought?
• Redemption by luck or money
• Finding meaning in doing things
• Need for risk
How the Gospel addresses this issue\
• Hope
• Overcoming unhappiness
• Call to risk living adventurously and risk loving as a disciple
SPORTS EVENTS
What is really being sought?
• A cause to belong to
• A real cause that aims at changing the world
• Transcendent experience
How the Gospel addresses this issue
• Real transcendent experience
• Community with team or fans
• Authentic community
PUBS
What is really being sought?
• Community
• Real but loving community
• Partner
How the Gospel addresses this issue
• Highs without drugs
• Overcoming loneliness
• Non-exploitative relationships
• Fun or chilled time
• Lasting joy
DRUG TAKING
What is really being sought?
• Ecstatic experiences
• Encountering God
• Escaping from live
How the Gospel addresses this issue
• Meaning and purpose
• Overcoming guilt and pain
• Forgiveness and healing
MOVIES
What is really being sought?
• Hearing the stories and myths
• Connection with the story that that shape life, makes sense of our stories
• Suspension of disbelief
How the Gospel addresses this issue
• Reality, not fantasy
• Entertainment Escape
• Feeling again (laughing, crying etc.)
• Passion leading to compassion
We can trust that because of the way God has designed us, in the end human beings are always searching (albeit in false and idolatrous ways) for real meaning, authentic relationships, to love, and to be loved in return.
One more dimension of this that must be mentioned is that all people have religious experiences. It is false to say only Christians can experience God. Anyone looking at a sunset can experience an in-breaking of God-awareness. In The Color Purple, Celia recalls a time as a child walking with her mother past a field of violets when she felt that God was making a pass at her in the flowers. God is constantly ‘making a pass’ at us in everyday experience — we simply need to become much more aware of Him. People call these experience theophanies (God encounters), and our task at God’s sent people is to bring a meaningful interpretation to these experiences and point people to Jesus as the centre of the God-experience.
Another way to look at this role of seeing ‘the virtue in the vice’ is to conceive of ourselves in terms of one of our deepest identities as disciples — namely, the priesthood of all believers. In his book ‘Untamed’ Alan Hirsch and his wife Deb suggest that unlocking this is one of the most potent things we can do to allow God to work through all of His people. A priest is essentially someone who mediates the knowledge of God. Our priestly role, therefore, is to introduce people to Jesus and Jesus to people. After that as far as we can, our role is to make sure it is a right understanding of Jesus we are mediating, and then step our of the way — let Jesus o his thing with people. He knows exactly how to deal with them.
Let’s ask the Spirit to open our eyes to show us where He is at work all around us, and how He wants us to join Him in His mission.