Resources and Comments in Response to “Evangelism and the Under-Thirty Crowd”
Claudia Greer on July 19th, 2010
The July 19, 2010 issue of Alban Weekly (“Evangelism and the Under-Thirty Crowd“) is adapted from the article, “Resurrected Lives,” published in the Spring 2010 issue of Congregations magazine.
The article discusses the role of Christian evangelism with young adults and the ways that congregations might respond more fully to both the spiritual questions of young adults and the gifts that young adults can offer. The author specifically addresses “relational evangelism,” which aims at “pointing out the ways that God is already active, transforming lives, and connecting us to each other.” If you have not already read “Evangelism and the Under-Thirty Crowd,” please do so now.
What resources can support relational evangelism? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, you might also check out Unbinding the Gospel by Martha Grace Reese, as well as Reclaiming the Great Commission by Claude Payne and Hamilton Beazley.
What are your stories and ideas on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? After you read the article, we look forward to hearing from you!
Interesting article, worth the read. However, the examples are local and not necessarily true in the same ways for middle America. Down here in Georgia, a traditional Presbyterian church is attracting many young adults through relational and relevant programs, community centered, yet worship is blended, leaning more to traditional. It seems to me evangelism is local and personal, and no particular formula works the same way for every sub-culture. And I fully concur with the comment that God is responsible for conversion. While doing mission in South Asia, I heard many times the saying: “The Holy Spirit is the Evangelist!”
Great article. No doubt, God is already active in young people’s lives. Starting from that assumption, we can affirm and give language to the grace that is already there. This approach is wonderfully loving and affirming of their relationship with God. Evangelism that starts with the assumption that a person’s faith is broken has that edge fo self-righteousness that so often plagues the chruch. Thanks for the helpful reminder this morning!
If the church and/or individuals are not “relational” they are missing the heart of Jesus as the Man and as the Son of God, I think. If anythign, Jesus the man was relational. If the New Testament has any credibility, Jesus responded to needs individually and in all size groups. He spent His days and nights in lengthy involvements, at a most intimate level, gaining immediate rapport because of His evident love and trustworthiness. Jesus the Son spoke of His intimacy with God as Father and then urged upon all disciples then, now and forever to seek “oneness” = intimate relationship with the Father adn Son and with all men. This He said would be evidence that He had een sent from God/Heaven to be with mankind for their redemption and salvation.
Then He sumarized the whole thing with the famous “Love God your neighbor.” The quality of love is definitely relational and intimate. I don’t think it was “love to make a convert”–just love coming from God, filling the heart ond overflowing outward to all it encounters.
Developed by a simple relational principal–time together. As He said, “Abide in/with Me and I in/with you–much fruit of love, joy, peace.
I read with interest “Evangelism and the under-thirty crowd” by Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook. I particularly appreciated the closing paragraph with its thoughts on dialogue in a context of religious pluralism. However I rather missed seeing anything here, as so often in other church contexts, about the importance of dialogue with secular culture.
I think part of the problem is that in our part of the world (I write from Canada), as in countries like France and the United Kingdom, our thoughts have been diverted from the wider debate about secular culture to a rather narrower focus about secular society. Our questions concern separation of church and state, or the displaying of religious symbols in public places. Important as these questions are, for discussion about evangelism we need to think about the interface between faith and culture. Secular culture spans a spectrum ranging from the hard sciences, especially physics and biology, through the human sciences, especially anthropology, sociology and psychology, through sources of law and ethics in enlightenment principles rather that religious precept, through art literature music, drama film and television, to the living of everyday life in which so many people find adequate human fulfilment in education, career, job, family, friends and entertainment, without any need for religion. Most under 30′s and over 30′s too (of which I am thoroughly one) have been educated and lived in a world where this secular culture is part of the warp and weft of human experience.
