Amen to Michael Frost for his two big points about how evangelism operates today:
When the contemporary evangelical church tries to present what it believes is the core message of the Bible, it nearly always does so in individualized terms,
and it nearly always does so by presenting the message of Jesus as being about personalized benefit either in this world or the next (p. 42).
Michael Frost, in his new book, Road to Missional, The: Journey to the Center of the Church (Shapevine), is flat-out right.
Evangelism today is about “me” and it is about “what I get.” Now I have a question for you:
How many passages in the Old Testament can you list where you think the passage is actually teaching personal salvation? (I doubt Gen 15:6 is one, since it is later in Abe’s life, but you might not agree.) Seriously, how often does this topic actually come up? Any suggestions why it doesn’t?
He’s asking what happens to evangelism when the church becomes missional. He presses against the emerging sorts when he says this: “Those who claim to be missional but who never find themselves in a relational place where they can proclaim the lordship of Jesus to a friend [I like how Frost says this], even if that proclamation occurs over several conversations over a period of time, are hardly missional at all” (43).
Then Michael Frost observes something I wish more would recognize. Many today don’t like the Four Spiritual Laws. Some are saying such folks lack courage when that is not the problem (as I see it). The problem is that the 4SL don’t do what they think the gospel is supposed to do, they don’t tell the message of God they believe, and they don’t lead to the kingdom enough. So Frost speaks of a desperate need for a “new, more missional understanding of evangelism.” But…
The paradigm — this is SMcK not Frost — most use assumes the validity of the soterian gospel, or the 4SL approach, and what is wanted is a different paradigm and therefore an entirely different approach. The soterian gospel is aimed at a decision; the missional approach at a radical change in life. One creates the saved, the other creates kingdom people. The crying need today is an evangelism strategy that focuses on the latter and says good-bye to the former. There are thousands, perhaps millions (I’m not even trying to exaggerate), who don’t want the former and who want the latter. [See my The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited.]
Frost believes a missional approach combines community, relationship and words. I agree with him though I’d say evangelism, or better, gospeling, is the words while the only viable context for gospeling is community and relationships. Evangelism is a slow cooker, not a micowave.
Frost looks at James Choung’s four circles (designed for good, damaged by evil, restored for better, sent together to heal, and someone has added another: set everything right). OK, that’s the redemptive theme and it tries to connect to the kingdom theme. That’s fine, but I would press this differently: focus more on the Story of Jesus who is King, Lord and Savior, and from that christology we find the proper gospeling approach. In other words, there’s an expansion here of the “benefits to me” theme that Frost criticized above … but it is still a benefit approach. Tell the Story of Jesus and the benefits come to those who are awakened to that Story.
Frost is right and he confirms my King Jesus Gospel book — Romans 3:21-26 is not the gospel; Romans 1:1-4 is, and so is 10:8-9. Soterians think Romans 3:21-26 is the gospel. Then Frost goes to 1 Cor 15.
I will be returning to a theme about evangelism Monday, but I want to end with Frost’s three point ending:
1. A missional church announces the reign of God through Christ.
2. A missional church demonstrates the reign of God locally and globally.
3. A missional church embodies mission in the way of Jesus.
“The soterian gospel is aimed at a decision; the missional approach at a radical change in life. One creates the saved, the other creates kingdom people. The crying need today is an evangelism strategy that focuses on the latter and says good-bye to the former.”
I thought this was the most profound statement. I wonder what the basis for the overemphasis of salvation is? Is it a result of Puritanism or 18th century revivalism in America? In other countries of the world, salvation doesn’t seem to be the focus, but kingdom living.
As a missionary here in Albania, our team focus is never about the number of people getting saved. It’s ONLY about relationships with the hope that people will be saved. But, it is never at the forefront of our mission. We talk a little about God, and we show them a little about God. But, never do we preach, knock on doors, hand out tracts, or do street evangelism. Instead, we hang out with them, play games with them, take them to the clinic, help provide work, help educate them, etc. Only then, do they ask why we do these things. And, if the Spirit leads, we tell them about Jesus.
In other words, one thing may lead to another… or maybe not. We are not in control of the human heart. God is.
FiveDills, revivalism.
