Four Paradigm Shifts

For More Successful Evangelism

Sermon by Pastor David Perry, at the May 8, 2004, Novato SDA Church

Sermon notes transcribed by Garnet R. Chaney

Four Paradigm Shifts of Evangelism


Bible Reading

"I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have nbeen doing... He will do even greater things than these, because I am ghoing to the father." John 14:12

Regardless of the problems we have living in Athens, soul winning is in the DNA of the Adventist. We can't just wait for Jesus to come. There are many people here in Novato who are joining churches and truly seeking after God.

Some of the confusion of Adventist Evangelism:

• Too-Narrow A Concept Of Evangelism
  • Ask people in the church, "What is evangelism?" What are some typical answers?
    • Public Effort - Many people could confidently a kind of a public effort, perhaps a crusade.
    • Invite people to come to our church for a few nights in a row. It kind of interrupts the life of the church, then we go back to business as usual.
    • We spend a lot of money advertising to an ever shrinking minority.
• Time
  • Think of your favorite hobby, what you like to do most in the world. Then imagine if your neighbor came and told you there would be a seminar on your favorite topic, 5 nights a week, for 4 weeks. How many of you would be ready to go to that seminar, how many would make that kind of time commitment?
  • People don't have this kind of time anymore.
  • Our current idea of evangelism was formed at a different time in America's history

• Curiosity about the Bible
  • People's curiosity about the Bible is changing.
  • Current people who are interested in this: 4% had a genuine interest
  • People aren't that interested, or don't even know enough to answer questions, when they see one of our typical brochures
  • How do we appeal to the 96%?

The Evangelism Scale

Where do most people fall on this list? Most people are at about -6.

What can you do with these people? Nudge them.

Adventists believe in the transplantational form of evangelism. It is becoming a harder and harder task.

In the past, the average place of people was probably right in the middle of the scale. Most people in the country considered themselves to be Christians.

We need to think about how to minister to the people on the left side of the scale.

Most people today don't really know Jesus. We ask them to introduce them to Jesus, and they say "Jesus who?"

If instead we nudge people, it is a lot easier.

Story of one person's opportunity to minister to some tough teenagers: These were teenagers who consider Juvenile Hall as their home away from home. This person really wanted to be able to minister to these teenagers, to bring them to the Lord. So this person prayed about it, asked for the right way to do it. The Lord lead this person to just be a friendly person, a genuinely friendly Christian person. It is a genuine nudge, doing what we can in the content we are in. It is not dragging them off to church.

Another situation we may find ourselves in: Maybe we are going to a friends house, and they are doing things we don't feel comfortable with. We can still be a friend to these people, and be compassionate and accepting of them where they are. Just nudge them, not overwhelm them.

So often what we do in traditional evangelism, and we bring someone to the point where they accept Jesus Christ, and then we wipe our brow, "Whew, glad that is finished."  We seem to feel like the work is over.  Not True!

The reality is that the person needs more encouragement. You have birthed a baby. There is continued study that is needed about all kinds of things and life challenges, not just the issues of salvation. Hopefully it is just the start of an ongoing relationship. Ultimately, we hope to lead people to a point where they are fully three-dimensional Christians. Coming to church is only a part of it. Setting up church is only part of it. Being Christ like in our work, our home, and in all that we do, that is what is really about.

Paradigm is the angle that you look at things. A bias.

Classic illustration of a paradigm shift: A man is riding on a train when another man gets on the train with bratty children. He finally leans over to the father is there nothing you can do about your children, and the father says "We just came from the hospital, and their mother has died, and I guess they haven't adjusted yet." The author said "At that point, I didn't see things the same way anymore."

Four Paradigm Shifts
 

• Paradigm Shift #1 - The goal of the gospel commission is to make disciples.
  • As opposed to just making baptisms
  • When talking about Vacation Bible School, some people wrongly ask "How many baptisms do we get out of  Vacation Bible School?"
    • This is short sighted: We want to nudge people in the direction of the cross.
    • Vacation Bible school is a very thorough nudge.

"I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing... He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the father." John 14:12

Jesus wants us to go and make disciples of Christ, true followers.

• Paradigm Shift #2 - Evangelism is not an event, it is a process

"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow." 1 Corinthians 3:6

Paul never expected to lead every person he met to Christ.

The story of the woman at the well, Jesus teaches us some very interesting things. One could say the story means we should put more effort into Evangelism. John 4:35. Proof positive we should be doing evangelism. But look at the context... John 4:37-38. Others have done the hard work, we are sent to reap what has been sowed.

Doing a baptism is like a reward, it is not the hard work. We will reap the benefits of those who have done the hard work.