The evangelical end of the Christian tradition thrives on the denial of the value of secular culture, and provides a spiritual home for those who, at least for a few hours each week, wish to escape from it. It is left to the mainline churches to speak with those who live and work within it and experience both its value and its problems. For many, one of the key problems is how to understand the existence and nature of God in the world described by the knowledge-base of 21st century society. My experience of young adults is that they do not believe we are “at a time when the world is longing for evidence that God is with us. “ They do not see any evidence that “that God is already active, transforming lives, and connecting us to each other.” They are either puzzled by or totally unconcerned with what the idea of God means. If they do find their way to a mainline church, they are likely to hear a sermon which demonstrates little awareness of the secular world and the problems for faith which it presents and be invited to join in prayers which suggest a confusion between the concepts of intercession and letters to Santa-Claus.
So, with due respect to Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook, I believe that the problem of evangelism generally in the mainline churches is much deeper than can be solved by a program here or there. It requires a total re-casting of our understanding of God, faith and religion, in dialogue with science and secular culture generally. Ir requires the church at the local community level to begin to take seriously what Karen Armstrong, Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan, together with those of the older generation of Harvey Cox, John Robinson and Jack Spong, with many others, have been telling us for at least two generations. Without this, I believe we can provide no credible alternative to the right wing evangelicals, charismatics and fundamentalists, who are enjoying phenomenal success in numbers, but with whose message and methods I, for one, find myself in considerable disagreement.
The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts gets evangelism! Kudos To Sheryl Kujawa-Hollbrook for her reporting and analyzing what I hope will grow as a the “new” way to do evangelism. It sounds mature enough and other-centered enough to avoid the twinned traps that young adults sniff out like bad sushi: institutionalism and clericalism.
Thanks, Sheryl, for your writing, which lands squarely in the solid tradition and still-powerful theology of the ministry of the baptized. Keep at it!
Bob Sitze
Wheaton, IL
While the term evangelism has been around for at four centuries, it wasn’t until 1812 that its meaning became “our” definition of evangelism. This is not to be taken lightly as it was due partly in of the Great Awakenings in religion in early American history; and as such American Christians have pretty much taken ownership of it. This is one of the big problems as you state, we have twisted it’s meaning to such a degree that it has become synonymous with proselytizing and considered a menacing word.
I personally don’t feel confident that we can take it back and give it new meaning, since the quality of the meaning of evangelism has been diminished for almost 200 years. People now-a-days view it as almost Zionistic (is that a word?) and are completely turned off by it.
Thanks for the great article, more people need to be thinking about this in our congregations.
It would seem that Kujawa-Hollbrook has not discovered anything new. Older teenagers and young adults have always been about “relationships”. (Actually, it is true for those of us who are older as well.) She also makes a good point that traditional evangelism that is “self-serving” is counterproductive, along many lines and for many reasons. Finally, the project in MA seems to reach out to many.
One possible concern, and this is generic to the findings of the study – Are New England young adults different from say, West Virginia young adults (where I live)? I would hesitate to say “yes”. While the model studied and uses in MA may be applicable for some more urban and urbane areas, I would suggest that its application may be more limited in the rural mountains and towns of WV. Here, where long term familial relationship are the norm, and children often “stay near the nest”, lines of communication are often channeled through family systems rather than “social networking”. Here, more often than not, the “family” (long-term relationships both within and outside biological connects – long time neighbors and friends) is the network.
What I believe is authentic about the study is that young people are moving away from the church because of its seeming lack of revelance, and because their effort to “contribute” to society is not seen often enough in the institutional church. Instead, they often see “tradition-building and maintenance”.
This article is ripe for broadening to escape the chasm between inclusivism and exclusivism that Christian evangelism falls into so frequently. Savvy young (and older) seekers are wary of the one-true-faith way of thinking that shuts down honest relationship. When based in such conviction, relational evangelism becomes a technique of persuasion to “my way” of faith. It fails the open-mind/open-heart test of genuine dialogue–so vital in an interfaith world.
Sheryl writes: “Relational evangelism is crucial in an age of religious pluralism. Rather than deny religious difference, relational evangelism equips young adults to be secure enough in talking about their own faith to engage actively and authentically in interreligious dialogue and community action for the common good.” “Community action for the common good” still overlooks what young adults — people of all ages — can do on their own to make the world a better place. How about a “missional evangelsim” that puts first the works of God’s reign — making the world more loving and just with God’s help — and puts second talk about God and the church.
Wonderful ideas- tells me what need to happen but not HOW
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