I disagree, at least a little. If we really believe that we’re going to be saved on the other side of death and resurrection, how can we avoid emphasizing that? That is, after all, incredibly good news, and it affects us in the most profoundly personal way. I’m a United Methodist pastor, and I know from much reading that John Wesley, for example, didn’t have a “missional” focus in his preaching; he was very concerned with individuals being saved. At the same time, he was as committed to “social piety” as anyone.
My fellow Methodists, who understand the importance of working for God’s kingdom, often need to be convinced that they first need to be saved!
while i agree with the missional/kingdom approach, i believe that too sharp a line is drawn between soterian and missional/kingdom. the presentations of missional and kingdom that i am reading feel divisive.
the soterian approach thrived in a culture where church membership was the norm for people of faith. there was little distinction made between church and kingdom. in that context a personal decision meant that the next step was involvement in church.
the kingdom/missional emphasis, imo, calls for more emphasis on the need to make a decision – a decision to turn to jesus and enter a kingdom way of life. i am not hearing, in the missional/kingdom argument, much recognition of the fact that kingdom entry occurs one-at-a time.
The soterian gospel is aimed at decision; the missional approach at a radical change in life.
This is a helpful way to phrase it.
I think it could be nuanced a little because both the soterian gospel and the missional gospel require decision. The meaning of that decision is another area of disagreement. Repentance means redirection of the will away from the world’s idols to the will of God. It is a commitment to the radical change of life. But a soterian sees repentance in more personal terms — within the framework of my personal sin/guilt/shame being taken away. It affects my “sin problem” but it does not specifically encompass a radical change in life or any thought of the way of Jesus. That’s what sanctification is about. The change of life is not included in the decision per se.
Thus, the soterian gospel truncates the meaning of repentance as much as it limits the meaning of the gospel. Those two things go hand-in-hand.
Brent (#3),
A agree – in part. We cannot forget the afterlife completely (and in some context, this might be very good news indeed, i.e., esp. contexts of persecution, martyrdom, etc.).
Concerning Wesley, we need to remember his context. Yes, he preached “salvation”, but his preaching was not abstracted from embodying the gospel message. The very act of his preaching “performed” the gospel, since his ministry broke the socio-economic walls and the patterns of injustice at the time (i.e., preaching to the poor, the workers in the mines, etc.). Also, Wesley’s vision was alwyas about initiating people into a life of discipleship, hence the series of inter-locking groups he created. Wesley was much more about the kingdom than late 20th century evangelicalism in N. America seemed to be (esp. with respect to evangelism).
Here is a good illustrative quote from Wesley:
“What is salvation? The salvation which is here spoken of is not what is frequently understood by that word, the going to heaven, eternal happiness. It is not the soul’s going to paradise…. It is not a blessing which lies on the other side [of] death, or (as we speak) in the other world. The very words of the text put this beyond question. ‘Ye are saved.’ [Eph. 2.8] It is not something at
a distance: it is a present thing, a blessing which, through the free mercy of God, ye are now in possession of . . .” From: “The Scripture Way of Salvation,” Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology (eds., Albert C. Outler and Richard P. Heitzenrater; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), p. 372.
I don’t think the point is that personal salvation is unimportant. I think the point is that personal salvation is only a part of the Gospel and not the fulfillment of it!
If personal salvation is truly the Gospel, than where does that leave us for Kingdom-living? Why be missional?
I have been involved in Churches for about 12-13 years. I have also been involved in Church Planting overseas in an antagonistic Islamic nation. What I can say is that the majority of the people in the Churches that I see will have no problems going to Church, singing songs, feeling great because of their relationships with Christ and then heading home elated. However, I have witnessed possibly only a small percentage of those same people who will actually live their everyday lives trying to help others see Jesus and who live to bring about God’s reconciliation to the world.
I have also heard missionaries who have preached the personal salvation gospel. Because this gospel is based on a decision and not a lifestyle I have seen many muslims living a double-life, one that inside a Church looks one way and outside it looks very different. They made a decision but feel that is all that is needed in life.
I think the reason we see so many believers in our Churches and so few activists is because we emphasize a gospel that is about us (as individuals) and what we get (as individuals) and not about God’s purpose for the world!
