Saturday Book Review: Dale and Jonalyn Fincher

This review is by Brandon Hoops, who blogs at Soulation: Breakfast Reading. He looks at a fine new book on evangelism by Dale and Jonalyn Fincher.

In today’s world, as in Jesus’ day, one of the most effective ways of interacting with people about the gospel is through relational dialogue — outside of the church’s walls, between Sunday’s, among the daily, commonplace and ordinary.

The challenge, I’ve learned after six years of campus ministry, is this path is untidy, it takes time, and Christians prefer gospel-manufacturing (streamlined programs and cookie-cutter souls) to gospel-gardening with its potential for dirt and weeds.

That’s why I appreciate Dale and Jonalyn Fincher. They aren’t interested in an evangelistic easy button or the pressures of prescription. As I read their book Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk, I didn’t feel confined to a box or stuck with some techniques for more “effective evangelism.” They show that freedom and originality, especially in everyday conversations, may be our greatest assets in going and making disciples. Not only that, they encourage us to get to know our neighbors beyond their labels, showing the beauty of getting into the mess of people’s lives and wrestling with their questions.

At one point they say, “We hope you will customize your conversations to the unique gifts God has forged in your soul.”

At another, “For years we thought sharing our faith meant saying the right things to get people saved. But whenever we treat our friends as problems to solve or objects to fix, we are not relating to them as people.”

If anything, the Finchers desire to free up our unique humanness to freely love and care and tend to others in their humanness.

Between Sundays

It happens every year. Someone will come around to our church for a month or so and then they disappear. When this person stops showing up to Sunday services or small group meetings, I amazed at how easily we lose interest in our relationship with them. We think getting them to our services is sufficient, that if they leave, they must not be interested.

The problem, say the Finchers, is, “We often masquerade as loving people, but behind our masks we avoid plunging headlong into the grit of each other’s lives.”

On Sundays, we are comfortable. We know the language, and we know what to expect. But between Sundays, it’s different. We spend time with people who are not following Jesus as we have been. They’re spiritual designers and, “since church authority and traditional church attendance no longer claim people’s loyalty,” they have any number of misconceptions about Christianity. We can’t anticipate what will be said to us or happen to us with these people. The connections points and conversations are different. Like the other day on campus when I heard some students in our union talking about “those crazy Christian apocalyptic people.”

Plunging into the grit of life for the Finchers starts with relational dialogue. These informal and often personal conversations, whether in line at the grocery store or over coffee at Starbucks, dominate our lives and can be infused with meaning.

Much of the time we find Jesus engaging people in these less formal ways, in what Eugene Peterson calls “conversational give-and-take.” He struck up conversations on well-traveled roads and sun-scorched beaches, with a pagan outcast at a well and with a curious IRS employee under a Sycamore tree. The examples don’t stop with Jesus. “Many biblical men and women listened and loved others without compromising their friendship with the God of Israel,” said the Finchers, who hold to the conviction that conversations, done humbly, wisely, thoughtfully, lovingly make a difference.

Probably the most notable chapter in Coffee Shop Conversations is the one entitled, “Loving discourse,” in which they give seven manners of loving discourse.

1. Respect one another
2. Step into their shoes
3. Wrestle on your own
4. Never judge a thing by its abuse
5. Update your opinions of others
6. Share your personal experience
7. Allow others to remained unconvinced

These manners remind me of the “rules” issued by the World Evangelical Alliance this summer to “encourage churches, church councils, and mission agencies to reflect on their current practices … for witness.”

With these manners, the Finchers have already given us some “rules” to practice at home. Making the “rules” personal helps us bring Jesus into our own neighborhoods without being pushy or close-minded and cultivates empathy and space for our neighbors to struggle and think. Like the farmer who sows seed and then steps back, we tend to the plant’s needs with water, fertilizer and pruning. We don’t impose our timeframe. We are patient, using these manners to “preserve friendships and allow them to grow.”

In a Leadership Journal interview, Peterson said he has tended to relationships in this way for two decades: “I want to introduce people to Jesus. I want them to accept him. But am I willing to wait around and listen? I had some people in my congregation who hadn’t accepted Christ after 20 years. I waited for them. And I didn’t badger them.”

Beyond success

The youth have been a problem in my hometown for years. Crime. Gangs. Drugs. The list goes on. A few years ago, the mayor called the city’s spiritual leaders together to talk through the issues. A local pastor invited me along. Afterwards, I was approached a television reporter. He asked me one question, “Will this succeed?” The question reminded me how easily we strive for tangible things to hold up and say, “Look this is working.”

It’s no different with evangelism. We like to point to success stories. We don’t like to wait 20 years. That seems like too long. That doesn’t seem like successful evangelism.

The Finchers pack their book with countless examples of conversations they’ve had over the years, some good and some bad. What’s refreshing about all these stories is that they’re not shared as trophies to brag about. They don’t say, “Hey, look at how I led this person to Jesus.”

As the Finchers said, “Let us tell you straightaway: both of us have made the gospel look ridiculous or paltry, either with our words or our actions. Yet Jesus still uses us, and we’re learning as we go. God’s work is not dependent on our “success”—God isn’t nervously watching from heaven, hoping we don’t get it wrong.”

I hate that we treat the gospel like it is a briefcase full of important papers. We think we have to be smooth and professional. Such an approach is stale and impersonal. We feel pressured. We go through the motions.

Jesus said to “Go and make disciples…” There is not much of a formula provided. We baptize and teach. But it seems like there is a lot of creative license, especially when I hear the word “make.” I wonder if Jesus is calling us to be something akin to evangelistic artists. Coffee Shop Conversations gives me a taste of what this art can look like. It’s the art of showing deep concern whether or not people believe. It’s the art that is less interested success and more interested in answering: What does a faithful, loving witness look like?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is right, “The church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not the former but in the latter is the lack.” The Finchers relieve the pressure of brilliant and point me in the direction of faithful. For this I am grateful.

Links:

(to WCA reference) http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/juneweb-only/evangelismrules.html

(to Peterson interview reference) http://christianitytoday.imirus.com/Mpowered/book/vcat11/i6/p2