Soul winning is a protracted process that involves a lot of people.

Fundamentals of sowing:

• Sowing leads to harvest.
• Not sowing leads to no harvest.

We can't expect to have fruit in our garden if we don't put seed in the ground.

Evangelism is more than just a quick fix.

• Paradigm Shift #3 - We have to redefine some of the terms
  • Words are important. Words can be positive forces in the world.

Think about the word Evangelism - If it is just what we do during the 3-6 weeks of the evangelistic meetings, what does it make the rest of what the church does? Not important? That is wrong. The rest of what the church does needs to be looked at as part of the process.

What we think of evangelism is really a harvesting event, a reaping event, after a lot of evangelism has taken place.

In the 1950's, evangelism took 6 months. Forest Dettimer shortened it to 6 weeks. Now we are doing it in 4 weeks.

Evangelism is the stuff that you and I do in the church. It needs to be done with a focus on evangelism.

Evangelism - Is it the guy who comes and does the meetings?

Who is the evangelist in the church? We are. You and I are the evangelists. We might bring in a harvester, or a reaper, we might want to do that to bring some decisions up to the surface. But it only works if we are accepting our place as evangelists in the church.

Sanctuary - What do we think of as the sanctuary? The main worship room of the sanctuary.

What is a Sanctuary? The dictionary says "A place of refuge or asylum. A reserved area in which animals or birds are protected."

What does the Bible say the Sanctuary is? One is in Heaven, one is in the human heart. It is sacred because that is where God dwells.

Do we meet in the Sanctuary to protect ourselves? If we are protecting ourselves, who or what are we protecting ourselves from? Is it from Satan? Do we have any doubts that Satan will come in if we let him? That nasty old wicked world out there? If that is our purpose, then we need to lock the doors, because some wicked purpose might come in and get salvation, and that would be kind of backwards to the whole idea of sanctuary.

Ron Gladden proposes a couple of alternatives: Worship Center, or God-nasium.

Maybe we need to think about our own hearts as being the sanctuary where God dwells. If when we went to the market we thought of ourselves as the Sanctuary, taking God to the people, would it affect how we do business, or deal with the homeless?

The great commission does not say come, it says Go!

Matthew 5:13 - We are the salt of the earth

Story about Willow Creek church in Chicago. They developed the idea of a Seeker service. People could come and develop relationships and learn to develop trust. The people had stages to go through to become 3 dimensional disciples of Christ. Why did it work? IT was a sociological phenomenon of the baby boomers coming back to expose their children to Christian beliefs. The baby boomer kids are grown up, and they are not having the same
response, the same movement to come back to church.

The church must Go. We must move from being an inviting church, to an infiltrating church.

Our Church

What are the activities of this church? "What is your church doing?"

• Sabbath School
• Church service
• Women's Ministry
• Vespers
• Homeless feeding ministry
   

On the evangelism scale, where do these things fall?

Sabbath school - is that about reaching people that don't know Christ, or is it about nurture?

Church Service - East side of the scale.

Women's Ministries - is it an outreach, or is it a nurture?

Homeless Ministry - that's outreach

Vespers - Outreach, or nurture?

All of these things could be, and should be, outreach.

Is our program weighted in favor of nurture, or in outreach? We are better at nurture than outreach. That is just a reality of who we are, and also human nature.

"If Evangelism is not your top priority, it will not make the top ten." - Ron Gladden

If we say, "If we thinkg that Evangelism is important, but there is all this other stuff...." evangelism will fall off the scale.

It's like at home when we talk about saving money for retirement: If we say we will save after we pay bills, and tithe, and tuitions, there is nothing left! You must set the money aside first, or nothing else will be left.

It is very easy for our time priorities to put evangelism further and further down the list.


Opportunity today:
Booklets have been sent to virtually the whole county. We are getting more and more names of people who need to be nudged. Those people aren't ready for evangelism, but they are ready to be nudged. We have a wonderful book to give them. This is easy evangelism.

Imagine going and asking for money? That is hard to do.

Instead we are going to their door to give them something that is free. "We just want you to have this book, you dont have to sign up, call us back, or anything." This is the easiest kind of nudge to do.

Lord take us and make us into the
    people you want us to be...
There are all these new ideas out there...
    and maybe we are uncomfortable with some of them...
IF what we are doing is not working, Lord,
    we know you want us to rethink....
We know you want us to develop a hunger and
    a thirst, to win the souls in our community
Help us to lay aside the things that are us,
    and take up the cross and follow Jesus
Work through us to make us effective for you.

In his name, and for his sake, we pray
    Amen

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