But what if we begin to preach a different Gospel? What if the Gospel says:
Mankind fell. God made a covenant with Abraham that His descendants would bless the earth. His descendants in the form of the Israelites were a nation with that mandate. They fell short of their purpose into bondage. From them, a prophesied Messiah would come. He would be the personified Israel and the perfect Adam. He lived a perfect, obedient life up until His death on the Cross. His life provides our example, His death provides our forgiveness and His resurrection provides our Victory and proves His Lordship! In Him, we are brought into Abraham’s spiritual family as sons and daughters; we are brought into God’s family as sons and daughters! In Him we are the descendants of Abraham meant to bless the world. In Him we are the new, spiritual Israel meant to be God’s representative on this earth. We become a light to those around us following the example of Christ until He returns. Now what if this were the Gospel?
We can see this is a fuller, fleshed out Gospel with an emphasis on God’s redemption for the cosmos. When the Gospel becomes God’s mission and how we are a part of it; we see that our personal salvation is only part of a much bigger story that involves all creation!
We also see that a Gospel that is more full instead of more individualized is a Gospel that demands we live a life dedicated to following our Messiah, our Lord and our King!
I haven’t read Scot’s book and therefore don’t know if this is what he means by Gospel.
(Scot, let me know if it is somewhat close! )
But doesn’t this Gospel seem more like what God would want of us? Doesn’t this seem that it would truly have people living holistically transformed lives instead of a compartmentalized Christianity that has a paradox when missions is involved? Doesn’t it also seem to be more Christocentric as it makes Christ so much more than a Savior?
I hope we pray diligently and ask for discernment in this discussion, in our preaching and in understanding the Gospel!
Blessings to all!
Scot,
“Evangelism is a slow-cooker, not a microwave.” Good wisdom…I’ll remember that.
So much of evangelism has been focused on teaching and leading people to believe “in” Jesus. This is, as you say, a result of a soterian gospel at work. While believing “in” Jesus is important, I wonder if by also teaching and leading people to believe “as” Jesus believed that this would do a better job of making disciples who learn to live as Jesus lived. Of course, this assumes that we ourselves are learning to believe as Jesus believed.
Grace and Peace,
K. Rex Butts
One kind of evangelism, the kind I grew up hearing, tells people specifically and narrowly about Jesus the sacrifice and then invites people to “trust that Jesus died for your sins” and confess that to God and others.
The kind of evangelism I see emerging from Frost, Scot and others tells people about Jesus (period; a more holistic story, with the focus, if any, on his Messiahship), and invite people to follow him as king and discipler.
Here’s my 2 cents why number 2 is a better way to go. First, the second invites us to trust not just an event, but a whole person, namely Jesus, whose ongoing live includes all the teachings and the events, including the sacrificial death. Second, Scot is right that the NT clearly presents the second as “gospel” and its invitations are much more like the second than the first. In a nutshell, the greater (“trust Jesus the Lord”) includes the subset (“the sacrificial death for sins”), but not the other way around in many cases.
The me-centered versus community-centered focus is the deep-rooted difference between West and East. Wycliffe some time back released a simple party-like game. Westerners will always play it one way, and never dream there could be a different way. Non-westerners think whole-group, and play it differently, cooperatively.
This is illustrated to me very clearly by comparing Disney princess animations, where (usually) it is all about ME and how I get the prince, even if a few people get consolation prizes along the way. (Beauty and the Beast’s Belle is a wonderful and honorable exception.) Whereas the heroines in the wonderful Japanese Studio Ghibli anime films (and it mainly is a girl or young woman) are others-centered.
Ghibli heroes and heroines are not about getting, but giving. They usually bring redemptive help to others around them, rather as Vianne channels healing to her repressed village in the film Chocolat. Indeed, their main prize is the satisfaction of having helped others, while gaining maturity and wisdom from the life lessons in this journey.
I blogged about this marked difference at http://www.internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/5082
Personal “salvation” comes up all the time in the Psalter, doesn’t it? One thinks of Psalm 32:1-2 and its use in Rom 4.
Scot, I’m still struggling to see how exactly you’re identifying the “soterian” Gospel with decisionism. I have no qualms in saying that Rom 3.21-26 is the Gospel but I’m no decisionist. So why keep identifying the two?
I’m still waiting to see how you integrate new birth into your King Jesus Gospel. Maybe that will clarify for me.
Thanks.
Peter G., if I’ve got you right, you’re Reformed (in the fuller sense), right? In my view, the fuller more robust form of Reformed theology has always emphasized Jesus as King/Lord and Son and Savior, and while it is thoroughly soteriological, it’s soteriology is so comprehensive I find myself often standing next to such folks.
That helps, Scot. Thanks.
Rex,
Outstanding insight and comment.
Thanks for that. I feel blessed to have gotten to meet and talk to you at Streaming 11.
Peter,
My first thought was the Psalms as well, but only if we expand “rescue/salvation” to its more holistic usage, but even then, the Psalms are anything but purely or even mostly individual in their talk about salvation.
I’m not going to try to explain this, because it would take way to long, but here is a world view that helps explains things but is completely alien to a typical american mind.
There is no such thing as ‘I’. ‘I’ don’t exist. The only thing that exists is ‘Us’. Therefore, for ‘I’ to be saved and ‘You’ not to be saved, is not a wrong statement but an absurd and non-nonsensical statement. Equivalent to saying the number 3 is saved but the letter G is not saved.
I see Frost trying to do away with the nonsensical language and bring us back to the language of ‘Us’, which is a better representation of reality. The difficulty being none of ‘Us’ are any good at it because we’ve been practicing the ‘I’ language for so long.
I find it helpful to think of the abbreviated, neatly package nature of the “soteriological” “gospel” as emanating from the enlightenment/scientific era which led to modernism. It is a more juridical and boiled down gospel, because that is the social milieu it was born in. The nuts and bolts fact-based approach of modern “evangelism” grew as a response to the cultural context of the Western world from ~1700 on. Because society is changing again, the gospel will naturally change again as God attempts to relates to people in a different culture context.
The cool thing about post-modernism is in its reaction to modernism -some- connections to pre-modern sensibilities are recaptured. This is good news for us, because we can look to the early church for clues as to what the next prevailing gospel will look like. I don’t think it will be identical, but much of it lends itself to this new era.
The modern gospel certainly looked different than the early church gospel, but that’s ok. I think it served it’s purpose. Hopefully, we will pivot gracefully. It is threatening to those who have their ship tied to the form rather than the substance (especially when they profit from the form). The last thing we want is to cling on to the dead left overs of religion when the Spirit moves on. Isn’t this what happened to the Pharisees in essence?
God deals with both as individuals as well as part of community. We cannot do away with “I” in order to have “Us” because then, what is “Us”? God created us as individuals and Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians about both diversity AND unity. If there is ONLY “Us,” that implies that each member of “Us” is interchangeable with the next. Not so. The eye cannot function as the ear, nor the hand as the foot. But each “I” bringing their unique gifts, function in “Us” in a way that benefits “Us” and all the individual “I’s.” It is no more proper to focus on “Us” to the exclusion of “I” than it is to focus on “I” to the exclusion of “Us.”
“One creates the saved, the other creates kingdom people. The crying need today is an evangelism strategy that focuses on the latter and says good-bye to the former. There are thousands, perhaps millions (I’m not even trying to exaggerate), who don’t want the former and who want the latter.”
But unfortunately, there are many who want the former and NOT the latter. In some circles, the former is actually a hard sell.
Scot,
Soterian vs missional. Could we be talking about the difference between evangelism and disciple-making? I have felt for a long time that evangelicals have made making converts the end rather than making disciples. If the Great Commission commands anything it is to make disciples of all people groups. If we are not making disciples (kingdom subjects) then we are not fulfilling the Great Commission IMO. Peace.
This is a great discussion. It seems like we need to embrace the personal aspect of faith and salvation as well as the community aspect. Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say I am?” It’s an important decision we have to make individually but we are not saved for ourselves or only for the afterlife. The Kingdom is now and we need to live in it now. As soon as we identify with Jesus, accepting his payment for our sins, we are part of the family, the Church. Jesus tells us to “Go and make disciples.” All this in community. I don’t believe in group salvation but once saved you become part of the group, sent together and individually to make more disciples. Living this out is missional and requires a long term commitment individually to those we are sent to while part of a community. It’s a both and…God is all about those, right?